.

Let us now briefly glance at the work done by Gladstone during the five
years when in his first premiership he directed the public affairs of
England,--impatient of opposition, and sensitive to unjust aspersions,
yet too powerful to be resisted in the supreme confidence of his party.

The first thing of note he did was to complete the disestablishment of
the Irish Church,--an arduous task to any one lacking Mr. Gladstone's
extraordinary influence. Here he was at war with his former friends, and
with a large section of the Conservative party,--especially with
ecclesiastical dignitaries, who saw in this measure hostility to the
Church as well as a national sin. It was a dissolution of the union
between the Churches of England and Ireland; a divestment of the
temporalities which the Irish clergy had enjoyed; the abolition of all
ecclesiastical corporations and laws and courts in Ireland,--in short,
the sweeping away of the annuities which the beneficed clergy had
hitherto received out of the property of the Established Church, which
annuities were of the nature of freeholds. It was not proposed to
deprive the clergy of their income, so long as they discharged their
clerical duties; but that the title to their tithes should be vested in
commissioners, so that these church freeholds could not be bought and
sold by non-residents, and churches in decadence should be taken from
incumbents. The peerage rights of Irish bishops were also taken away. It
was not proposed to touch private endowments; and glebe-houses which had
become generally dilapidated were handed over to incumbents by their
paying a fair valuation. Not only did the measure sweep away the abuses
of the Establishment which had existed for centuries,--such as
endowments held by those who performed no duties, which they could
dispose of like other property,--but the _regium donum_ given to
Presbyterian ministers and the Maynooth Catholic College grant, which
together amounted to L70,000, were also withdrawn, although compensated
on the same principles as those which granted a settled stipend to the
actual incumbents of the disestablished churches.

By this measure, the withdrawal of tithes and land rents and other
properties amounted to sixteen millions; and after paying ministers and
actual incumbents their stipends of between seven or eight millions,
there would remain a surplus of seven or eight millions, with which Mr.
Gladstone proposed to endow lunatic and