of
the day; Mr. Monk had also been a tribune, then a Minister, and now
was again--something less than a tribune. But there were a few men in
the House, and some out of it, who regarded Mr. Monk as the honestest
and most patriotic politician of the day.

The debate was long and stormy, but was peculiarly memorable for the
skill with which Mr. Daubeny's higher colleagues defended the steps
they were about to take. The thing was to be done in the cause of
religion. The whole line of defence was indicated by the gentlemen
who moved and seconded the Address. An active, well-supported Church
was the chief need of a prosperous and intelligent people. As to the
endowments, there was some confusion of ideas; but nothing was to be
done with them inappropriate to religion. Education would receive
the bulk of what was left after existing interests had been amply
guaranteed. There would be no doubt,--so said these gentlemen,--that
ample funds for the support of an Episcopal Church would come from
those wealthy members of the body to whom such a Church was dear.
There seemed to be a conviction that clergymen under the new order
of things would be much better off than under the old. As to the
connection with the State, the time for it had clearly gone by. The
Church, as a Church, would own increased power when it could appoint
its own bishops, and be wholly dissevered from State patronage. It
seemed to be almost a matter of surprise that really good Churchmen
should have endured so long to be shackled by subservience to the
State. Some of these gentlemen pleaded their cause so well that they
almost made it appear that episcopal ascendancy would be restored in
England by the disseverance of the Church and State.

Mr. Turnbull, who was himself a dissenter, was at last upon his legs,
and then the Ratlers knew that the game was lost. It would be lost as
far as it could be lost by a majority in that House on that motion;
and it was by that majority or minority that Mr. Daubeny would be
maintained in his high office or ejected from it. Mr. Turnbull began
by declaring that he did not at all like Mr. Daubeny as a Minister
of the Crown. He was not in the habit of attaching himself specially
to any Minister of the Crown. Experience had taught him to doubt
them all. Of all possible Ministers of the Crown at this period, Mr.
Daubeny was he thought perhaps the worst, and the most dangerous. But
the thing now offered was too good to be rejected,