Hugh Cecil as a belated upholder of exploded superstitions; as
an "ecclesiastical layman" (the phrase was meant to be sarcastic)
who lived in a realm of speculative theology, out of touch with
all practical life; as a zealot, a bigot, a would-be persecutor;
an interesting survival of the Middle Age; a monk who had strayed
into politics. To-day we salute him as the one Member of Parliament
who has had the courage to affirm the supremacy of the moral law,
and to assert the imperious claim which Christianity makes on the
whole of man's being.




II

_THE JEWISH REGIMENT_

It was an old and a true allegation against John Bull that he had
no tact in dealing with other races than his own. He did not mean
to be unjust or unfair, but he trampled on the sensitiveness, which
he could not understand. In Ireland he called the Roman Catholic
faith "a lie and a heathenish superstition"; or, in a lighter mood,
made imbecile jokes about pigs and potatoes. In Scotland, thriftiness
and oatmeal were the themes of his pleasantry; in Wales, he found
the language, the literature, and the local nomenclature equally
comic, and reserved his loudest guffaw for the Eisteddfod. Abroad,
"Foreigners don't wash" was the all-embracing formula. Nasality,
Bloomerism, and Dollars epitomized his notion of American civilization;
and he cheerfully echoed the sentiments