tion
and influence of Truth." This was Mr. Gladstone at his sincerest and his
highest. I wonder, too, if there has been a leader in parliament since the
seventeenth century, who could venture to address it in the strain of the
memorable passage now to be transcribed:--

You draw your line at the point where the abstract denial of God
is severed from the abstract admission of the Deity. My
proposition is that the line thus drawn is worthless, and that
much on your side of the line is as objectionable as the atheism
on the other. If you call upon us to make distinctions, let them
at least be rational; I do not say let them be Christian
distinctions, but let them be rational. I can understand one
rational distinction, that you should frame the oath in such a way
as to recognise not only the existence of the Deity, but the
providence of the Deity, and man's responsibility to the Deity;
and in such a way as to indicate the knowledge in a man's own mind
that he must answer to the Deity for what he does, and is able to
do. But is that your present rule? No, Sir, you know very well
that from ancient times there have been sects and schools that
have admitted in the abstract as freely as Christians the
existence of a Deity, but have held that of practical relations
between Him and man there can be none. Many of the members of this
House will recollect the majestic and noble lines--

Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est
Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur,
Semota a nostris rebus sejunctaque longe.
Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,
Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri,
Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira.(8)

"Divinity exists"--according to these, I must say, magnificent
lines--"in remote and inaccessible recesses; but with, us it has no
dealing, of us it has no need, with us it has no relation." I do
not hesitate to say that the specific evil, the specific form of
irreligion, with which in the educated society of this country you
have to contend, and with respect to which you ought to be on your
guard, is not blank atheism. That is a rare opinion very seldom
met with; but what is frequently met with is that form of opinion
which would teach us that, whatever may be beyond the visible
things of this world, whatever there may be beyond this short span
o