Mr. E. A. Leatham, the Member for Huddersfield, who is
a Quaker, laid this week the foundation of a Baptist chapel, and gave an address on the occasion. As Quakers do not baptise, he thought it necessary to defend himself from a charge of inconsistency which nobody would have brought ; but the main object of his speech was, as usual, Disestablishment. In ten years everybody, he believed, would have to declare whether he was for the Bond Church or the Free. Religion was allying herself more and more with politics. He accepted with pride the title of "Political Dissenter." He thought politics and religion should go hand-in-hand ; for "if their dissent was to rise to its full height, it must be political ; and if their politics were not to fall beneath their true level, they must be religious." That is manly enough, and true besides ; but then, if the Churchman, or still more, the Roman Catholic, says the same thing, Mr. Leatham is 'very angry. A Dissenter who votes down denominational educa- tion is a religious politician, but a Churchman who votes it up is a bigot, or if he has been a Quaker, a renegade, while a Roman Catholic who does so is a superstitious fool.
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