where he perceived an evil, Mr. Gladstone determined to put an end to a state of things whose injustice was manifest to him, mitigated though it had been when the system of tithes was abolished in Ireland. On the 16th of March, 1868, at the close of a debate upon a series of resolutions offered by Mr. John Francis Maguire, an Irish member of Parliament, Mr. Gladstone distinctly announced his opinion that the time had come when the Irish Church as a state institution must cease to exist. All the reasons which have made the Established Church dear and precious in England as the mother of souls, the guardian of the faith, were so many arguments against her existence as a predominating power in Ireland. The poet Moore has expressed this idea in one of his poetic allegories, where a profound meaning is veiled under the impassioned elegance of the language; the Irish peasant has a mistress whom he loves, whom he serves, to whom he will remain faithful even unto death; what matter to him the splendors of the rival who would supplant her, the golden crown, the sumptuous palaces of the one he loves not? The Irishman has but one mistress, one sovereign of souls, the only powerful and positive influence over an ignorant, passionate and excitable race. The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, once persecuted and oppressed, now for many years free, and active and influential as ever, was about to be officially recognized by the English Parliament as a legitimate authority and one worthy of respect. Ireland had refused to abandon her hereditary faith, she had not become Protestant; and the missionary work that Protestant England had undertaken among the Irish population a work sustained by all the efforts of a richly-endowed National Church was henceforth to assume a different character. Protestants and Roman Catholics were henceforth to be placed upon the same footing, in a position of equality and independence; the revenues of Ireland were no longer to be employed in supporting an establishment to which

she was hostile; the religious interests of a small minority were no longer to be served at great expense, while the analogous needs of an overwhelming majority were totally neglected. Acquired rights were to be respected, all due consideration would be shown to the former order of things; but inequality was to cease, and equity was to take the place of injustice.

Such were the general outlines of the design which Mr. Gladstone unfolded in three resolutions which he presented on the 30th of March, 1868. The issue already appeared clear and the fate of the Irish Church decided, when Lord Stanley proposed an amendment, reserving for a new Parliament the right to decide upon a new question of such great importance. This seemed, on the part of the Conservatives, to be merely asking for delay. The amendment, however, was rejected, and Mr. Gladstone's first resolution was passed, some weeks later, after a discussion as brilliant as it was impassioned and violent. The defenders of an establishment in Ireland urged the danger of such a precedent, exposing to peril the English Church, so tenderly loved by so many hearts, the most solid pillar of the constitution as well as of social order. The partisans of Mr. Gladstone's resolutions maintained, on the other hand, that the Established Church in England was embarrassed and endangered by the existence of a State Church in Ireland; that she shared the reproaches and enmities justly falling upon the other; that she would be free and more powerful than ever upon her own ground when she should be relieved from a burden which dragged her down.

The success of Mr. Gladstone's measure was of a nature to bring about, and did in fact occasion, an appeal to the country. Parliament was dissolved on the 31st of July, and the general elections took place in the month of November. The great question was apparently on the subject of the disestablishment of the Irish Church; in reality, however, the more important

and underlying question to be settled was that of the supremacy of one or the other of the two great parties dividing England, the Conservatives or the Radicals of all shades. In many places, the general expectation was disappointed, and the most unexpected variations in public opinion were manifested. Lancashire, once ardently devoted to the Liberals, returned to the Tories with a zeal that cost his seat to Mr. Gladstone himself; but he had stood also for Greenwich, and was elected there. Lord Hartington, Mr. Stuart Mill, Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Milner Gibson, were all unseated. The "workingmen's candidates " were everywhere rejected, whether they were simply persons. appealing for the support of the new class of voters, or whether they appeared before the public as themselves members of that class. The purely democratic element found no favor, even among those to whom it owed its growth and power. The Liberal party made a great gain in the new Parliament. The Liberal side was represented by a class of men less advanced in their views and more moderate in their language than their predecessors had been. The majority secured to Mr. Gladstone was, however, overwhelming, and Mr. Disraeli did not attempt to enter upon a conflict. Before the session opened the queen had accepted the resignation of her Cabinet, and had intrusted Mr. Gladstone with the formation of a new ministry. All the strength of the Liberal party rallied around their illustrious chief, called into power just as he was entering his sixtieth year, ardent and vigorous in his conscientious enthusiasm as in the earliest days of his career, carried away sometimes beyond his own convictions by the rising tide of the opinions which served and supported him, and at times mastered him, unconsciously to himself.

The task Mr. Gladstone now proposed to himself, and at once announced to the new Parliament, was one which had weighed, before his time, upon the most robust shoulders. It