John Morrison Davidson

“ Fawcett, more than to any other man or half-dozen of men, do we owe our knowledge of the appalling condition of the "brightest gem," which, if one could imagine a gem being so ill-behaved, may explode any day with such violence as to shake to its foundations the throne not merely of the "Empress of India," but that of the Queen of England also. In this grave relation the voice of Henry Fawcett has been as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. If the British people have not made their paths straight, it has not been his fault. ”

“ We Englishmen have not public spirit; we have not the practice of self-government; we do not possess the republican virtues of independence and self-respect, without which there can be no genuine republic. We love to deceive both ourselves and others. It is the "name" of liberty that we affect: the "thing" itself is unknown to us.
Is it to be wondered at that Sir Charles Dilke, fresh from brighter countries, like the United States, where self-government is a reality, should have misconstrued the reply of an oracle so ambiguous and untrustworthy? ”

“ When our names are blotted out and our place knows us no more, the energy of each social service will remain, and so, too, let us not forget, will each social disservice remain like the unending stream of one of Nature's forces. The thought that this is so may well lighten the poor perplexities of our daily life, and even soothe the pang of its calamities. It lifts us from our feet as on wings, opening a larger meaning to our private toil and a higher purpose to our public endeavor; it makes the morning as we awake 'to its welcome, and the evening like a soft garment as it wraps us about ”

“ Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert comes to figure as a strenuous people's tribune, it is not unnatural that his motives should be subjected to searching analysis. Of thorns men do not ordinarily gather figs, nor of aristocratic bramble-bushes gather they democratic grapes. Nevertheless, when it does happen that grapes are produced in such circumstances, they are sometimes of the choicest quality. They are like the strawberry that has ripened under the nettle. In the society of a man like Herbert you feel that noblesse oblige is not quite an empty phrase. ”

“ At elections, school board and parliamentary, his followers display an energy and discipline which leave nothing to be desired. They are men of faith, who do not lose heart in times of adversity and re-action. Their human sympathies, as well as their spiritual, have been warmed by the flame which burns in the bosom of the devout and fearless Great Heart of the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
If the common characteristic of men of progress, of genuine Radicals, be that they "live not for themselves but for others," then it would be hard to find a better Radical than Mr. Spurgeon. ”

“ HAVING now portrayed, however imperfectly, our two most illustrious Radical statesmen,—Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright, I come to deal with one who is not a statesman,—who makes no pretension to statesmanship,—but who, as a politician, has nevertheless "been fashioned unto much honor." His name will not be found, I think, even among that multitude which no man can number, the "Men of the Times." Nor is the omission so culpable as may at first sight appear; for Mr. P. A. Taylor belongs at once to the Radical past and the Radical future rather than to the opportunist present. ”

“ History is but past politics, just as politics are present history. This cardinal truth Mr. Freeman, as a narrator of events, fully apprehends; and this it is that gives such lucidity and value to all his writings. He has, moreover, moral courage of the highest order, and admirable tenacity of purpose. To his own mind his objects are invariably clear; and he takes the most direct, if sometimes not the most pleasant, means of clarifying the minds of others. ”

“ Alderman Chamberlain, M.P., the renowned ex-Mayor of Birmingham, is the exact reverse of this picture. Of all living Englishmen he has deservedly earned the highest reputation as a municipal administrator, and he remains a pre-eminently courteous and cultivated gentleman,—a lover of books, of paintings, and of flowers. Indeed I have heard an excellent judge say of the ex-dictator of Birmingham, with his lithe limbs and classical features, that he is perhaps the best bred man in Parliament; and, if he is not the most learned, he is certainly one of the most studious, members of the House. ”

“ It is not every man who, when such tried friends of freedom and national rectitude as Mr. Joseph Cowen are found fervently preaching the immoral and parochial doctrine of "my country right, or my country wrong," has the fidelity to affirm, "I have a mightier country than you, and a larger interest to protect. The globe is my country, and its entire inhabitants are my countrymen. Eternal justice is the interest which I desire to see conserved." This was the spirit in which Sir Wilfrid spoke when nearly every one else feared to utter words of truth and soberness ”

“ In the first place, apart from the fact that an advanced Radical might reasonably be expected to be ashamed of having a monarchy of any kind, cheap or dear, Mr. Mundella knew, as every other member knew, that the reasons set forth for the prince's trip were not the true reasons. In the second place, as a friend of the people, and knowing, as he so well knows, the sore privations of the masses, how could he, with a clear conscience, hint that a royal family, which directly costs the nation five million dollars per annum, is either cheap or shabby? ”

“ He has now represented Leicester in Parliament for eighteen years, and all that time he has neither led nor followed,—neither been misled by the leaders of his party, nor been found following the multitude to do evil. If he has led at any time, it has been as the captain of forlorn hopes, the champion of forgotten rights, the redresser of unheeded wrongs. He is the Incorruptible of the House. In evil and in good report he has striven to subject every issue that has presented itself to the test of general principles of human well-being. ”

“ A secretary of state might as well make it a religious boast that he habitually neglected some of the work belonging to his department. The duties of an individual voter may be less grave than the duties of an official politician; but neglect in either case is a crime against the nation. I think it possible that the time may come when men who refuse to vote will be subjected to church discipline, like men who refuse to pay their debts. The plea that the discharge of political duty is inconsistent with spirituality ought to be denounced as a flagrant piece of hypocrisy. ”

“ But the human race can never permanently live on negations. In the heat of conflict, while the old system is dying and the new is unborn, they may appear almost like gospel truths; but, when the ground has once been fairly cleared, their significance is at an end. Men once more begin to recognize in nature a more profound purpose, a more all-pervading intelligence, a more sacred continuity, than before. Comte attempted to piece together the broken links of our faith, but failed. Mr. Bradlaugh merely dances an Indian war-dance in paint and feathers among the débris. ”

“ Will not this political iceberg, when it descends upon the genial shores of the Mediterranean, wither the young shoots of liberty that are springing up between the crevices of the worn-out fabrics of despotism?" Now, all this is very striking,—nay, appalling; but John Bright, I am sure, knowing that icebergs have a habit of melting long before they reach the shores of the Mediterranean, would never have been guilty of bringing any berg of his so far south. ”

“ Gladstone is of pure Scottish blood,—a fact of which he has oftener than once expressed himself proud. Indeed, the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum is his in a remarkable degree; and it has its influence on public opinion across the border, notwithstanding his English training and his antipathetic High-Churchism. However England may abase herself before the gorgeous Lord Benjingo, Scotland will never turn her back on the undecorated Gladstone. There lives not a Scotsman that is not inwardly proud of him; for blood is, after all, thicker than water. ”

“ The true sphere of government is merely to preserve the internal and external police of the realm. When more is attempted it is an illegitimate and baneful exercise of authority, an arrest of progress, a stunting of the national growth. Either the state must do every thing for the individual, or the individual must do every thing for himself. Neck or nothing! It is the ideal social democracy of Germany against the ideal individualist democracy of England. Unfortunately the problem is complicated, and will remain insoluble until monarchy and aristocracy have disappeared from both countries. ”

“ To me the doctrine of an eternal continuity of development has no terrors; for, believing matter to be, in its ultimate essence, spiritual, I see in every cosmic revolution a 'change from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.' I can look down the uncreated, unbeginning past without the sickness of bewildered faith. My Father worketh hitherto. My sense of eternal order is no longer jarred by the sudden appearance in the universe of a dead, inane substance foreign to God and spiritual being. ”

“ Commenting on such stupendous anomalies, the admiral indignantly observes, "The splendid outcome of our parliamentary system is that a minority of electors appoint a majority of members of Parliament, and the majority of electors appoint their minority to be steadily outvoted and beaten; and all the while statesmen and journalists vie with one another in national brag, and tell the deluded people that they are blessed above all other peoples in their institutions and in their laws. ”

“ Oxford and Cambridge are in reality huge forcing-houses for the production of young aristocrats, maintained at scandalous cost, in no sense national institutions, and about the last places in the world where one would dream of going in order to acquire the art of thinking. Such exceptionally intelligent and public-spirited emanations as the members for Hackney and Liskeard are in reality rather a misfortune than otherwise. ”