Mr. Gladstone's speech on Friday week, to which we have
alluded above, was marked by a kind of tenderness for his adversaries, of sympathy with them and their difficulties, which is sometimes wanting in his speeches, and which was wonderfully effective. He objected, for instance, to the word "secularist" as a term of reproach, and preferred to describe that section as the party "which no longer thinks it possible to maintain direct religious teaching out of public funds." He pointed out to them, moreover, that in any district in which they had a majority they could "without impediment or discredit" under the Bill act upon their own principles. On the other hand, he conciliated the Churchmen by expatiating on the generosity and magnitude of the sacrifice they had made in accepting the Time-Table Con- science-Clause, and in excluding their Catechism without re- quiring any similar concession frcm the Nonconformists, who, as a rule, do not use catechisms. At the same time, he conciliated the Nonconformists, by admitting that the exclusion of formularies was made by the Bill "rigid and absolute," and by pointing to the provision made against an abuse which, unless remedied, might tell tremendously in favour of the Church. A School Board deeply pledged to the Establishment might " aid " an Episco palian school, till it was supported entirely out of the rates while managed on denominational principles,—a danger avoided by providing that the assistance given shall not be given without adequate voluntary subscriptions. The whole speech was per- vaded by a similar spirit of inoderation, which culminated at its close in a more than half-promise that the Boards should be elected on a scheme admitting of the full representation of minorities.
