Yesterday week, in the House of Lords, Lord Redesdale moved
for a copy of the Coronation Oath, and made one of his strange speeches, in which he laid it down as absolute truth that the Opposition had taken up the disestablishment of the Irish Church solely to unite the pulverized party, explaining precisely what were the conditions to be fulfilled,—that they should do some- thing pleasing at one and the same time to Cardinal Cullen and to the Liberation Society,--and how carefully they had fulfilled them. Lord Redesdale also laid it down that " in dealing with the temporalities on any matter connected with the Established Church, their Lordships were to consider solely and exclusively what was pleasing to God, without considering what was pleasing or otherwise to this or that body." What strange religion it is, to be sure! Would Lord Redesdale recommend any other rule of duty on any subject whateuer,—say, on the subject of attribut- ing low and selfish motives to the leaders of Opposition, for instance ? And then who has told Lord Redesdale what is pleasing to God on this matter? Mr. Gladstone is moving pre- cisely because he thinks what he is doing is pleasing to God, and would no more shrink from saying so than Lord Redesdale from stating that it is displeasing to Him. Lord Redesdale talks as if God's interest in tithes were a private owner's interest, quite separate from that of His children, like the Jew who thought the same about the meat-offerings in the Temple, and was answered by the divine saying, "I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds; for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills."
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