Daubeny. Mr. Turnbull, the great Radical, and, perhaps, some two
dozen with him, would support the second reading, declaring that they
could not reconcile it with their consciences to record a vote in
favour of a union of Church and State. On all such occasions as the
present Mr. Turnbull was sure to make himself disagreeable to those
who sat near to him in the House. He was a man who thought that so
much was demanded of him in order that his independence might be
doubted by none. It was nothing to him, he was wont to say, who
called himself Prime Minister, or Secretary here, or President there.
But then there would be quite as much of this independence on the
Conservative as on the Liberal side of the House. Surely there would
be more than two dozen gentlemen who would be true enough to the
cherished principles of their whole lives to vote against such a Bill
as this! It was the fact that there were so very few so true which
added such a length to the faces of the country parsons. Six months
ago not a country gentleman in England would have listened to such a
proposition without loud protests as to its revolutionary wickedness.
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