Part 3

Moreover, it was a duty, from my point of view, completely to exhaust every chance on behalf of the Irish Church. I have not been disposed, at any time of life, gratuitously to undertake agitation of the most difficult, and at times apparently the most hopeless questions. At the period of the Appropriation Clause, I represented to myself, and I believe to others, that the true power of the Church as a religious engine had never up to that period been fairly tried. In name a religious institution, her influences, her benefices, her sees, were commonly employed for purposes, which we must condemn as secular, even if they had not been utterly _anti-national_. Only within a few, a very few years, had her clergy even begun to bestir themselves; and they had forthwith found that, from the unsettled state of the law of tithe, they were in the midst of an agitation, both menacing to public order, and even perilous to life. I was desirous to see what, after person and property should have been rendered secure, and a peaceful atmosphere restored, a generation of pious and zealous men could accomplish in their actual position. I am still of the opinion that thirty-five years ago the religion of the Irish Church had not--to her and to our shame be it spoken--had fair play. From the days of Elizabeth downwards, with the rarest exceptions, the worldly element had entirely outweighed the religious one (whatever the intention may have been) in the actual working of the ecclesiastical institutions of Ireland. Mr. Burke has immortalised the burning shame and the hideous scandals of those penal laws which, perhaps for the first time in the history of Christendom if not of man, aimed at persecuting men out of one religion, but not at persecuting them into another. I will not be so rash as to enter on the field--

"Per quem magnus equos Auruncæ flexit alumnus."

But the time of awakening had come. The Irish Church had grown conscious that she had a Gospel to declare. Even with my present opinions I might feel a scruple as to the measures now proposed, but for the resistless and accumulated proof of impotence afforded by the experience of my life-time, and due, I believe, to a radically false position. For the Irish Church has, since the tithe war of 1830-2 came to an end, had not only fair play--that is such fair play as in Ireland the Establishment allows to the Church--but fair play and something more. She has enjoyed an opportunity, extending over a generation of men, with circumstances of favour such as can hardly be expected to recur. What has been her case? She has had ample endowments; perfect security; an almost unbroken freedom from the internal controversies which have chastened (though, in chastening, I believe improved) the Church of England. The knowledge of the Irish language has been extensively-attained by her clergy.[10] She has had all the moral support that could be given her by the people of this country; for it was the people, and not a mere party, who, in 1835-8, repudiated and repelled the Appropriation Clause. Her rival, the Church of Rome, has seen its people borne down to the ground by famine; and then thinned from year to year, in hundreds of thousands, by the resistless force of emigration. And, last and most of all, in the midst of that awful visitation of 1847-8, her Protestant Clergy came to the Roman Catholic people clad in the garb of angels of light; for, besides their own bounty (most liberal, I believe, in proportion to their means), they became the grand almoners of the British nation. When, after all this, we arrive at a new census of religion in 1861, we find that only the faintest impression has been made upon the relative numbers of the two bodies; an impression much slighter, I apprehend, than would have been due to the comparative immunity of the Established Church from the drain of emigration; and, if so, representing in reality, not a gain, but a virtual loss of some part of the narrow ground which before was occupied by the favoured religion of the State.

Like others, I have watched with interest the results of those missionary operations in the West of Ireland which have, perhaps, been construed as of a greater ulterior significance than really belongs to them. They were, I understand, due not so much to the Established Church, as to religious bodies in this country, which expend large funds in Ireland for the purpose of making converts: an operation in which the Presbyterians and Protestant Dissenters lend their aid. Let them not be undervalued. But I, for one, recollect that this is not the first time when local and occasional inroads have been successfully effected by Protestants upon the serried phalanx of the Roman Church in Ireland, and have been mistaken for signs of permanent or a general conquest. More than forty years ago, Bishop Blomfield--no mean authority--prophesied or announced, in the House of Lords, that a second Reformation had then begun. And there had indeed taken place in Ireland at that time one, if not more than one, instance of conversions on a large scale to the Established Church, such as was well calculated to excite sanguine anticipations, though they were dispelled by subsequent experience. I think we ought now to perceive that the annexation of the warrant of civil authority to the religious embassy of the Irish Church, discredits in lieu of recommending it in the view of the Irish people. I do not mean that we are to put down the Establishment for the sake of a more effective propagandism. We must not for a moment forget that civil justice, an adaptation of the state of things in Ireland to the essential principles of political right, is that one broad and more than sufficient justification of the measure, in which all its advocates agree. But, over and above this, they may also agree in reflecting with satisfaction that the time is about to come when in Ireland, in lieu of a system which insults the religion of the majority and makes that of the minority powerless, creeds will compete upon the level, and will thrive according to their merits. Nor will they be offended with one another when, in the anticipation of such a state of things, each man who has faith in freedom, faith in justice, faith in truth, anticipates a harvest of benefit for his own.

The emancipation thus effected from the net in which I had been bound was soon after tested. In 1846, it was suggested to me that I should oppose a member of the newly-formed Government of Lord John Russell. In my reply, declining the proposal, I wrote thus: "As to the Irish Church, I am not able to go to war with them on the ground that they will not pledge themselves to the maintenance of the existing appropriation of Church property in Ireland." This, however, was a private proceeding. But, early in 1847, Mr. Estcourt announced his resignation of the seat he had held, amidst universal respect, for the University of Oxford. The partiality of friends proposed me as a candidate. The representation of that University was, I think, stated by Mr. Canning to be to him the most coveted prize of political life. I am not ashamed to own that I desired it with an almost passionate fondness. For besides all the associations it maintained and revived, it was in those days an honour not only given without solicitation, but, when once given, not withdrawn.[11] The contest was conducted with much activity, and some heat. I was, naturally enough, challenged as to my opinions on the Established Church of Ireland. My friend Mr. Coleridge, then young, but already distinguished, was one of my most active and able supporters. He has borne spontaneous testimony, within the last few weeks, to the manner in which the challenge was met:--

"Gentlemen, I must be permitted--because an attack has been made upon Mr. Gladstone, and it has been suggested that his conversion to his present principles is recent--to mention what is within my own knowledge and experience with regard to him. In 1847, when I was just leaving Oxford, I had the great honour of being secretary to his first election committee for that university, and I well recollect how, upon that occasion, some older and more moderate supporters were extremely anxious to draw from him some pledge that he should stand by the Irish Church. He distinctly refused to pledge himself to anything of the kind."[12]

The next Parliamentary occasion, after the Maynooth Grant, which brought prominently into view the ecclesiastical arrangements of Ireland, was that of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill in 1851. I felt bound, as one of a very small minority, but in cordial agreement with the chief surviving associates of Sir Robert Peel, to offer all the opposition in my power, not only to the clauses by which the party then called Protectionist, and now Tory, Conservative, or Constitutionalist, endeavoured to sharpen the sting of the measure, but to the substance of the measure itself. I may be permitted to observe, that for the representative of the University of Oxford thus to set himself against the great bulk of the Liberal as well as the Conservative party, whatever else it may have been, was not a servile or a self-seeking course. But this is irrelevant. It is more to the present purpose to observe that, in resisting this measure, I did not attempt to mitigate the offence by any profession of adhesion in principle to the maintenance of the Established Church of Ireland; but I spoke as follows:--

"We cannot change the profound and resistless tendencies of the age towards religious liberty. It is our business to guide and control their application. Do this you may. But to endeavour to turn them backwards is the sport of children, done by the hands of men; and every effort you may make in that direction will recoil upon you in disaster and disgrace."[13]

The years flowed on. From 1846 forwards, the controversy of Free Trade was, as a rule, the commanding and absorbing controversy, the pole of political affairs. But from time to time motions were made in relation to the Established Church of Ireland. That question remained as one asleep, but whose sleep is haunted with uneasy dreams. These motions were, as far as I remember them, uniformly of a narrow and partial character. They aimed at what is called getting in the thin end of the wedge. All honour, however, to each one of those who made them. The mover of any such proposal was _vox clamantis in deserto_. The people of England had, in 1835-8, settled the matter for the time. The reproaches now made against the older leaders and the body of the Liberal party for not having seriously entered the struggle, appear to me to be not only unjust but even preposterous. The Legislature had other great subjects to deal with, besides the Irish Church. Four years of deadly conflict on such a matter might well be followed by five times four of repose. But in the mean time individuals, by their partial and occasional efforts, bore witness to a principle broader than any which they formally announced. That principle--the application of a true religious equality to Ireland--was biding its time.

No one, in my opinion, was bound to assert, by speech or vote, any decisive opinion upon so great and formidable a question until he should think, upon a careful survey of the ground and the time, of the assisting and opposing forces, that the season for action had come. The motions actually made were commonly motions for inquiry, or motions aimed generally at a change. I did not enter into the debates. When I voted, I voted against them; and against such motions, if they were made, I should vote again.

I now arrive at the Government of 1859-65. He who has slept long is likely soon to wake. After the Free Trade struggles of 1860 and 1861 were over, so it was, I thought, with the question of the Irish Church. There was a lull in political affairs. They hung, in a great degree, upon a single life--the remarkable life of Lord Palmerston. It was surely right to think a little of the future. The calm was certain to be succeeded by a breeze, if not a gale. It was too plain to me that the inner disposition of Ireland, relatively to this country, was not improving; and that, in the course of years, more or fewer, the question of the Irish Church was certain to revive, and, if it should revive, probably to be carried to a final issue. My first thought, under these circumstances, was about my constituents. Anxiously occupied in other matters, I did not give my nights and days to the question of the Irish Church. Yet the question continually flitted, as it were, before me; and I felt that, before that question arose in a practical shape, my relation to the University should be considered, and its Convocation distinctly apprised that at the proper time it would be my duty to support very extensive changes in the Irish Church. My valued friend, Sir R. Palmer, has done me the favour, of his own motion, to state in public that I then apprised him of my state of mind:--

"There had been people who had said, 'You would never have heard anything about the Irish Church question from Mr. Gladstone if the Tories had not been in power, and he had not wanted to get their place.' (Hear, hear.) To his certain knowledge that was not true. He could mention what had taken place between Mr. Gladstone and himself, and he did so the rather because it did justice to him, and would show them that his own mind had been particularly addressed to that subject, to which he had paid some degree of attention some years before the present time. In the year 1863, at a time when no one was bringing forward this question, or seemed very likely to do so, Mr. Gladstone had told him privately that he had made up his mind on the subject, and that he should not be able to keep himself from giving public expression to his feelings. How far or near that might be practicable, he could not foresee; but, under the circumstances, he wanted his friends connected with the University of Oxford to consider whether or not they would desire for that reason a change in the representation of the University."[14] #/

Partly because I felt that this question might come to the front, and partly because I saw a manifest determination in a portion of the Academical constituency to press my friends with incessant contests, of which I was unwilling to be the hero, I was not indisposed to retire without compulsion from the seat, if it could have been done without obvious detriment to the principles on which I had been returned. This was judged to be uncertain. Consequently, I remained. But in 1865, on the motion of Mr. Dillwyn, I made a speech, in which I declared that present action was impossible, that at any period immense difficulties would have to be encountered, but that this was "the question of the future." I stated strongly, though summarily, some of the arguments against the Church as it stood. I entirely abstained from advising or glancing at the subject of mere reform, and I did not use one word from which it could be inferred that I desired it to continue in its place as the National or Established Church of the country.

My speech was immediately denounced by Mr. (now Chief Justice) Whiteside, as one intended to be fatal to the Established Church of Ireland when an opportunity should arise;[15] and I am told that my opponents in the University circulated my speech among their portion of the constituency (as I think they were quite justified in doing) to my prejudice. My friends, however, stood by me, and resolved to contend for the seat. An application was made to me by a distinguished scholar, divine, and teacher, the Warden of Trinity College, Glenalmond, to give certain explanations for the appeasing of doubts. I did so in the following letter:--

"11, Carlton House Terrace, S.W., June 8, 1865.

"DEAR DR. HANNAH,

"It would be very difficult for me to subscribe to _any_ interpretation of my speech on the Irish Church like that of your correspondent, which contains so many conditions and bases of a plan for dealing with a question apparently remote, and at the same time full of difficulties on every side. My reasons are, I think, plain. First, because the question is remote, and apparently out of all bearing on the practical politics of the day, I think it would be for me worse than superfluous to determine upon any scheme or basis of a scheme with respect to it. Secondly, because it is difficult, even if I anticipated any likelihood of being called upon to deal with it, I should think it right to make no decision beforehand on the mode of dealing with the difficulties. But the first reason is that which chiefly weighs. As far as I know, my speech signifies pretty clearly the broad distinction which I take between the abstract and the practical views of the subject. And I think I have stated strongly my sense of the responsibility attaching to the opening of such a question, except in a state of things which gave promise of satisfactorily closing it. For this reason it is that I have been so silent about the matter, and may probably be so again; but I could not as a Minister, and as member for Oxford, allow it to be debated an indefinite number of times and remain silent. One thing, however, I may add, because I think it a clear landmark. In any measure dealing with the Irish Church, I think (though I scarcely _expect_ ever to be called on to share in such a measure) the Act of Union must be recognised and must have important consequences, especially with reference to the position of the hierarchy.

"I am much obliged to you for writing, and I hope you will see and approve my reasons for not wishing to carry my _own mind_ further into a question lying at a distance I cannot measure.

"Yours sincerely, (Signed) "W. E. GLADSTONE.

"Rev. the WARDEN, Trin. Coll., Perth."

The letter has been the object of much criticism upon these three grounds. First, it contained a statement that the Act of Union ought to entail important consequences in the formation of any measure relating to the Irish Church. Secondly, that the question was hardly within the domain of practical politics. Thirdly, that I felt very uncertain whether it would be dealt with in my time. The explanation of the first is as follows:--In contemplating the subject of the Irish Church, I did not see how to give full effect to the principle of religious equality without touching the composition of the House of Lords. In this strait, my personal opinion was that it would be best to retain (though in an altered form) the Episcopal element from Ireland in the House of Lords, lest its withdrawal should lead to other changes, of a kind to weaken the constitution of that important branch of the legislature; and thus far I was disposed to abridge the application of religious equality to Ireland. I had not yet examined the question so closely as to perceive that this mode of proceeding was wholly impracticable, and that the inconvenience of removing the Irish Bishops must be faced. And for my part I have not been so happy, at any time of my life, as to be able sufficiently to adjust the proper conditions of handling any difficult question, until the question itself was at the door. This retention of the Bishops in the House of Peers was the important consequence that I thought the Act of Union would draw.

Among those errors of the day which may be called singular as vulgar errors, is that which supposes the fifth Article of the Act of Union with Ireland to refer to the endowments of the Church. Its terms touch exclusively her "doctrine, worship, discipline, and government." There is no violation of this section of the Act of Union in withdrawing her endowments, were she stripped of every shilling. But it may be said that her "government," as distinguished from her discipline, perhaps involves the position of her exclusive relation to the State. So I thought; and accordingly thus I wrote to Dr. Hannah.

The second proposition of the letter was not only in harmony with my speech, it was simply the condensation of the speech into a brief form of words. For, agreeing with Mr. Dillwyn as to the merits of the case, I held, as I have ever held, that it is not the duty of a Minister to be forward in inscribing on the Journals of Parliament his own abstract views; or to disturb the existence of a great institution like the Church of Ireland, until he conceives the time to be come when he can probably give effect to his opinions. Because the question was not within the range of practical politics, agreeing with his sentiment, I voted against his motion.

But, forsooth, it is a matter of wonder that I should have felt doubtful whether the Irish Church would be dealt with in my time. Now, I do not complain of this. It is an example of what is continually happening in human affairs, of the mythical handling of facts, of the reflection of the ideas, feelings, and circumstances of one period upon the events of another, and thus dressing the past in the garb of the present. I abide by this, and by every word of the letter. The question of the Irish Church was in my view, in the year 1865, what, be it remembered, the question of Parliamentary Reform seemed to be in the first moiety of the year 1830--namely, a remote question. Had any man said to me, "How soon will it come on?" I should have replied, "Heaven knows; perhaps it will be five years, perhaps it will be ten." My duty was to let my constituents know the state of my mind on a matter so important, because the wind was gradually veering to that quarter, even though I might not believe, and did not believe it to be the most probable event, that it would reach the point for action during the life of the Parliament just then about to be elected. But then I referred to my own political lifetime. On that subject I will only say that a man who, in 1865, completed his thirty-third year of a laborious career; who had already followed to the grave the remains of almost all the friends abreast of whom he had started from the University in the career of public life; and who had observed that, excepting two recent cases, it was hard to find in our whole history a single man who had been permitted to reach the fortieth year of a course of labour similar to his own within the walls of the House of Commons; such a man might surely be excused if he did not venture to reckon for himself on an exemption from the lot of greater and better men, and if he formed a less sanguine estimate of the fraction of space yet remaining to him, than seems to have been the case with his critics.

The reasons that, in my judgment, prove the time now to have arrived for dealing decisively with the question of the Irish Church Establishment, must be treated elsewhere than in these pages.

So far as Ireland, and the immediate controversy, and my personal vindication are concerned, I have done. But there is matter of wider interest, which connects itself with the subject. The change of conduct, the shifting of the mind of an individual, shrink into insignificance by the side of the question, What has been, since 1838, the direction of the public sentiment, the course of law and administration, the general march of affairs?