John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

EXAMPLES OF WIT. 1 85
The powerful adjunct of Wit was hardly within his reach,
any more than rhetorical display in general. He had the sense
of humour, but not a sufficient creative power to embody it in
writing ; and he was careful not to attempt what he could not
do well. I can recall but one example of real Wit such as
might have come from Sydney Smith or Fonblanque.
In his article on Corporation and Church Property, he replies
to the stock arguments against diverting old foundations. He
makes full allowance for compensation to present holders of
life interests. Still this does not appease the opposition :
"
Would you rob the Church ? it is asked. And at the
sound of these words rise up images of rapine, violence,
plunder ;
and .every sentiment of repugnance which would be
excited by a proposal to take away from an individual the
earnings of his toil or the inheritance of his fathers, comes
heightened in the particular case by the added idea of sacrilege.
"
But the Church ! Who is the Church ? Who is it that
we desire to rob ? Who are the persons whose property,
whose rights we are proposing to take away ?
" Not the clergy ; from them we do not propose to take
anything. To every man who now benefits by the endowment,
we have said that we would leave his entire income ; at least
until the State shall offer, as the purchase money of his services
in some other shape, advantages which he himself shall regard
as equivalent.
"
But if not the clergy, surely we are not proposing to rob
the : laity on the contrary, they are robbed now, if the fact be,
that the application of the money to its is
present purpose no
longer advisable. We are exhorting the laity to claim their
property out of the hands of the clergy; who are not the
Church, but only the managing members of the association.
"
Qui trompe-t-on id ? asks Figaro. Qui vole-t-on id ? may
well be asked. What man, woman, or child, is the victim of
this robbery? Who suffers by the robbery when everybody
robs nobody ? But though no man, woman, or child is robbed,