Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/131

 Author:Robert_Arthur_Talbot_Gascoyne-Cecil

ON THE DESERTION OF GORDON IN EGYPT

(1885)

motion which I have the honor to lay before your lordships has a double aspect—it passes judgment on the past, and expresses an opinion with regard to the policy of the future. Some people receive with considerable impatience the idea that, at the present crisis of our country's destiny, we should examine into the past, and spend our time in judging of that which can not be recalled.

But I think that such objections are unreasonable. We depend in one of the greatest crises through which our country has ever passed on the wisdom and decision of those who guide our counsels, and we can only judge of what