rse. His advisers
resolved that he should speak on a certain motion from a radical below the
gangway, to the effect that the present position of the Irish church
establishment was unsatisfactory, and called for the early attention of
the government. It is hard to imagine two propositions on the merits more
indisputable, but a parliamentary resolution is not to be judged by its
verbal contents only. Dillwyn's motion was known to mean disestablishment
and nothing less. In that view, Mr. Gladstone wrote a short but pregnant
letter to Phillimore--and this too meant disestablishment and nothing less.
It was the first tolerably definite warning of what was to be one of the
two or three greatest legislative acts of his career.

_To Robert Phillimore._

_Feb. 13, 1865._--I would treat the Irish church, as a religious
body, with the same respect and consideration as the church of
England, and would apply to it the same liberal policy as regards
its freedom of action. But I am not loyal to it as an
establishment. It exists, and is virtually almost unchallenged as
to its existence in that capacity; it may long (I cannot quite say
long may it) outlive me; I will never be a party, knowingly, to
what I may call frivolous acts of disturbance, nor to the
premature production of schemes of change: but still comes back
the refrain of my song: "_I am not loyal to it as an
Establishment._" I could not renew the votes and speeches of
thirty years back. A quarter of a century of not only fair but
exceptionally fair trial has wholly dispelled hopes to which they
had relation; and I am bound to say I look upon its present form
of existence as no more favourable to religion, in any sense of
the word, than it is to civil justice and to the contentment and
loyalty of Ireland.

Lord Palmerston got wind of the forthcoming speech, and wrote a short
admonitory note. He had heard that Mr. Gladstone was about to set forth
his views as an individual, and not as a member of the government, and
this was a distinction that he reckoned impracticable. Was it possible for
a member of a government speaking from the treasury bench so to sever
himself from the body corporate to which he belonged, as to be able to
express decided opinions as an individual, and leave himself free to act
upon different opinions, or abstain from acting on those opinions, when
required to act as a member o