Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/179

 of Mill alluded to was one of the many subtle thinkers who appear in this world, but live and die unheard, leaving no name behind them.

The founders of the Cobden Club seem to have adopted some words used by Mr. Cobden towards the end of his "1793 and 1853." The words used by Mr. Cobden are "Peace on earth and good-will towards men." The words used by the Club are "Free Trade, Peace, Good-will among Nations," accompanied by a somewhat grim effigy of their new Messiah. There are certain memories summoned up by those religious or quasi-religious professions of unbounded philanthropy which startle those who recall the beginning and the end of the first French Revolution. The Jacobin Club did not say "Peace and Good Will among nations," but it said "Liberty, Equality, and Universal Philanthropy," the "universal philanthropy" meaning in reality universal murder.

I will quote, on the subject of bringing religion into the question when honesty would do, a writer whose opinion respecting the new Messiah was pretty much the same as mine, and who can express much better than I can the peculiar points of the question. General Perronet Thompson, the writer I allude to, in his paper on "Saint