In the month of June, 1896, something of a sensation was created in England in respect of an expressed desire for a closer union between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. The desire was voiced in the form of a statement by Mr. William Ewart Gladstone, communicated through the Archbishop of York. The question of unity among the Christian churches had been agitated in several quarters in that year, and the Pope had addressed a letter to the English people in fact appealing to them to return to the Church of Rome, and it is said a movement "having for its purpose the same general result, had been going on for some time among clergymen and laymen who belonged to one section of the Anglican church." Lord Halifax, who was the chairman of a great Anglican organization, under the title of the English Church Union, had been prominent in this movement, and had several interviews with the Pope and his counselors, seeking "to ascertain how far Rome on the one hand and the English church on the other were willing to advance toward a basis of union. One of the questions which came up for discussion was that of the validity of Anglican orders; that is, whether Rome would or could recognize the right of an Anglican clergyman to seek, as such, admission to the clerical order in the Roman church, if any change of opinion should lead him that way." And thus the question of the validity of Anglican orders became a subject of formal investigation by the authorities at the Vatican. Mr. Gladstone's position upon the subject is best stated by himself: