sympathy for, and innocent ignorance of, their position. A little further on the versatile orator was again visibly getting into the shallows, from a confusion of ideas between 'creeds' and 'articles of faith,' which appeared to cool bystanders to be synonymous terms in his mind. Happily, the present participle came to the rescue, and by aid of 'repudiating creeds and rejecting articles,' the speaker regained his footing, till at last Sidonia himself walked the earth again, 'in the incantations of Canidia and the Corybantian howl.' Finally, warmed by his subject, Mr. Disraeli informed his delighted auditory that whenever these questions have been 'brought before Parliament, I have always opposed alterations of creeds, articles, and subscriptions.' Flushed with his well-known senatorial triumphs, in which, as the future Macaulay will record, the member for Buckinghamshire has so efficiently resisted the successive attempts of the Liberal party to edit the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds, our erudite theologian then launched into that spirited rebuke, which has echoed through the British islands, of the neological school, man by man, for the unpardonable offence of using for personal ends second-hand information. Far be it from us to take up the cudgels in their vindication. They deserve their castigation, while the most mortifying as well as grotesque feature of it must be, that it fell from those particular lips.
After all, the important question to all good Churchmen in regard to Mr. Disraeli's speech is, what is it worth? It is, as it stands, a bountiful offer, and we have to ask whether the tender is made in coin or in paper. Few, we believe, will attempt to say that it is not in the latter currency; and not many will attempt, if hard pressed, to say that the paper must be taken at other than a considerable discount. So appreciated, we have no hesitation in saying that so outspoken an acknowledgment of the Church's righteous claim to more bishops, a reformed Convocation with lay representation, a settlement of Church rates, better courts, and something done for the Colonial Church, coming from the mouth of the leader of one of the great parties in the House of Commons, is of considerable value, although on the face of it delivered as an electioneering assault upon Mr. Gladstone's headquarters. All we have to say to Churchmen is, that if they mean to derive their advantage from it, they must deal with Mr. Disraeli on their own appraisement, and not let him take them all round at his valuation.
One of Mr. Disraeli's points leads us to remember that a few years ago there was a great and long protracted Church-rate agitation, in which the enemies of that impost, alter a series of parliamentary victories, found themselves most mysteriously
