Earl Russell had on Thursday the singular satisfaction of receiving
a deputation from the principal Nonconformist bodies, to present him with an address on the fiftieth anniversary of the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, the measure which abolished Nonconformist disabilities. The work of abolition was entrusted to Lord John Russell, who was most eloquently thanked in the address, and who may well feel proud of a measure which has lasted fifty years, which has re-bound all Nonconformists to the Constitution, which has never been seriously lamented by a human being,—and which has, nevertheless, not been forgotten. The Earl, in his ex- treme old age, was unable to receive the deputation, and the task of replying fell, by a sort of irony, to Lord Edmond Fitz- maurice, who spoke eloquently of the principles of civil and religious liberty which the Russells had maintained, and of his own hope that the present reflex of the tide of Liberalism is nearly over, but who does not seem very anxious that his own ideas should be applied to the Christians of the East.
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