Fitzgibbon, when these words had
been whispered to him by Mr. Bonteen, had hardly understood them;
but it had been explained to him that his friend had meant "men,
not measures." When Parliament met, Mr. Gresham, the leader of the
Liberal party, had not as yet expressed any desire to his general
followers.

The Queen's Speech was read, and the one paragraph which seemed
to possess any great public interest was almost a repetition of
the words which Mr. Daubeny had spoken to the electors of East
Barsetshire. "It will probably be necessary for you to review the
connection which still exists between, and which binds together, the
Church and the State." Mr. Daubeny's words had of course been more
fluent, but the gist of the expression was the same. He had been
quite in earnest when addressing his friends in the country.
And though there had been but an interval of a few weeks, the
Conservative party in the two Houses heard the paragraph read
without surprise and without a murmur. Some said that the gentlemen
on the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons did not look to be
comfortable. Mr. Daubeny sat with his hat over his brow, mute,
apparently impassive and unapproachable, during the reading of
the Speech and the moving and seconding of the Address. The House
was very full, and there was much murmuring on the side of the
Opposition;--but from the Government benches hardly a sound was
heard, as a young gentleman, from one of the Midland counties, in
a deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who had hitherto been known for no
particular ideas of his own, but had been believed to be at any rate
true to the Church, explained, not in very clear language, that the
time had at length come when the interests of religion demanded a
wider support and a fuller sympathy than could be afforded under that
system of Church endowment and State establishment for which the
country had hitherto been so grateful, and for which the country
had such boundless occasion for gratitude. Another gentleman, in
the uniform of the Guards, seconded the Address, and declared that
in nothing was the sagacity of a Legislature so necessary as in
discerning the period in which that which had hitherto been good
ceased to be serviceable. The _status pupillaris_ was mentioned, and
it was understood that he had implied that England was now old enough
to go on in matters of religion without a tutor in the shape of a
State Church.

Who makes the speeches, absolutely puts