The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-26 00:00:00

(Lansdowne) had urged, he had spoken of the advan-
tage which would result to the nation from bringing
Jews into Parliament. The Noble Marquis had not,
however, shown them the nature of those advantages. If
it could be proved that it was necessary for the consti-
tuencies that the Jew should exercise the right which
was said to belong to him, of sitting in Parliament, then
there would be some argument; but he would maintain
that such was not the case. There were, to be sure, cer•

tain advantages to be gained at election times—(Hear
and laughter)—which the Jews could supply; and he
knew enough of the history of the last City election to
enable him to form an opinion of their character. He
was of opinion that the election in question was a sort
of business transaction, in which one candidate sup-
plied the character and the other the capital.—(Cheers
and laughter.) The Noble Marquis, in the course of his
argument, had said that their Lordships had better pass
the Bill at once, or they would have it reiterated again
and again, until they did. He thought he might leave
that argument to their Lordships' own consideration.
If a measure which they believed to be morally wrong
or morally questionable, were to be passed on such
grounds, he said that they could not perform an act
which could more utterly stultify their own character—
',
(Hear, hear)—and tend more to reduce the House to a
nonentity, than by so doing.—(Cheers.) What he had
stated appeared to him to be the main arguments of the
Noble Marquis. The Noble Viscount (Canning) had
followed on the same side. and had entered into the

difficult question of how far the passing of the Act would
tend to unchristianise the Legislature. He (the Bishop

of Oxford) entertained a strong opinion that such would
be its effect. It seemed to him that they were now
asked to take the greatest step which could he de-
manded of a Christian Legislature. They were asked
to admit those who came amongst the people of this
nation on the profession either that they were not
Christian, or that they were haters of Christianity; and
it would be impossible if the Act was passed to refer any
more to a Christian principle as governing that as-
sembly. He would tell them of the difficulties which
they would have to encounter. When the British
Association was sitting last year to relieve the distress
in Ireland, a body of the Wesleyan dissenters raised a
large sum of money towards that object. A sub-com-
mittee of the association was appointed to draw up a
letter of thanks to that body; and in that letter they
expressed their acknowledgments " for the act of
Christian charity which they had performed." Now
there was on that committee a member of the Jewish
body, who took exception at the word Christian, and
begged that it might be struck out. The member in
question said to the committee, 66 You have admitted me
on a level with yourselves, and I will not admit charity
to be a Christian virtue. You are charitable in spite of
your Christianity, and not because of it." The end of
the matter was that the word was struck out, and the
letter sent thanking the Wesleyans simply for their
charity. He said, ex uno disce omnes. The same
difficulties would arise in other matters; and from the
_ _

day when they legalised the admission of the denial of
Christianity, they could no longer appeal to !Chris•
tianity as their guide.—(Cheers.) He asked them i
the laws of England were based upon anything but the
laws of God, revealed through the medium of Christ
Jesus? There was no doubt that such was always the
ground on which the validity of every English law was
based. There was no other strength to which a law
could refer except the strength of brute force; and so it
was that there had never yet been seen an infidel nation.
After alluding in terms of congratulation to the senti-
ments put forth on the subject by the Noble Duke
(Argyll), whose presence he in common with every
Member of the House hailed with hearty satisfaction,
his Lordship proceeded to say that he would give ano-
ther reason why the House should refuse its assent to
the measure. By yielding it they would inflict a wound
on the religious sympathy and religious trust, and also
on the moral trust, of the religious and thinking
classes of the country, which nething could remedy.
Something had fallen from the Right Rev. Prelate who
had preceed him, that had given him (the Bishop
of Oxford) real pain, although there was nothing in
it. The Rev. Prelate had spoken of the direct, im-
portant, and unquestionable relation to which he alleged
to exist between Judaism and Christianity. Now, that
there had been a direct, important, and unquestionable
relation between them was well known, but he denied
that any such relation existed at present ; and he hoped
the Right Rev. Prelate would allow him (the Bishop of
Oxford) to remind him, that had Judaism been suffered
to remain in the ascendant, it would have proved the
tomb of Christianity. A more dangerous argument
could not be promulgated. In point of fact Christianity
was not a settled doctrine, but a belief of the heart in an
individual, the Saviour of the world, and who formed
the heart of religion and the centre of faith. Judaism
was an entire denial of the whole system, and a Jew ac-
cordingly believed the person in question to be nothing
more than an imposter, whom his ancestors slew.
It was therefore apparent that these two op-
posites could not be reconciled. With regard
to the petitions which had been presented, there was
something peculiar about the feeling of the country. It
was said that a few dissenting petitions augured
that feeling to be in favour of the Bill; but he consi-
dered the silence to have a significance the other way.
There was another reason which increased the import-
ance of the question before them. The relations of the
Church to the State of this country afforded at the pre-
sent time questions not the easiest for solution, or the
safest to defer settling. He thought that in those diffi-
culties a reasonable man would trace this—that the
legislature, by a slow yet certain progress, had become
gradually more estranged from the Church of the
country. Now, he asked, what could more certainly and
abundantly increase the evil than the passing of this
Bill? And when they considered the present difficulty
in adjusting Church matters, there could be no doubt
but that the adoption of the measure would eventually
lead to the separation of Church and State. He, for
one, was not in favour of such a separation, as he be-
lievedthat the Church would suffer most irreparably, and
that the nation itself would certainly suffer still more.
Nearly all the great subjects which were continually
coming before them involved the same question, and
none more so than that of national education; and be-
cause the passing of the Bill now under their considera-
tion would render the settlement of those questions
almost impossible, he beseeched them not to pass it.
The Bishop of St. DAVID'S explained.
The Earl of St. GERMANS, with all respect to the
Rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Oxford), said he must dis-
sent from some of the propositions which he had laid
down. He thought several of the Right Reverend Pre-
late's arguments were scarcely worthy of him. Experi-
ence proved that Jews were insother countries among the
most useful members of a Legislature. If the exclusion
of Jews were a question of punishment, the amount or
extent of their error might be a question. The Right
Rev. Prelate much surprised him by stooping to catch
a cheer by an allusion to an unfounded report about in-
fluences brought to bear upon this question. He also
much astonished him by diverging into considerations
respecting the union between Church and State. If it
could be shown that Jews might be safely admitted to
Parliament except on considerations relating to the
Church, he must say he thought that would be one of
the strongest arguments that could be used in favour of
a severance of Church and State. The most Rev. Pre-
late who had spoken anticipated support to the Church
from the Dissenters. He (Earl St. Germans) believed
there was as much, if not more, danger to be anticipated
to the Church from the Dissenter than from the Jew.—
(Hear, hear.) He believed the Jews to bo a loyal, peace-
able, and industrious body; he saw no reason why they
should not be admitted to complete participation in civil
rights, and he confessed he had heard nothing in the
speech of the Right Reverend Prelate opposite at all
calculated to shake his opinion in favour of this Bill.
The Earl of EGLINTOUN, for the sake of the reli-
gion he revered and the Saviour whom he worshipped,
should certainly vote against this Bill. However loyal,
peaceable, charitable, or useful the Jews might be as a
class, he could not think that those who were aliens, and
who called themselves by the name of another nation,
had any claim to a share in the government of Great
Britain. He also thought that there might arise from
their admission a- great practical difficulty in conse-
quence of the expenditure Jew candidates might be
expected to make in order to secure returns. They had
had, in the way the petitions to that House were pre-
pared, some specimens of the mode in which money
might be applied for political purposes. General sym-
pathy had been excited for the Jews as a class degraded
by their exclusion from Parliament. But the privilege
of sitting in Parliament was not denied to the Jews
alone. It was withheld from the clergy of the Estab-
lished Church of this country, and from others. It was
said by some that Dissenters were more inimical to
the Church than Jews. That statement, however, he
much doubted.
Lord LYTTELTON agreed with the Right Reverend
Prelate opposite (St. David's) that the differences be-
tween Christians and Jews were not of such a nature as
to give to Parliament any right to refuse to Jews the
privileges which were conceded to Unitarians. He was
quite sure that the Jews were entitled to the privilege
on the ground of justice, and what was just could never
be wrong.
The Earl of HARROWBY had always felt the utmost
repugnance to allow any obstruction to a privilege on ac-
count of religious opinions; but having reviewed this
peculiar question with great care, he must confess he
had come to the conclusion that it would not be right to
admit the Jews to Parliament.—(Hear, hear.) He had
come to this decision very much is consequence of the
arguments of the advocates of the measure themselves,
and, above all, of that highly talented Gentleman who
lately represented Edinburgh. When that Right Hon.
Gentleman spoke of religion as a matter as analogous to
politics as cookery, he (Lord Harrowby) confessed that
he thought that there must be something wanting in an
argument that appeared only capable of such an illus-
tration. It was said that they must admit Jews, because
they admitted Socinians; but they did not admit
Socinians as Socinians. They removed certain penal-
ties on religious bodies, and Socinians came in in con-
sequence; bat there was no exemption in their favour.
He dare not unchristianise the Parliament. (Hear,
hear.) He dare not lower the tone of the great assem-
bly of the nation; and, therefore, with regret, he should
certainly vote against the Bill.
The Earl of YARBOROUGH said, if their Lordships
rejecter this Bill, it must be borne in mind that they
would do so in the full cognisance of the circumstance
that the first constituency of the empire had returned a
Jew to Parliament, and that it was the desire of the
people that the Bill should pass.—(Cheers.) He con-
fessed that he had not looked at the religious question
under this Bill without anxiety, but the more he looked
at it the more he felt that it was his duty as a Christian
to vote in its favour.
The Earl of DESART said, the Legislature being
called upon to decide on questions both spiritual and
temporal, he could not think that a Jew ought to be
permitted to share with Christians the administration ?f
those affairs. He knew they were called on to love their
enemies, but he did not know that they were called
the
to take them into their douses and trust them with then