Mr. Miall, who was anxiously temperate, and evidently had vividly
before his eyes the great danger of disgusting permanently the Liberal party by playing into the hands of the Tories, insisted that the cause they had at heart was in no respect one in which Nonconformists were exclusively interested, since it ought to be still dearer to Churchmen, as being the cause of the elevation of spiritual things to a truly spiritual region, and their disconnection from all "the creaking machinery "of the State. He warned his colleagues, however, that the movement could not take as yet anything like the position which the movement for the Disestablishment of the high Church took five years ago. It would not do to make disestablishunent the absolute test-question for all Liberal candidates. Disestablishers ought to do all in their power to return candidates pledged to disastablishment, but they must not, as yet, refuse to vote for a Liberal who was not for disestablishment in preference to a Conservative. "We must not separate ourselves altogether from the Liberal party until we are prepared to do far more than we can do now." Mr. Miall continued : "The representatives of the Liberal party are like what is said of Ephraim in a certain Book ; they are a cake upturned. You must allot for it. They have to be done on the other side. They will be done on the other side, and they will come out as fair specimens of political bakery as could be found anywhere." We thought Hosea had said that Ephraini was a cake "not turned," and that the whole point of the criticism was hostile to Ephraim, in fact the bitterest invective against him, and a prophecy of his destruction. The side of Ephraim which was already "done" was his worst side, not his best ; "their baker sleepeth all the night ; in the morning it burneth like a flaming fire ; they are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges." The Liberal party want taking out of the over-heated Nonconformist oven, rather than turning in it.
