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    since the opening of the session ? Is not the very air we breathe of another quality ? The contest , whether the Reform Bill was to have its consequences , or another and a more drastic Reform Bill was necessary to our deriving any benefits from the first—this contest had not commenced when the session opened : the battle has now been fought , and the good cause has triumphed . Then ,

    there was a dead calm ; now , the wind has risen . We breathe an atmosphere of movement ; and it is speeding us forward on our course . It is no abatement from what has been gained , that the seal has not yet been put upon any part of it by an Act of Parliament . When the ministerial manifesto , last year , boasted of the great things which the Ministry had done , the Examiner said—What care we for what you have done ? It is the spirit of what you have

    done , that we care for . All you can do , until the public mind is more matured , would amount , if you were the wisest statesmen in the world , to a very trifle . What we want to know is , what a Minister says . —And the Ministers had said nothing . They had put forth nothing which either committed themselves , or prepared the public mind : they had not announced a single princip le , This year the case is reversed . They have done for the popular

    cause , on their own showing , nothing : but their sayings have been most valuable doings . They have made themselves the heralds of the victory which the national voice has now finally achieved over the combined strength of the supporters of bad institutions . They have proclaimed , and with impressive solemnity , that the power , be it what it may , which sets itself against the spirit of the

    age , must fall . And they have identified themselves with that spirit , on the great question which , first of the many which are impending , will be brought to a practical issue . They have declared the indefeasible right of the State , if the Church property exceeds what can usefully be applied to ecclesiastical purposes , to apply the residue to other purposes ; and on this principle they have announced that it is their resolution to act .

    This satisfies us . They who will do thus much , will do more when the time comes . One question at a time is as much as the public mind can be occupied with ; and the enemy ' s country can be equally conquered whether we invade it on one point or on several . We now know that he cannot keep the field against us , and it matters little which of his fortresses we first besiege . But there is none which more invites an assailant than the Church

    Establishment ; for it is the most vulnerable point in the whole line of defence , and yet , as the whole force of the enemy will be collected in it , and as it will hold out to the death , its fall will throw the whole country into our hands . The curtailment of the Irish Church will be the Reform Bill of the next session : to be fought for by a union of the Ministry , the House of Commons , and the people , against the House of Lords . More slowly , but as certainly , the Church Establishment of England will share the fate which awaits all bodies who

    Untitled Article

    608 The Close of the Session .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 608, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/4/