John Morrison Davidson

“ As it is, I believe Sir Wilfrid Lawson to be one of the most earnest and trustworthy Radicals in the House of Commons. Some there are, doubtless, who hold that true moral earnestness is never to be found clothed in quasi-comical attire,—that facetiousness and Radicalism are incompatible. My reply is, that the honorable member for Carlisle finds genial satire to be by far the most effective weapon in his intellectual armory, and that, like a wise man, he puts his special talent to the best use he can. ”

“ I BELIEVE with all sound Christian people, our mendicant archbishops and bishops included, that it is as impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. My experience has likewise agreed with that of the pagan Fronto, who, Marcus Antoninus says, told him "that the so-called high-born are for the most part heartless." But, as is generally admitted, there are exceptions to all rules, and Sir Wilfrid Lawson is an exceptional man. He is a baronet, and so wealthy that I am almost afraid to particularize with regard to his income. ”

“ Sir Wilfrid was one of the few members of the House, who, at the moment that we seemed on the very brink of committing the incalculable folly and unforgivable crime of rushing into a second Crimean war, most clearly apprehended the true character of the impending calamity, and courageously pointed it out to Parliament and the country. It is in such crises that true Radicals, genuine patriots, come to the surface. ”

“ It is one of the advantages of virtue that vice is always compelled to pay it a certain unwilling homage.
It remains to speak of Sir Wilfrid's legislative career, and of certain conceptions of the common weal with which his name has become indissolubly associated in the public mind. Two interests of transcendent importance—one social, the other political—he has made peculiarly his own; viz., those of temperance and peace. He is the sworn foe of publicans and soldiers. He regards both as hostes humani generis, whom it is the duty of all good citizens to unite to extirpate. ”

“ Who are we that we should depart from the wisdom of our ancestors? Did not the Son of man himself come eating and drinking? Are not the princes and potentates of the earth—our "sovereigns and statesmen"—they who set armies in motion? And do not all manner of priests, whether Protestant or Romanist, fervently thank God when the bloody work has been effectually accomplished? David going out with sling and stone against Goliath of Gath did not require to possess one-twentieth part of the sublime faith of him who undertakes to rout a combined array of publicans and Jingoes. ”

“ As a consequence of this sort of training, Sir Wilfrid Lawson is almost entirely devoid of personal ambition. Goodness, not greatness, is the object at which he aims. He is rich; but his sympathies with the poor are as fresh and keen as if he were one of them. ”

“ Enthusiastic temperance reformers are so apt to underestimate the warping influence of social customs and of early acquired habits, even on the healthiest consciences. I, for example, through force of association, am not an abstainer, though I often feel that it would be right I should be so; yet I am Pharisee enough to thank Heaven as often as opportunity offers, that 1 am not like that inhuman "hunter of Cumberland beasts with hounds," Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Bart., the apostle of temperance, whose devotion to the public weal and domestic purity of life I so greatly admire. ”

“ Like the jovial monk of the old church legend, he would almost certainly, if ordered downstairs, make a little heaven of mirth in his own more immediate neighborhood, and so disturb general arrangements that it would speedily be found necessary to have him removed to more comfortable quarters. For not only is he witty in himself, but the cause that wit is in other men. ”

“ It is never used to wound the feelings of any, but to laugh men out of their follies, pretences, and insincerities. His keenest shafts are never envenomed, and are never sped except with a moral purpose. ”

“ From this objection Local Option is free, and a flag is now unfurled around which may rally every one who is not the blind partisan of a "trade" which openly boasts of preferring its own small and not over-creditable "interest" to every consideration of national welfare. For years the publicans have openly identified themselves with every re-actionary "cry," and they will have themselves to blame if at last they find themselves at deadly feud with the whole Liberal party. ”

“ Like most places blessed with a dean and chapter, the Carlisle electors are in truth any thing but a model constituency. It is but likely that an obnoxious ex-mayor of the city petitioned against the return of two municipal councillors on the ground of bribery and treating, and had them duly unseated, the joke of the affair being that among the more systematic treaters figured some of the most active members of Sir Wilfrid's committee. ”

“ While the world standeth, he will do nothing to cause his brother to offend; nay, more, he will do his utmost to remove stumbling-blocks from his brother's path. In so acting, he may be right or he may be wrong; but at all events the motive is eminently respectable.
In 1859, in his father's lifetime, he entered Parliament as member for Carlisle, and found a more useful and honorable occupation than that of "a hunter of Cumberland beasts with hounds." ”

“ A wide survey of history seems to show that the essential habits of individuals and of nations are ineradicable. The asceticism of the Commonwealth was followed by the unbridled license of the Restoration ”