Page:Perils of home rule.djvu/15

13 to corrupt the virginity of soul of one of the honestest peoples under heaven. (Applause.) But then they might say, "Ireland blocks the way, and until we have settled matters we cannot expect the disendowment." A terrible price to pay, the agony of their kith and kin, and ruin to the empire, and yet there is one argument which I must put before you. If this Bill come into force, every man in his senses acquainted with Ireland knows that the voluntary churches in this country will be wiped out. Now the greatest argument for voluntaryism is the success of voluntary efforts. (Hear, hear.) It is the only argument, that has ever had the least real weight with me. I am a friend of the established Church, and I confess to a fear that the argument will fail, but it is at least an argument which any honest man can use with pride, and which it takes a wise man to answer. Mr. Gladstone speaks a great deal, (Laughter.) In introducing another Bill some years ago he professed some desire to have an honourable regard for the civil servants of ours who "in rendering service to the empire were placed in relations more or less uneasy to popular feeling," and then he goes on, "and with what, under this new constitution, will be in all probability, the dominant influence in that country." I ask your attention for one moment to these points. He says, "a new constitution." Therefore, he admits that he is beginning on a totally new principle. And then he says, "What will probably be the dominant influence?" I suppose that most of you at times have been struck by that subtle principle of association in the human mind which makes the words that convey the same idea produce different effects on the one person. I remember being told by Archbishop Whately that he knew old ladies who considered that there was a great difference between taking tartar emetic and antimonial wine—(laughter)—though the chemist will tell you that the constituents of both are the same. So it is with other words. Ascendency is an unpleasant word, the tartar emetic—and

DOMINANT INFLUENCE was substituted—antimonial wine. (Applause.) Would you