had more than once risked his popularity among his countrymen by the resolute stand which he made against any agitation that tended toward rebellion. Mr. Maguire always held that the geographical situation of England and Ireland rendered a separation of the two countries impossible. He had often expressed his belief that even in the event of a war between England and some foreign Statethe American Republic, for instance-and even in the event of England's losing temporary possession of Ireland, one of the conditions of peace which the foreign Power would most freely accept would be the handing back of Ireland to Great Britain. To his mind, then, separation was a result not to be seriously thought of. But he accepted cordially the saying of Grattan, that "if the ocean forbade separation, the sea denied union." He was in favor of a domestic legislature for Ireland, and he was convinced that such a measure would be found the means of establishing a true and genial union of feeling, a friendly partnership between the two countries. Mr. Maguire was looked on with respect and confidence by all parties in England as well as in his own country. Even the Fenians, whose schemes he condemned, as he had condemned the Young Ireland movement of 1848, were willing to admit his honesty and his courage, for they found that there was no stauncher advocate in Parliament for a generous dealing with the Fenian prisoners. A speaker of remarkable power and earnestness, although occasionally too vehement of words and gesture, he was always listened to with attention in the House of Commons. It was well known that he had declined tenders of office from both of the great English parties; and it was known too that he had done this at a time when his personal interests made his refusal a considerable sacrifice. When, therefore, he invited the attention of the House of Commons to the condition of Ireland, the House knew that it was likely to have a fair and a trustworthy exposition of the subject. In the course of his speech, Mr. Maguire laid great stress upon the evil effect wrought upon Ireland by the existence of the Irish Church. He described it as "a scandalous and monstrous anomaly." During the debate Lord Mayo, then Irish Secretary, made a speech in which he threw out some hint about a policy of equalizing all religious denominations in

Ireland without sacrificing the Irish Church. He talked in a mysterious way of "levelling up, and not levelling down." It has never since been known for certain whether he was giving a hint of a scheme actually in the mind of the Government; whether he was speaking as one set up to feel his way into the opinion of the House of Commons and the public; or whether he was only following out some sudden and irresponsible speculations of his own. The words, however, produced a great effect on the House of Commons. It became evident at once that the question of the Irish Church was making itself at last a subject for the practical politician. Mr. Bright in the course of the debate strongly denounced the Irish Establishment, and enjoined the Government and all the great English parties to rise to the occasion and resolve to deal in some serious way with the condition of Ireland. Difficulties of the gravest nature he fully admitted were yet in the way, but he reminded the House, in tones of solemn and penetrating earnestness, that "to the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." But it was on the fourth night of the debate that the importance of the occasion became fully manifest. Then it was that Mr. Gladstone spoke, and declared that in his opinion the time had come when the Irish Church as a State institution must cease to exist. Then every man in the House knew that the end was near. Mr. Maguire withdrew his resolutions. The cause he had to serve was now in the hands of one who, though not surely more earnest for its success, had incomparably greater power to serve it. The Protestant garrison in Ireland was doomed. There was probably not a single Englishman capable of forming an opinion who did not know that, from the moment when Mr. Gladstone made his declaration, the fall of the Irish State Church had become merely a question of time. Men only waited to see how Mr. Gladstone would proceed to procure its fall.

Public expectation was not long kept in suspense. A few days after the debate on Mr. Maguire's motion, Mr. Gladstone gave notice of a series of resolutions on the subject of the Irish State Church. The resolutions were three in number. The first declared that in the opinion of the House of Commons it was necessary that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an Establishment, due re

gard being had to all personal interests and to all individual rights of property. The second resolution pronounced it expedient to prevent the creation of new personal interests by the exercise of any public patronage; and the third asked for an address to the Queen, praying that her Majesty would place at the disposal of Parliament her interest in the temporalities of the Irish Church. The object of these resolutions was simply to prepare for the actual disestablishment of the Church, by providing that no further appointments should be made, and that the action of patronage should be stayed until Parliament should decide the fate of the whole institution. On March 30th, 1868, Mr. Gladstone proposed his resolutions. Not many persons could have had much doubt as to the result of the debate. But if there were any such, their doubts must have begun to vanish when they read the notice of amendment to the resolutions which was given by Lord Stanley. The amendment proclaimed even more surely than the resolutions the impending fall of the Irish Church. Lord Stanley must have been supposed to speak in the name of the Government and the Conservative party; and his amendment merely declared that the House, while admitting that considerable modifications in the temporalities of the Church in Ireland might appear to be expedient, was of opinion "that any proposition tending to the disestablishment or disendowment of that Church ought to be reserved for the decision of the new Parliament." Mr. Gladstone seized on the evidence offered by the terms of such an amendment. He observed that, before the hour at which notice was given of that amendment, he had thought the thread of the remaining life of the Irish Established Church was short, but since the notice was given he thought it shorter still. For, as Mr. Gladstone put it, suppose his resolutions had been declarations calling for the abolition of the House of Lords, was it possible to conceive that the Government would have met them by an amendment admitting that the constitution of the Upper House might appear to stand in need of considerable modification, but offering the opinion that any proposal tending to the abolition of that House ought to be left to the decision of a new Parliament? If such an amendment were offered by the Government, the whole country would at once understand that

it was not intended to defend the existence of the House of Lords. So the country now understood with regard to the Irish Church. Lord Stanley's amendment asked only for delay. It did not plead that to-morrow would be sudden; it only asked that the stroke of doom should not be allowed to fall on the Irish Church to-day.

The debate was one of great power and interest. Some of the speakers were heard at their very best. Mr. Bright made a speech which was well worthy of the occasion and the orator. Mr. Gathorne Hardy was in his very element. He flung aside all consideration of amendment, compromise, or delay, and went in for a vehement defence of the Irish Church. He spoke in the spirit of M. Rouher's famous Jamais! Mr. Hardy was not a debater of keen logical power nor an orator of genuine inspiration, but he always could rattle a defiant drum with excellent effect. He beat the war-drum this time with tremendous energy. On the other hand, Mr. Lowe threw an intensity of bitterness, remarkable even for him, into the unsparing logic with which he assailed the Irish Church. That Church, he said, was "like an exotic brought from a far country, tended with infinite pains and useless trouble. It is kept alive with the greatest difficulty and at great expense, in an ungenial climate and an ungrateful soil: The curse of barrenness is upon it. It has no leaves, puts forth no blossom, and yields no fruit. Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" Not the least remarkable speech of the debate was that made by Lord Cranbourne, who denounced the Government of which he was not long since a member with an energy of hatred almost like ferocity. He accused his late colleagues of having in every possible way betrayed the cause of Conservatism, and he assailed Mr. Disraeli personally in a manner which made older members think of the days when Mr. Disraeli was denouncing Sir Robert Peel. No eloquence and no invective, however, could stay the movement begun by Mr. Gladstone. When the division was called, there were 331 votes for the resolutions and only 270 against them. The doom of the Irish Church was pronounced by a majority of 61. Mr. Disraeli made a wild effort, by speech and by letter, to get up an alarm in the country on the score of some imaginary alliance or conspiracy between

"High-Church Ritualists" and "Irish Romanists." The attempt was a complete failure; there was only a little flash; no explosion came. The country did not show the slightest alarm. An interval was afforded for agitation on both sides. The House of Commons had only decided against Lord Stanley's amendment. Mr. Gladstone's resolutions had yet to be discussed. Lord Russell presided at a great meeting held in St. James's Hall for the purpose of expressing public sympathy with the movement to disestablish the Irish Church. Many meetings were held by those on the other side of the question as well; but it was obvious to every one that there was no great force in the attempt at a defence of the Irish Church. That institution had in truth a position which only became less and less defensible the more it was studied. Every example and argument drawn from the history of the Church of England was but another condemnation of the Church of Ireland. During one of the subsequent debates in the House of Lords, Lord Derby introduced with remarkable effect an appropriate quotation from Scott's "Guy Mannering." He was warning his listeners that if they helped the enemies of the Irish Church to pull it down, they would be preparing the way for the destruction of the English Church as well. He turned to that striking passage in "Guy Mannering" where Meg Merriles confronts the Laird of Ellangowan, after the eviction of the gypsies, and warns him that "this day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths see if the fire in your ain parlor burn the blyther for that; ye have riven the thack off seven cottar houses-look if your ain roof-tree stand the faster." Nothing could be more apt as a political appeal, or more effective in a rhetorical sense, than this quotation. But it did not illustrate the relations between the English and the Irish Church. The real danger to the English Church would have been a protracted and obstinate maintenance of the Church of Ireland. It is not necessary here to enter upon any of the general arguments for or against the principle of a State Church. But it will be admitted by every one that the claim made on behalf of the Church of England is that it is the Church of the great majority of the English people, and that it has a spiritual work to do which the majority of the nation admit to be its appropriate task.