e in every twelve of the whole population could
be claimed as a worshipper in the temples maintained and endowed by
law. Moreover, the Irish State Church was a badge of conquest, and was
{217} regarded as such by the whole Celtic population of the island.
The tithe exacted from the Irish Catholic farmer was not merely a
tribute exacted by the conqueror, but was also a brand of degradation
on the faith and on the nationality of the Irish Celt who was called
upon to meet the demand. The student of history will note with some
interest that, at a day much nearer to our own, the Lord Stanley whose
name we shall presently have to bring up in connection with this debate
on Mr. Ward's motion made use, in the House of Lords, of an appeal
which suggested the idea that he had not heard or had forgotten George
Grote's speech on which we have just been making comment. Not very
long before his death Lord Derby, as he had then become, was declaiming
in the House of Lords against the proposal to disestablish the Irish
State Church, and he warned the House that if the fabric of the Irish
Church were to be touched by a destroying hand it would be in vain to
hope that the destruction of the English State Church could long be
averted. [Sidenote: 1834--Lord Derby] Lord Derby had always a very
happy gift of quotation, and he made on this occasion a striking
allusion. He reminded the House of that thrilling scene in Scott's
"Guy Mannering" where the gypsy woman suddenly presents herself on the
roadside to the elder, the Laird of Ellangowan and some of his friends,
and, complaining of the eviction of her own people from their
homesteads, bids the gentlefolk take care that their own roof-trees are
not put in danger by what they had done. Lord Derby made use of this
passage as a warning to the prelates and peers of England that, if they
allowed the Irish State Church to be disestablished, the statelier
fabric of their own Church in England might suffer by the example. It
was pointed out at the time, by some of those who commented on Lord
Derby's speech, that George Grote had answered this argument by
unconscious anticipation, and had shown that the best security of the
English State Church was the fact that it rested on a foundation
totally different from that of the State Church in Ireland.

The Government were greatly embarrassed by all this {218} discussion as
to the condition, the work, and the character of the Establishment in
Irela