With the manifold humours of the movement, with the sale of Dr. Clifford’s trowels and the sad fate of his bust of Cromwell, with the evident eagerness of our Nonconformist martyrs to part with their Bibles at the earliest possible moment, with the diurnal letters of Dr. Clifford to the _Daily News_, with his just anger against the brutal authorities who let a “resister” out of prison, with the even more delicious letters of minor lights of Dissent, with the fear expressed by one of these lest his heroic action should be supposed by the cold world to be merely an economic distraint for rent,[8] with the olympian wrath of those aspirants for the martyr’s crown who found their hopes blighted by the baseness of some unknown person who had cruelly paid their rates for them--with none of these do I propose to deal. Doubtless the proceedings of these brave martyr-rebels, whose motto, like that of the conspirators in one of Mr. Gilbert’s operas, “is Revenge without Anxiety--that is without unnecessary Risk,” are delightful, if regarded from the standpoint of humour. It is to be regretted that we cannot altogether afford so to regard them. No Christian can free himself from a sense of shame at seeing Christian bodies sink so low, nor can any patriotic Englishman, whatever his creed, watch the signs of the times without anxiety when he sees what was once a great English party flatter such men and condone such a policy. Seriously considered the “Passive Resistance” campaign proved two things. The immense impetus which it has gained among the Nonconformists is a symptom of that utter disregard of the public interest which has in all ages been characteristic of political sectaries. The toleration, if not encouragement, of it by the bulk of the Liberal party shows how superficial is the conversion of Liberals from their former anarchic view of civic duty. For “Passive Resistance” cannot be justified except the philosophic doctrines and assumptions of Anarchism be first accepted. Mr. Auberon Herbert might be a passive resister without inconsistency, for he regards taxation as a mere subscription sent by the subscriber to an organisation of his own choice and to be used only for such purposes as he may approve. He therefore maintains that all taxes should be voluntary and, were he to “resist” at all, would doubtless resist in the case of all state expenditure which he may think undesirable,--armaments, wars, state ceremonial, and even municipal enterprise. Now this theory, if once accepted, will tell much more against the progressive side than against the reactionaries. The Nonconformists are as likely as not, I imagine, to “resist” the payment of money required to start a municipal public house; taking example from them, other persons may resist payment of taxes needed to furnish old age pensions on the ground that their consciences forbid them to allow their money to be used for the discouragement of the virtue of thrift. In a word the