And, ev’n as man and wife in figure show
    Christ and his spiritual spouse below,
    So by the eye of faith we gladly scan
    Our double duty—­both to God and man—­
    In yielding hearts to love, minds to obey
    Religion’s mandate and the Ruler’s sway,
    Defending timely, ere it be too late,
    Our threatened fortresses of Church and State!

As to the disputed matter of Protection, I am for Free Trade so far only as regards the matter of provisions; but I desire Fair Trade on the reciprocity system where manufactured articles and their raw material are concerned.  We absolutely require free food,—­but are being ruined by the bad bargain of one-sided Free Trade otherwise.  Our ships (Mr. Brockelbank tells me) go out empty, and return full; exports fail, but imports are redundant.

As a final word about my politics, which I suppose may be called Liberal-Conservative, I am free to confess that I am only too half-hearted and am rather of Talleyrand’s mind in the matter, “surtout point de zele.”  However, I heartily side with any one who protests against hereditary pensions, especially in the case of royal illegitimates, as also against the glaring impropriety of ceasing to exact legacy and probate duties beyond a certain sum, thus favouring the millionaire, as well as of excusing the highest of our society from all manner of taxation.  These pieces of favouritism to the rich and great are only too reasonable causes of popular discontent, and must ere long cease.  I would shut up half the public-houses in spite of all the brewers in the Lords and Commons; and for Church matters, parishioners should have some control over their pastors.  If ever our Establishment is overthrown, that catastrophe will be due to clerical faults and defaults, rather than to lay apathy or hostility.  If rectors were less tyrannical, congregations would love them better; and if curates were more inclined to Luther than to Rome, the Protestant heart of England would the gladlier appreciate their zeal and capabilities.  As to the social mischief of Trades’ Unions, an organised conspiracy of employed against employers, fatal to both, I have often exposed that evil in newspapers, though anonymously.  It is an outrage on the honest working man with a family, that even in starving times he is obliged by paid demagogues to refuse work and wages unless he will give the least labour for the most pay, as the worst of his mates are glad to be forced to do:  while the wicked absurdity of strikes, smashing factory windows and destroying machinery in order to coerce unfortunate masters to pay higher wages than they can afford, is climaxed by those brigand processions of idle roughs who go about bawling, “We’ve no work to do, and wouldn’t do it if we had.”  The British workman (of course with many exceptions) has become a byword for everything unpleasant, which both large contractors and small employers avoid if they can:  drink, bank holidays, radical spouters, the conceit of being better than their betters, and above all that suicidal iniquity of strikes, seem in these latter days to have generally demoralised a race of citizens of whose virtues our commonwealth once was proud.  No wonder that John Bull had to go to Germany to finish his Law Courts.