Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/129



N the House of Commons are to be found a good many members who profess the Christian religion,—at all events in public; but, excepting Mr. Henry Richard, there are very few, so far as I know, who make the smallest pretence of literally squaring their politics by the precepts of the New Testament. The politics of Rome and of Canterbury—of the Papal and Anglican priesthoods—are, of course, well represented at St. Stephen's; but their relation to Christianity proper is so remote, or indeed antagonistic, as to merit no recognition in this connection. They are merely ecclesiastical intrigues, and in no true sense Christian or even religious in their aim or tendency. But Mr. Richard's position is different. He is distinctly a Christian politician, and herein lies his strength or weakness as a legislator. The estimable "Apostle of Peace" is, wonderful to relate, a gospel Radical, and it is by that difficult standard that it will be necessary in some measure to try him. He believes that Christianity supplies the politician, as it does the individual, with a true, or rather the true, conduct-chart; and his pamphlet, "On the Application of Christianity to Politics," leaves 115