A Parliam . entary luncheon to the Protestant Dissenting Deputies and
the Liberation Society was held at the West- minster Palace Hotel on Tuesday. Mr. Birrell, the guest of the occasion, delivered the principal speech, in which, after declaring that he "gladly followed the proud traditions of Nonconformity, for he was above everything else an historia Nonconformist," he went on as follows—we quote from the report in Wednesday's Daily Chronicle :— "We find pious and good men belonging to the Church of England approaching this question of Disestablishment in an easy-going fashion, and whispering into the too facile ears of some of our Nonconformist friends and saying, Surely, are we not a Christian nation, and is it not a pro-eminently desirable thing that we should always have a steady and constant supply of educated Christian men, in whose " h's " we could always have complete public confidence—(laughter)----and who would be able and ready to put crowns upon the heads of our kings and queens ; to read stately and moving prayers by the gravesides of our illustrious dead ; and, what is still more important, to be always ready to invoke the god of battles when, with hearts aflame, we go out to war, and then to sing mans to the Prince of Poaco when, sick and sorry, we are only too glad to come out of it 1" (Laughter and cheers.) " Mr. Birrell is at liberty to maintain, as he did in his speech, that the Church has parted company with the groat body of the people of the country, but it is an outrage against good taste, as well as an atrocious libel, that he should deliberately impute to "pious and good men of the Church of England" such odious snobbery, sycophancy, and hypocrisy.
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