ractical
skill in the conduct of politics with a steadfast appeal to the highest
moral considerations. To a leader of that sort defeats are only
stepping-stones, and the end is not in doubt. A phrase once famous among
us has sometimes seemed to me fit for English use about Ireland. A great
man, a very great man, whose name sheds lasting honor upon our city said
in an impulsive moment--that he "never wanted to live in a country where
the one-half was pinned to the other by bayonets." If Mr. Gladstone
ever believed in thus fastening Ireland to England, he has learned a
more excellent way. Like Greeley he would no doubt at the last fight, if
need be, for the territorial integrity of his country. But he has
learned the lesson Charles James Fox taught nearly a hundred years
before: "The more Ireland is under Irish Government, the more she will
be bound to English interests." That precept he has been trying to
reduce to practice. God grant the old statesman life and light to see
the sure end of the work he has begun! [Loud applause.]

I must not sit down without a word more to express the personal
gratification I feel in seeing an old comrade here as your guest. Twelve
or fourteen years ago he did me the honor to fill for a time an
important place on the staff of my newspaper. With what skill and power
he did his work; with what readiness and ample store of information you
need not be told, for the anonymous editorial writer of those days is
now known to the English-speaking world as the brilliant historian of
"Our Own Times." Those of us who knew him then have seen his sacrifice
of private interests and personal tastes for the stormy life of an Irish
member of Parliament, and have followed with equal interest and
admiration his bold yet prudent and high-minded Parliamentary career. He
has done all that an Irishman ought for his country; he has done it with
as little sympathy or encouragement for the policy of dynamite and
assassination in England as we have had for bomb-throwing in Chicago.
[Loud and prolonged applause.]

W. L. ROBBINS

THE PULPIT AND THE BAR

[Speech of Rev. W. L. Robbins at the annual dinner of the New York State
Bar Association, given in the City of Albany, N. Y., January 20, 1891,
in response to the sentiment, "The Relation of the Pulpit to the Bar."
Matthew Hale presided.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--I am so dazed at the temerity
which has ventured to put so soporific a subject as "Th