There was nothing illegal in the election of a Jew, but
he was virtually precluded from taking his seat in the House of Commons,
because the law required every member to subscribe not only to the
Christian religion, but to the Protestant Episcopal faith. To obviate
this difficulty, Lord John Russell, soon after Parliament assembled,
offered a resolution affirming the eligibility of Jews to all functions
and offices to which Roman Catholics were admissible by law. Sir R.H.
Inglis opposed the resolution and Mr. Gladstone, his colleague,
supported it.
Mr. Gladstone inquired whether there were any grounds for the
disqualification of the Jews which distinguished them from any other
classes in the community. They contended for a "Christian Parliament,
but the present measure did not make severance between politics and
religion, it only amounted to a declaration that there was no necessity
for excluding a Jew, as such, from an assembly in which every man felt
sure that a vast and overwhelming majority of its members would always
be Christian. It was said that by admitting a few Jews they would
un-Christianize Parliament; that was true in word, but not in
substance." He had no doubt that the majority of the members who
composed it would always perform their obligations on the true faith of
a Christian.
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