The plain state of the case is this.No man in his senses would dream of applying Mr.Gladstone's theory to India; because, if so applied, it would inevitably destroy our empire, and, with our empire, the best chance of spreading Christianity among the natives.This Mr.Gladstone felt.In some way or other his theory was to be saved, and the monstrous consequences avoided.Of intentional misrepresentation we are quite sure that he is incapable.But we cannot acquit him of that unconscious disingenuousness from which the most upright man, when strongly attached to an opinion, is seldom wholly free.We believe that he recoiled from the ruinous consequences which his system would produce, if tried in India; but that he did not like to say so, lest he should lay himself open to the charge of sacrificing principle to expediency, a word which is held in the utmost abhorrence by all his school.Accordingly, he caught at the notion of a treaty, a notion which must, we think, have originated in some rhetorical expression which he has imperfectly understood.There is one excellent way of avoiding the drawing of a false conclusion from a false major; and that is by having a false minor.Inaccurate history is an admirable corrective of unreasonable theory.And thus it is in the present case.A bad general rule is laid down, and obstinately maintained, wherever the consequences are not too monstrous for human bigotry.But when they become so horrible that even Christ Church shrinks, that even Oriel stands aghast, the rule is evaded by means of a fictitious contract.One imaginary obligation is set up against another.Mr.Gladstone first preaches to Governments the duty of undertaking an enterprise just as rational as the Crusades, and then dispenses them from it on the ground of a treaty which is just as authentic as the donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester.His system resembles nothing so much as a forged bond with a forged release indorsed on the back of it.
With more show of reason he rests the claims of the Scotch Church on a contract.He considers that contract, however, as most unjustifiable, and speaks of the setting up of the Kirk as a disgraceful blot on the reign of William the Third.Surely it would be amusing, if it were not melancholy, to see a man of virtue and abilities unsatisfied with the calamities which one Church, constituted on false principles, has brought upon the empire, and repining that Scotland is not in the same state with Ireland, that no Scottish agitator is raising rent and putting county members in and out, that no Presbyterian association is dividing supreme power with the Government, that no meetings of procursors and repealers are covering the side of the Calton Hill, that twenty-five thousand troops are not required to maintain order on the north of the Tweed, that the anniversary of the Battle of Bothwell Bridge is not regularly celebrated by insult, riot, and murder.We could hardly find a stronger argument against Mr.Gladstone's system than that which Scotland furnishes.The policy which has been followed in that country has been directly opposed to the policy which he recommends.And the consequence is that Scotland, having been one of the rudest, one of the poorest, one of the most turbulent countries in Europe, has become one of the most highly civilised, one of the most flourishing, one of the most tranquil.The atrocities which were of common occurrence: while an unpopular Church was dominant are unknown, In spite of a mutual aversion as bitter as ever separated one people from another, the two kingdoms which compose our island have been indissolubly joined together.Of the ancient national feeling there remains just enough to be ornamental and useful; just enough to inspire the poet, and to kindle a generous and friendly emulation in the bosom of the soldier.But for all the ends of government the nations are one.And why are they so?
The answer is simple.The nations are one for all the ends of government, because in their union the true ends of government alone were kept in sight.The nations are one because the Churches are two.
Such is the union of England with Scotland, an union which resembles the union of the limbs of one healthful and vigorous body, all moved by one will, all co-operating for common ends.
The system of Mr.Gladstone would have produced an union which can be compared only to that which is the subject of a wild Persian fable.King Zohak--we tell the story as Mr.Southey tells it to us--gave the devil leave to kiss his shoulders.Instantly two serpents sprang out, who, in the fury of hunger, attacked his head, and attempted to get at his brain.Zohak pulled them away, and tore them with his nails.But he found that they were inseparable parts of himself, and that what he was lacerating was his own flesh.Perhaps we might be able to find, if we looked round the world, some political union like this, some hideous monster of a state, cursed with one principle of sensation and two principles of volition, self-loathing and self-torturing, made up of parts which are driven by a frantic impulse to inflict mutual pain, yet are doomed to feel whatever they inflict, which are divided by an irreconcileable hatred, Yet are blended in an indissoluble identity.Mr.Gladstone, from his tender concern for Zohak, is unsatisfied because the devil has as yet kissed only one shoulder, because there is not a snake mangling and mangled on the left to keep in countenance his brother on the right.