occupation. The noble lord went on to say, in
reference to the powerful opposition then offered to the bill for
the endowment of Maynooth, that it seems as if upon the questions
of religious freedom, our strife is never to cease, and our arms
are never to rust. Would any man, who heard the noble lord deliver
these impressive sentiments, have believed not only that the strife
with respect to religious liberty was to be revived with a greater
degree of acerbity, in the year 1851, but that the noble lord
himself was to be a main agent in its revival--that his was to be
the head that was to wear the helmet, and his the hand that was to
grasp the spear? My conviction is, that this great subject of
religious freedom is not to be dealt with, as one of the ordinary
matters in which you may, with safety or with honour, do to-day and
undo to-morrow. This great people, whom we have the honour to
represent, moves slowly in politics and legislation; but, although
it moves slowly, it moves steadily. The principle of religious
freedom, its adaptation to our modern state, and its compatibility
with ancient institutions, was a principle which you did not adopt
in haste. It was a principle well tried in struggle and conflict.
It was a principle which gained the assent of one public man after
another. It was a principle which ultimately triumphed, after you
had spent upon it half a century of agonising struggle. And now
what are you going to do? You have arrived at the division of the
century. Are you going to repeat Penelope's process, but without
the purpose of Penelope? Are you going to spend the decay and the
dusk of the nineteenth century in undoing the great work which with
so much pain and difficulty your greatest men have been achieving
during its daybreak and its youth? Surely not. Oh, recollect the
functions you have to perform in the face of the world. Recollect
that Europe and the whole of the civilised world look to England at
this moment not less, no, but even more than ever they looked to
her before, as the mistress and guide of nations, in regard to the
great work of civil legislation. And what is it they chiefly admire
in England? It is not the rapidity with which you form
constitutions and broach abstract theories. On the contrary; they
know that noth