ing is so distasteful to you as abstract theories,
and that you are proverbial for resisting what is new until you are
well assured by gradual effort, by progressive trials, and
beneficial tendency. But they know that when you make a step
forward you keep it. They know that there is reality and honesty,
strength and substance, about your proceedings. They know that you
are not a monarchy to-day, a republic to-morrow, and a military
despotism the day after. They know that you have been happily
preserved from irrational vicissitudes that have marked the career
of the greatest and noblest among the neighbouring nations. Your
fathers and yourselves have earned this brilliant character for
England. Do not forfeit it. Do not allow it to be tarnished or
impaired. Show, I beseech you--have the courage to show the pope of
Rome, and his cardinals, and his church, that England too, as well
as Rome, has her _semper eadem_; and that when she has once adopted
some great principle of legislation, which is destined to influence
the national character, to draw the dividing lines of her policy
for ages to come, and to affect the whole nature of her influence
and her standing among the nations of the world--show that when she
has done this slowly, and done it deliberately, she has done it
once for all; and that she will then no more retrace her steps than
the river that bathes this giant city can flow back upon its
source. The character of England is in our hands. Let us feel the
responsibility that belongs to us, and let us rely on it; if to-day
we make this step backwards, it is one which hereafter we shall
have to retrace with pain. We cannot change the profound and
resistless tendencies of the age towards religious liberty. It is
our business to guide and to control their application; do this you
may, but to endeavour to turn them backwards is the sport of
children, done by the hands of men, and every effort you may make
in that direction will recoil upon you in disaster and disgrace.
The noble lord appealed to gentlemen who sit behind me, in the
names of Hampden and Pym. I have great reverence for these in one
portion at least of their political career, because they were men
energetically engaged in resisting oppression. But I would rather
have heard Hampden and P