Suppose a modern English Sabbatarian fanatic, who believes, on the strength of his interpretation of the fourth commandment, that it is a deadly sin to work on the “Lord’s Day,” sees a fellow Puritan yielding to the temptation of getting in his harvest on a fine Sunday morning—­is the former justified in setting fire to the latter’s corn?  Would not an English court of justice speedily teach him better?

In truth, the government which permits private persons, on any pretext (especially pious and patriotic pretexts), to take the law into their own hands, fails in the performance of the primary duties of all governments; while those who set the example of such acts, or who approve them, or who fail to disapprove them, are doing their best to dissolve civil society; they are compassers of illegality and fautors of immorality.

I fully understand that Mr. Gladstone may not see the matter in this light.  He may possibly consider that the union of Gadara with the Decapolis, by Augustus, was a “blackguard” transaction, which deprived Hellenic Gadarene law of all moral force; and that it was quite proper for a Jewish Galilean, going back to the time when the land of the Girgashites was given to his ancestors, some 1500 years before, to act, as if the state of things which ought to obtain, in territory which traditionally, at any rate, belonged to his forefathers, did really exist.  And, that being so, I can only say I do not agree with him, but leave the matter to the appreciation of those of our countrymen, happily not yet the minority, who believe that the first condition of enduring liberty is obedience to the law of the land.

* * * * *

The end of the month drawing nigh, I thought it well to send away the manuscript of the foregoing pages yesterday, leaving open, in my own mind, the possibility of adding a succinct characterisation of Mr. Gladstone’s controversial methods as illustrated therein.  This morning, however, I had the pleasure of reading a speech which I think must satisfy the requirements of the most fastidious of controversial artists; and there occurs in it so concise, yet so complete, a delineation of Mr. Gladstone’s way of dealing with disputed questions of another kind, that no poor effort of mine could better it as a description of the aspect which his treatment of scientific, historical, and critical questions presents to me.

The smallest examination would have told a man of his capacity and of his experience that he was uttering the grossest exaggerations, that he was basing arguments upon the slightest hypotheses, and that his discussions only had to be critically examined by the most careless critic in order to show their intrinsic hollowness.

Those who have followed me through this paper will hardly dispute the justice of this judgment, severe as it is.  But the Chief Secretary for Ireland has science in the blood; and has the advantage of a natural, as well as a highly cultivated, aptitude for the use of methods of precision in investigation, and for the exact enunciation of the results thereby obtained.