"ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 96, 17 January 1919, Page 2

"ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS"

Mr. Asquith, speaking in the-Shel-donian Theatre in Oxford,, presented bis listeners with a picture of Israeli's appearance when, in 1864, lie spoke "in this very theatre where- we are assembled to-day.*' The ostensible purpose of the mooting "was'," Mr. Asquith says, "to ndvooate the claims of a society for endowing small livings.' Soma weeks before the bisliop had invited tho attendance of Mr. Disraeli —then leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons—in the character of an eminent layman of the diocese. Tho appointed day • (it was in .the month of November) arrived: tho theatre was packed: tho bishop ivas in tho chair. Air. Disraoli, attired (as we aro tojd) in a black velvet' jacket and a light-coloured'waistcoat, with a billycock-hat in his hands,' sauntered in, as if lie were paying a surprise- visit- to a farmers' ordinary. At the request of the chairman, he got to his feet, and proceeded to deliver/: with that superb nonchalance in which' •ho was unrivalled among the oratorsof bis day, one of his most carefully prepared and most effective speeches, indeed, among all his speeches, leaving aside his .prolonged duel with Sir Robert Peel in tho 'forties, I myself should select it as the one. which best displays his characteristic powers, and their equally characteristic limitations, irony, invective, boundless audacity of thought and phrase, the thrill or the' shock when least expected, a brooding impression of something whioh is neither exactly sentiment nor exactly imagination hut has a touch of both, a glittering rhetoric, constantly hover- ! ■ing over tho thin boundary line which divides eloquence and' bombast. First ho pulverised, to the complete satisfaction of the supporters of better endowed small livings, the broad church party of tho day and its leaders: Stan--.ley, ■ Jowett, Maurice, and the rest. Then came the magniloquent epigram, 'Man, my Lord, is a being born to believe.' And, finally, he proceeded to..' dispose, of Darwin' and his school. 'What,' ho asked, 'is the question now placed boforo society with glib'assuranco tho most astounding? The question is this—ls man ail ape or an' angel? My, Lord, I am on the side of tho Angels.' There was nothing more to bo said. Tho •mooting broke up, their faith reassured, their enthusiasm ■unrestrained. There had been no victory so complete since 'Coxcombo vanquished Berkeley with a grin.'"