Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/170

 exclusive an application to the same train of thought, and a want of acquaintance with secular affairs produce, in many cases, narrow views of men and things, may be admitted, although it is, perhaps, too strongly expressed in the well-known apophthegm of Lord Clarendon; but this forms no ground for the exclusion of the class, and has never been put forward as being so. It must be always recollected that the present proposal is to require about 2000 electors for every member, and if 2000 electors concurred in the choice of a minister of religion, he is not likely to be amongst the least gifted of his order.

In the great questions which arise in Parliament affecting religion and the Church, it would be in the highest degree desirable that one or two ministers of every persuasion should be present, and enabled to take part in their discussion, rather than that all such matters should be left to laymen ambitious of a dilettante degree in divinity. The more exaggerated types of every theological doctrine will be found, not amongst its ordinary teachers, but amongst its heated neophytes. These are the men who embitter discussion, exasperate differences, and regard all moderation as treachery to their cause. The true principle of representation, consistently applied, would enable every religious body, clerical or lay, to put forward as their organ whomsoever they may deem to be the best fitted for the office. Interest and feeling will alike prompt them to select the most able and accomplished exponent of their opinions to fill the important trust. The tone and temper of the lower House, in dealing with subjects in which the relations between public law and national worship are in controversy, would be in no slight measure improved, if, without lessening all becoming zeal, the presence and example of the Christian minister should, to that zeal, add some portion of charity.