of all her Majesty’s subjects--that it will allow no consideration to divert its mind and energy from the accomplishment of its object. It, therefore, necessarily takes what is commonly called a contracted view. But who can doubt what will be the result, _when on a question which enlists and excites all the religious passions of the nation, the zeal of enthusiasm advocates one policy, and the calmness of philosophers and the experience of statesmen recommend another. The Government might be right, but the Government would not be able to enforce its policy, and the question might be decided in a way that might disturb a country or even destroy an empire._ I know, sir, it may be said that though there may be some truth in this view abstractedly considered, yet it does not apply to the country in which we live, because ... we enjoy religious freedom ... and because only a portion of her Majesty’s subjects are in communion with the National Church. I draw a very different conclusion to that which I have supposed as the objection.... _It is because there is an Established Church that we have achieved religious liberty and enjoy religious toleration; and without the union of the Church with the State, I do not see what security there would be either for religious liberty or toleration._ No error could be greater than to suppose that the advantage of the Established Church is limited to those who are in communion with it. Take the case of the Roman Catholic priest. He will refuse--and in doing so he is quite justified, and is indeed bound to do so--he will, I say, refuse to perform the offices of the Church to any one not in communion with it. The same with the Dissenters. It is quite possible--it has happened, and might happen very frequently--that a Roman Catholic may be excommunicated by his Church, or a sectarian may be denounced and expelled by his congregation; but if that happens in this country, the individual in question who has been thus excommunicated, denounced, or expelled, is not a forlorn being. There is the Church, of which the Sovereign is the head, which does not acknowledge the principle of Dissent, and which does not refuse to that individual those religious rites which are his privilege and consolation.... Now, I cannot believe that the disendowment of the Church of England could occur without very great disturbances.... _England cannot afford revolution. England has had her revolutions. It is indeed because she had revolutions about two hundred years ago, before other nations had their revolutions, that she gained her great start in wealth and empire._ Now, sir, what have we gained by these revolutions? A period of nearly two hundred years of great serenity and the secured stability of the State. I attribute these happy characteristics of our history to the circumstance, that in this interval we did solve two of the finest and profoundest political problems. We accomplished complete personal, and, in time, complete