the ordainments of the Maker in this Universe are. Ah, could you
and the rest of us but get to know it, and everywhere religiously
act upon it,--as our _Fortieth_ Article, which includes all the other
Thirty-nine, and without which the Thirty-nine are good for almost
nothing,--there might then be some hope for us! In this world there
is but one appalling creature: the Stupid man _considered_ to be the
Missioned of Heaven, and followed by men. He is our King, men say,
he;--and they follow him, through straight or winding courses, I for one
know well whitherward.

Abler men in Downing Street, abler men to govern us: yes, that, sure
enough, would gradually remove the dung-mountains, however high they
are; that would be the way, nor is there any other way, to remedy
whatsoever has gone wrong in Downing Street and in the wide regions,
spiritual and temporal, which Downing Street presides over! For the Able
Man, meet him where you may, is definable as the born enemy of Falsity
and Anarchy, and the born soldier of Truth and Order: into what
absurdest element soever you put him, he is there to make it a little
less absurd, to fight continually with it till it become a little sane
and human again. Peace on other terms he, for his part, cannot make with
it; not he, while he continues _able_, or possessed of real intellect
and not imaginary. There is but one man fraught with blessings for this
world, fated to diminish and successively abolish the curses of the
world; and it is he. For him make search, him reverence and follow; know
that to find him or miss him, means victory or defeat for you, in all
Downing Streets, and establishments and enterprises here below.--I leave
your Lordship to judge whether this has been our practice hitherto;
and would humbly inquire what your Lordship thinks is likely to be the
consequence of continuing to neglect this. It ought to have been our
practice; ought, in all places and all times, to be the practice in this
world; so says the fixed law of things forevermore:--and it must cease
to be _not_ the practice, your Lordship; and cannot too speedily do so I
think!--

Much has been done in the way of reforming Parliament in late years; but
that of itself seems to avail nothing, or almost less. The men that sit
in Downing Street, governing us, are not abler men since the Reform
Bill than were those before it. Precisely the same kind of men; obedient
formerly to Tory traditions, obedient now to Whig