ditch. The legislative task itself was in complexity
and detail, apart from religious passion and the prejudice of race,
gigantic.

Having once decided upon this bold campaign, Mr. Gladstone entered upon it
with military promptitude, and pursued it with an intrepidity all his own
among the statesmen of his day, and not surpassed by Pym in 1640, nor
Chatham in 1758, nor Chatham's son in 1783, nor anybody else in days gone
by. Within a week of this historic trumpet-blast, he gave notice of three
resolutions to the effect that the established church of Ireland should
cease to exist as an establishment. Attendant and consequential changes
were appended. Within a week of giving notice, he opened the first
resolution, and carried the preliminary motion by a majority of 61. The
cheering at this demonstration of a united and victorious party was
prodigious, both within the House and in Westminster Hall, and an
enthusiastic crowd followed the leader and his two sons as they walked
home to Carlton House Terrace. "This," he wrote to the Duchess of
Sutherland, "is a day of excitement--almost of exultation. We have made a
step, nay a stride, and this stride is on the pathway of justice, and of
peace, and of national honour and renown."(169)

(M73) The first resolution was carried (April 30) by a majority of 65, and
a week later the second and third went through without a division. Mr.
Disraeli fought his battle with much steadiness, but did not go beyond a
dilatory amendment. If Mr. Gladstone had old deliverances to reconcile
with new policy, so had his tory antagonist. Disraeli was reminded of that
profound and brilliant oracle of 1844, when he had described the root of
mischief in Ireland as a weak executive, an absentee aristocracy, and an
alien church. He wasted little time in trying to explain why the alien
church now found in him its champion. "Nobody listened," he said, "at that
time. It seemed to me that I was pouring water upon sand, but it seems now
that the water came from a golden goblet." The sentiment may have been
expressed, he said, "with the heedless rhetoric which, I suppose, is the
appanage of all who sit below the gangway; but in my historical
conscience, the sentiment of that speech was right." The prime minister
did not escape taunts from those in his own camp who thought themselves
betrayed by him upon reform the year before. He repaid the taunts by
sarcasm. He told Lord Cranborne that there was vigour in his