The Old and the Young.—“There is something immoral about Parliaments,”—so many people still think,—“for in them views even against the Government may be expressed.”—“We should always adopt that view of a subject which our gracious Lord commands,”—this is the eleventh commandment in many an honest old head, especially in Northern Germany. We laugh at it as an out-of-date fashion, but in former times it was the moral law itself. Perhaps we shall again some day laugh at that which is now considered as moral by a generation brought up under a parliamentary rÉgime, namely, the policy of placing one's party before one's own wisdom, and of answering every question concerning the public welfare in such a way as to fill the sails of the party with a favourable gust of wind. “We must take that view of a subject which the position of our party calls for”—such would be the canon. In the service of such morals we may now behold every kind of sacrifice, even martyrdom and conquest over one's self. |