MR. GLADSTONE AND THE NONCONFORMISTS. T HERE seems to be an
understanding that Mr. Glad- stone shall address a special message to his Non- conformist friends at least once every year, even when there is no theme on which to address them that has any particular relation to their Nonconformist principles. We do not at all wonder that the Nonconformists feel a very strong personal loyalty towards Mr. Gladstone,—not only because he disestablished the Irish Church, but because, throughout all the religious controversies of his time, Mr. Gladstone has shown at once a deep respect for the civil rights of conscience, and an equally deep sympathy with the positive religious convictions of those who are led by their conscience to dread the influence of the State over Christian communities. That Mr. Gladstone should have shown this deep sympathy not only with the civil but with the religious conscience of Dissenters, very naturally makes him the one statesman to whom many Nonconformists look as their chosen leader, and Mr. Glad- stone no doubt reciprocates that feeling, and is conscious of a special tie to those who feel in him so special a con- fidence. There is nothing that is not creditable in the mutual confidence felt, whether we look at it from the point of view of the Nonconformists or from the point of view of Mr. Gladstone.
Nevertheless, we are somewhat surprised that Mr. Glad- stone evidently feels even less hesitation in dealing with the moral difficulties of his Irish policy when he speaks to a body of specially devout religious supporters, than when he speaks to the House of Commons itself. So far as we can feel our- selves in the position of one of his hearers on Wednesday, we should have had scruples to suggest to him which would have been rather more instead of less urgent than those of the Unionist Party in the House of Commons. We should have suggested doubts whether the right way of curing the deep dislike of law felt in Ireland, could be to turn the existing order in Ireland upside down, and to place those who are now doing all they can to defeat the la-wand to excommunicate those Who obey it, in a position in which they would themselves make the new law, and make it at their own pleasure. For that is undoubtedly Mr. Gladstone's solution of the problem, and it strikes us as one which would present even more serious difficulties to a genuine religious mind, however Puritan its tendencies, than it would suggest to the mind of an average states- man actuated only by the ordinary feelings of a just Englishman. What sincere Puritans will feel even more keenly than ordinary citizens, is that the law ought to be righteous, ought to be above all parties in the State, and ought to be enforced by minds which ignore party feeling in interpreting it. And though it may well be believed by candid men that this is not the case at present in Ireland, we cannot even imagine a candid man's holding that it would be the case, or even more nearly the case, when the party which has originated all the popular persecution of the existing state of things in Ireland, shall be placed in a position to make the law what it pleases. A genuine Nonconformist might, we think, very well concede to Mr. Gladstone that in Ireland the law is not all that he could wish ; that the government is not all that he could wish ; that even the Magistrates and Judges are not all that he could wish,— that law, government, and Judges alike might be very con- siderably improved by wise and generous legislation. But we cannot imagine such a Nonconformist admitting to Mr. Gladstone that, after a state of civil war such as practically exists in Ireland now, the righteous policy, the proper policy of a truly enlightened conscience, would be to hand over the guidance of legislation and administration alike to the very party to whom we owe the invention of the most discreditable of the weapons of civil wars—Mr. Parnell and his colleagues. Surely a reasonable Nonconformist would say that while the existing authorities in Ireland are not what any candid man could wholly approve, we could hardly do worse than give full power into the hands of the party which has most violently resisted the existing autho- rities, and resisted them in a spirit at once more unscru- pulous and more vindictive than any manifested by those authorities themselves. That which resulted in France from installing the Jacobins in power, would undoubtedly result in Ireland from installing the Parnellites in power, and would overwhelm the British Legislature, which is respon sible for the situation, with disgrace. That Nonconformists who have usually held,—very erroneously, as we believe,— Cromwell to be the highest type of a righteous Governor, should be prepared to exult in the alliance with Mr. Parnell, to extenuate the "Plan of Campaign," and to minimise the cruelties of Boycotting by rechristening them "exclusive dealing," does seem to us almost as wonderful as that admiration for Cromwell's administration in Ireland which Puritans have been accustomed to feel and express. Cruel as was Cromwell's policy towards the Roman Catholics of Ireland, it was at least a policy conceived in the conscience of a religious man who was also no inconsiderable states- man. Mr. Parnell's action as head of the Land League, and more recently of the National League, has been quite as cruel in its drift, though it had not the same power at its disposal ; but it has been wielded by a politician who cares nothing at all for religious considerations, and whose only policy as a statesman is to wrest Ireland from the grasp of Great Britain.
Mr. Gladstone was speaking chiefly, we believe, to Con- gregationalists, and it is possible that Congregationalists' notion of self-government is somewhat more in sympathy with Mr. Gladstone's obvious tendency towards federalism than that of most other religious bodies. Still, even a reason- able Congregationalist,—who repudiates, we believe, the right of any Church to dictate to a special assembly of fellow-worshippers,—will hardly like to sanction in civil affairs a sort of disruption which amounts in the end to a disorganisation of the State, and the reduction of a great Kingdom to an ill-assorted alliance of petty communities, When Mr. Gladstone insisted, as he did at the Memoiial Hall, on the vote of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, as if they were separate elements of the Kingdom, and were all entitled to a separate veto on its policy, he ought to have struck fear into the heart of every citizen of the -United Kingdom, to what- ever portion of it he may happen to belong. The Kingdom of David might as well have resolved itself back into the twelve tribes, as the -United Kingdom resolve itself into four separate constituents of which Mr. Gladstone always speaks as if they had an absolute right to a distinct voice on every great question. What would David have done if Israel had acted in his time, without justification, as it acted, when irri- tated by the tyranny of his grandson, in the time of Reho- boam ? Surely no Congregationalist can think it a prudent or a moral policy to foster such notions of the right of the various national particles to set up for themselves, as the whole tenor of Mr. Gladstone's recent speeches suggests. Government ceases if every separable section of a Kingdom is to have a separate will of its own, just as Presbyterianism would cease if every separate body of worshippers defied the General Presbytery of the Church, and held the enforcement of the authority of that Presbytery a pure tyranny. Though Nonconformists have every reason to be proud of Mr. Gladstone's past statesmanship, they have also, we think, every reason to dread the sort of principles on which he is now urging his policy of Home-rule for Ireland. It is a policy which, even if it could be proved likely to succeed in Ireland, would be fatal in Scotland and Wales ; and if it were applied in Scotland and Wales, would soon be applied in other sections of England, and lead to rapid and com- plete disintegration.
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