[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] ika,—The letter of the
" Sanguine Gladstonian," the Rev. J. Andrewes Reeve, is to me, a brother-clergyman who has lived in Ireland fifty-two years since I was born, a startling revela- tion. The Home-role question, it appears, is to him, and to thousands of other Gladstonians in England, a question merely of the application of the principles of the Sermon on the Mount and of the kindred principle, " Charity thinketh no evil." My instantaneous thought on reading his letter was this, that of the author of that Sermon it is recorded on one occasion that " Many believed on Him,"—spoke, no doubt, fair words to Him. Yet He refused to trust Himself to them, for He knew what was in them. And the author of that magni- ficent psalm on charity, from which I have quoted, upon a question of national character wrote thus,—" Even a prophet of their own said : The Cretans are always liars This witness is true, therefore rebuke them sharply.' " On the question what the Nationalist leaders are likely to do if they are given power, which is the better authority,—Mr. Glad- stone, who steadily avoids going in the way of information, and, throughout his long life, has thought it worth while to spend but three days in Ireland ; or the earnest, unanimous voice of 1,200,000 persons, of all ranks and classes, who have passed all their lives in Ireland, who have witnessed often the agonised terror of the weak and helpless under the relentless tyranny of the leaders of the Nationalist movement ? Is it not time for the "sanguine Gladstonians" to pause and consider whether their Christian charity is not misplaced ; whether every one indiscriminately is worthy of trust, and whether "the prophets of their own," the leaders of the Nationalists them- selves—notably, and lately, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Walsh—have not in the public Press called one another " liars" P We are asked whether we can trust the Nationalist leaders; and a million-and-a-quarter of Irish people, with one voice, and with all the conviction and energy of which we are capable, answer that we cannot; and yet the " sanguine Glad- stonians," who know nothing at all about the matter, turn a deaf ear, because, forsooth, they want to carry out the general principle of the Sermon on the Mount. I can only add that, if " Charity thinketh no evil," it is no less true that " Love " is sometimes " blind."—I am, Sir, &c., E. F. HEWSON. Gowran Rectory, Kilkenny, April 24th.
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