Dean Close has written an election address to the electors
of Carlisle, in favour of the Irish Church and against the Liberals. We confess we like to see the clergy telling their mind honestly and strongly (where they have one, or even something partly resem- bling one, like Dean Close), and we respect Dean Close for his appeal, though not for the matter it contains. He advances the same teaching which we examined when put forth by a much abler man, the Dean of Cork, that a land without a State religion of some sort, or, as Dean Close phrases it, "some political recognition of Christianity," is a godless land. And he maintains accordingly that Canada and the United States are godless lands ; though he tames this down into "in the sense in which I have argued, they are more or less so." But why more or less 7—in the sense in which he has argued they are entirely so,—which is the best possible proof that the sense in which he has argued is nonsense. We would suggest to Dean Close that it may be a better political " recognition " of Christianity to deal justly, as it tells WI to do, even with the benighted, than to recognize it by an act of con- spicuous injustice.
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