had never interfered with the ambition or the success of Mr.
Disraeli, who at a very early age had become a member of the
Christian Church. But his sympathies had never been alienated from
the own people, with whom indeed he had always proudly identified
himself by bold assertion of their manifold superiority. There are
still, undoubtedly, persons in this country whose convictions lead
them to think it anything but a wholesome change which has admitted
among our legislators men, however able and worthy, who disclaim the
name of _Christian_. But the change was brought about by the
conviction, which has steadily deepened among us, that oppression of
those of a different faith from our own, either by direct severities
or by the withholding of civil rights, is a singularly poor weapon of
conversion, and that the adversaries of Christianity are more likely
to be conciliated by being dealt with in a Christlike spirit;
further, that religious opinion may not be treated as a crime,
without violation of God's justice. On the point as to the claim of
_irreligious_ opinion to similar consideration, the national feeling
cannot be called equally unanimous. In the case of the English Jews,
it may be said that the tolerant and equal conduct adopted towards
them has been well requited; the ancient people of God are not here,
as in lands where they are trampled and trodden down, an offence and
a trouble, the cause of repeated violent disturbance and the object
of a frenzied hate, always deeply hurtful to those who entertain it.

Other changes and other incidents that now occurred engrossed a
greater share of the public attention than this measure of relief.
The rapid march of events in Italy had been watched with eager
interest, divided partly by certain ugly outbreaks of Turkish
fanaticism in Syria, and by our proceedings in the Ionian islands,
which finally resulted in the quiet transfer of those isles to the