But I must venture to point out that, whatever be the sharpness of this contradiction, it is one from which I could not possibly escape by endeavouring to maintain the Established Church of Ireland on the principles on which it is now maintained. I challenge all my censors to impugn me when I affirm that, if the propositions of my work are in conflict (as they are) with an assault upon the existence of the Irish Establishment, they are at least as much, or even more, hostile to the grounds on which it is now attempted to maintain it. At no time of my life did I propound the maxim _simpliciter_ that we were to maintain the Establishment. I appeal to the few who may have examined my work otherwise than for the purpose of culling from it passages which would tell in a quotation. I appeal to the famous article of Lord Macaulay,[3] who says with truth-- "Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the principal ends of government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not proved this proposition, _his system vanishes at once_." This was entirely just. In the protest I addressed to the distinguished Reviewer on a particular point, I took no exception to it whatever. My work had used (as far as I believe and remember) none of the stock arguments for maintaining the Church of Ireland. I did not say "maintain it, lest you should disturb the settlement of property." I did not say "maintain it, lest you should be driven to repeal the Union." I did not say "maintain it, lest you should offend and exasperate the Protestants." I did not say "maintain it, because the body known as the Irish Church has an indefeasible title to its property." I did not say "maintain it for the spiritual benefit of a small minority." Least of all did I say "maintain it, but establish religious equality, setting up at the public charge other establishments along with it, or by distributing a sop here and a sop there, to coax Roman Catholics and Presbyterians into a sort of acquiescence in its being maintained." These topics I never had made my own. Scarcely ever, in the first efforts of debate, had I referred to one of them. My trumpet, however shrill and feeble, had at least rung out its note clearly. And my ground, right or wrong it matters not for the present purpose, was this: the Church of Ireland must be maintained for the benefit of the whole people of Ireland, and must be maintained as the truth, or it cannot be maintained at all. Accordingly my book contended that the principle of the Grant to Maynooth, unless as a simply covenanted obligation,[4] and that of the Established Church of Ireland, could not stand together. In the House of Commons, on the question relating to the Grant, I am reported as having said in the year 1838,[5] that I objected to the Grant because it was fatal to the main principle on which the Established Church was founded.