Sir George Errin,gton, who held for a time the office
of emissary to the Pope during Mr. Gladstone's Administration between 1880 and 1885, also made a very graceful speech in the character of a Unionist who had been converted from Home-rule :—" But, gentlemen, when I venture to thank you for your kindness towards myself, I cannot help thinking of the old saying, that there is more joy over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine just ; and whatever the ninety-nine just may think of this somewhat one-sided arrangement, I cannot complain of it. You have treated me with the utmost kindness, you have welcomed me to the fold, you have bestowed on me the robe of honour. I should ill requite such kindness by now trespassing on your patience, yet I wish time had permitted me to lay before you some notes from the prodigal's diary. I should like to have told you what indigestible political food he found the husks of the swine ; I should like to have told you by what repeated and painful processes he was most reluctantly forced to realise the true character of the company among whom he had fallen ; how he saw the very men who in office had been foremost in denouncing and punishing every criminal phase of the Irish agitation deliberately accept what I can only call fellowship in crime, and become, in the strong but not ex- aggerated language of Lord Salisbury the other day, patrons of outrage and advocates of anarchy." "It is an appalling thought," said the same speaker before he sat down, "that in the Irish agitation we have seen the wells of Christian morality poisoned, and spiritual guides for political purposes tampering with the land-marks of a nation's conscience."
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