to
apply to Unitarian chapels the same principle of prescription that
protected gentlemen in the peaceful enjoyment of their estates and their
manor-houses. The equity of the thing was obvious. In 1779 parliament
had relieved protestant dissenting ministers from the necessity of
declaring their belief in certain church articles, including especially
those affecting the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1813 parliament had
repealed the act of William III. that made it blasphemy to deny that
doctrine. This legislation, rendered Unitarian foundations legal, and
the bill extended to unitarian congregations the same prescriptions as
covered the titles of other voluntary bodies to their places of worship,
their school-houses, and their burial-grounds. But what was thus a
question of property was treated as if it were a question of divinity;
'bigotry sought aid from chicane,' and a tremendous clamour was raised
by anglicans, wesleyans, presbyterians, not because they had an inch of
_locus standi_ in the business, but because unitarianism was scandalous
heresy and sin. Follett made a masterly lawyer's speech, Sheil the
speech of a glittering orator, guarding unitarians by the arguments that
had (or perhaps I should say had not) guarded Irish catholics, Peel and
Gladstone made political speeches lofty and sound, and Macaulay the
speech of an eloquent scholar and a reasoner, manfully enforcing
principles both of law and justice with a luxuriance of illustration all
his own, from jurists of imperial Rome, sages of old Greece, Hindoos,
Peruvians, Mexicans, and tribunals beyond the Mississippi.[196] We do
not often enjoy such parliamentary nights in our time.

Mr. Gladstone supported the proposal on the broadest grounds of
unrestricted private judgment:--

I went into the subject laboriously, he says, and satisfied myself
that this was not to be viewed as a mere quieting of titles based
on lapse of time, but that the unitarians were the true lawful
holders, because though they did not agree with the puritan
opinions they adhered firmly to the puritan principle, which was
that scripture was the rule without any binding interpretation, and
that each man, or body, or generation must interpret for himself.
This measure in some ways heightened my churchmanship, but
depressed my church-and-statesmanship.

Far from feeling that there was any contrariety between his principles
of religious belief an