“. . . As to Joseph, I hope it may do good. I know that things may with safety be brought on by him, which in any other man’s hands wd. do harm. Therefore I always thought the attack on the Church was safer in his hands than in any others. But I fear he may throw away a great case, and (except your testimony) I see nothing in the other night’s debate to change this opinion. Don’t let us deceive ourselves. There are millions—and among them very powerful and very respectable people—who will go a certain way with us, but will be quite staggered by our going pell-mell at it. The people of this country are not prepared to give up the Church. For one—I am certainly not; and my reason is this. There is a vast mass of religion in the country, shaped in various forms and burning with various degrees of heat—from regular lukewarmness to Methodism. Some Church establishment this feeling must have; and I am quite clear that a much-reformed Ch. of Engd. is the safest form in which such an establishment can exist. It is a quiet and somewhat lazy Church: certainly not a persecuting one. Clip its wings of temporal power (which it unceasingly uses in behalf of a political slavery)* and
* I.e. against Reform. |
| 1823-24.] | TWO VERY DIFFERENT DUKES. | 67 |
