And over what a length of road has he led the English people! From rotten boroughs to household suffrage; from a government of classes to a government more truly popular than any other in the world outside of Switzerland and the United States. Then consider the advance on Irish questions. From the iniquitous burden of a gigantic and extravagant church establishment, imposed upon the people of whom seven-eighths were of hostile faith, to disestablishment; from the principle stated by Lord Palmerston with brutal frankness that "tenant-right is landlord's wrong," to judicial rents and the near prospect of tenant ownership on fair terms; from the arbitrary arrests of Irish leaders to the alliance of the Prime Minister and ruling party with the prisoner of Kilmainham Jail! [Loud cheers.] It has been no holiday parade, the leadership on a march like that. Long ago Mr. Disraeli flung at him the exultant taunt that the English people had had enough of his policy of confiscation; and so it proved for a time, for Mr. Disraeli turned him out. But Mr. Gladstone knew far better than his great rival did the deep and secret springs of English action, and he never judged from the temper of the House or a tour of the London drawing-rooms. Society, indeed, always disapproved of him, as it did of those kindred spirits, the anti-slavery leaders of American politics. But the frowns of Fifth Avenue and Beacon Street have not dimmed the fame of Sumner and Chase; of Seward and Lincoln More than any other statesman of his epoch, he has combined practical 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.] [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.]W. L. ROBBINS
THE PULPIT AND THE BAR
Mr. President and Gentlemen:—I am so dazed at the temerity which has ventured to put so soporific a subject as "The Pulpit" at so late an hour in the evening, that I can only conceive of but one merit in any response to the present toast, and that is brevity. I had always supposed that the pulpit was "sleepy" enough in its effect upon men in the early hours of the day, at least that was my conclusion, in so far as it has been my privilege to see men present, at pulpit ministrations, leaving us as they do for the most part to preach to women and children. Shall I confess that the feeling came over me during the first part of the evening that I was rather out of place among so many laymen, alone as a representative of the clergy; but later, I found confidence through a sense of kinship in suffering, for is it not true that we represent two of the best abused professions in the world? I do not mean by that, abuse ab extra. I am told indeed, occasionally, that the pulpit is effete, that its place has been filled by the press and lecture platform, that there is no further use for it. But I do not know that I have heard abuse ab extra of the Bar, unless some ill-natured person should read it into the broad Scotch pronunciation of an old friend of mine who used to say to me, "Ah, the lieyers, the lieyers."
But what we must needs guard against is abuse from within. In the first place we are a good deal given to self-congratulation. I use the first person plural and not the second person; I remember a friend of mine, a distinguished clergyman in Boston, an Englishman, who once ventured to preach upon political corruption in the municipal government, and the next day he had the audacity to drop into the office of one of the business men of his congregation and say, "What did you think of that sermon?"—a very dangerous question, by the way, always to ask—and the reply came promptly, "You had better go and be naturalized so that you can say 'we sinners,' instead of 'you sinners.'" [Laughter.] Since that time, from the pulpit or from any other place, I have hesitated to say, "You sinners," and I will promise to say "we sinners" to-night.
But truly the pulpit and the Bar, in their ideal, are, as it were, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," a witness to the eternal truth. Are they not? The pulpit is sent forth to herald the love of God, and the Bar is sent forth to herald the justice of God; but they don't always succeed. I can speak from experience for the pulpit, that the position of authority, the claim of a divine mission, is often turned into the excuse for the airing of a man's individual fads, and is naught but a cloak for pretentious ignorance. [Applause.] And for the Bar, I wonder if I might venture to quote the definition of legal practice which was given me the other night, apropos of this toast, by a distinguished representative of the New York Bar Association, that it was "a clever device for frustrating justice, and getting money into the lawyer's pocket." [Laughter.] But if it be true that we have a mission, it is equally true that we must join hands if we are going to accomplish that mission. I am tired of hearing about the Pulpit as the voice of the public conscience. I do not know why the Bar should not be the voice of the public conscience quite as much as the Pulpit. If there are laws on the statute book that are not obeyed, I don't know why the clergy should make public protest rather than the lawyers, who are representatives of the law. [Applause.] And if principles of our Constitution are being subtly invaded to-day under the mask, for instance, of State subsidies or national subsidies to sectarian institutions either of learning or of charity, I don't know why the first voice of warning should come from the Pulpit rather than from the Bar. Indeed, when the clergy initiate reforming movements it always seems to me as though there is need of rather more ballast in the boat, need of one of those great wheels which act as a check on the machinery in an engine; and the best fly-wheel is the layman. The tendency, you know, of the Pulpit is toward an unpractical sort of idealism. Its theories are all very good, but my professor in physics used to tell me that the best mathematical theory is put out of gear by friction when you come to illustrate it in practical physics, and so with even the best kind of theoretical philanthropy. The theoretical solution of the problems, social and economic, which confront us is put "out of gear" by facts, about which, alas, the clergy are not as careful as they are about their theory; and, therefore, I plead for a lay enthusiasm. But surely there is no better lay element than the legal to act as ballast for the clergy in pleading the cause of philanthropy and piety and righteousness.