Coningsby | Page 2

the Tory party to be the
popular political confederation of the country; a purpose which he had,
more or less, pursued from a very early period of life. The occasion was
favourable to the attempt. The youthful mind of England had just
recovered from the inebriation of the great Conservative triumph of
1841, and was beginning to inquire what, after all, they had conquered
to preserve. It was opportune, therefore, to show that Toryism was not a
phrase, but a fact; and that our political institutions were the
embodiment of our popular necessities. This the writer endeavoured to
do without prejudice, and to treat of events and characters of which he
had some personal experience, not altogether without the impartiality
of the future.
It was not originally the intention of the writer to adopt the form of
fiction as the instrument to scatter his suggestions, but, after reflection,
he resolved to avail himself of a method which, in the temper of the
times, offered the best chance of influencing opinion.
In considering the Tory scheme, the author recognised in the CHURCH
the most powerful agent in the previous development of England, and
the most efficient means of that renovation of the national spirit at
which he aimed. The Church is a sacred corporation for the
promulgation and maintenance in Europe of certain Asian principles,
which, although local in their birth, are of divine origin, and of
universal and eternal application.
In asserting the paramount character of the ecclesiastical polity and the
majesty of the theocratic principle, it became necessary to ascend to the
origin of the Christian Church, and to meet in a spirit worthy of a
critical and comparatively enlightened age, the position of the
descendants of that race who were the founders of Christianity. The
modern Jews had long laboured under the odium and stigma of
mediaeval malevolence. In the dark ages, when history was unknown,
the passions of societies, undisturbed by traditionary experience, were
strong, and their convictions, unmitigated by criticism, were
necessarily fanatical. The Jews were looked upon in the middle ages as
an accursed race, the enemies of God and man, the especial foes of
Christianity. No one in those days paused to reflect that Christianity
was founded by the Jews; that its Divine Author, in his human capacity,

was a descendant of King David; that his doctrines avowedly were the
completion, not the change, of Judaism; that the Apostles and the
Evangelists, whose names men daily invoked, and whose volumes they
embraced with reverence, were all Jews; that the infallible throne of
Rome itself was established by a Jew; and that a Jew was the founder
of the Christian Churches of Asia.
The European nations, relatively speaking, were then only recently
converted to a belief in Moses and in Christ; and, as it were, still
ashamed of the wild deities whom they had deserted, they thought they
atoned for their past idolatry by wreaking their vengeance on a race to
whom, and to whom alone, they were indebted for the Gospel they
adored.
In vindicating the sovereign right of the Church of Christ to be the
perpetual regenerator of man, the writer thought the time had arrived
when some attempt should be made to do justice to the race which had
founded Christianity.
The writer has developed in another work ('Tancred') the views
respecting the great house of Israel which he first intimated in
'Coningsby.' No one has attempted to refute them, nor is refutation
possible; since all he has done is to examine certain facts in the truth of
which all agree, and to draw from them irresistible conclusions which
prejudice for a moment may shrink from, but which reason cannot
refuse to admit.
D. GROSVENOR GATE: May 1894.

CONINGSBY
BOOK I.


CHAPTER I.
It was a bright May morning some twelve years ago, when a youth of
still tender age, for he had certainly not entered his teens by more than
two years, was ushered into the waiting-room of a house in the vicinity
of St. James's Square, which, though with the general appearance of a
private residence, and that too of no very ambitious character, exhibited
at this period symptoms of being occupied for some public purpose.

The house-door was constantly open, and frequent guests even at this
early hour crossed the threshold. The hall-table was covered with
sealed letters; and the hall-porter inscribed in a book the name of every
individual who entered.
The young gentleman we have mentioned found himself in a room
which offered few resources for his amusement. A large table amply
covered with writing materials, and a few chairs, were its sole furniture,
except the grey drugget that covered the floor, and a muddy mezzotinto
of the Duke of Wellington that adorned its cold walls.