My dear Mr. Reeve,--I am quite ashamed of myself for not having thanked you before for your valuable hints about the effect and ultimate consequences of Gladstone's motion. [Footnote: March 30th, for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, of which notice was given on March 23rd.] I have long thought that his aim and object has been for years to separate the Church from the State, and so set up an episcopal and sacerdotal power, which would endeavour to exercise an unbounded control over the consciences, actions, and private judgement of men. The only check upon this is the supremacy of the civil power in the external government of the Church, and the obligation of the clergy to submit and subscribe to the doctrine and liturgy which, once for all, the Church and State have concurred in prescribing. All ritualism, all tractarianism, and much high-churchism is in secret, if not in avowed, rebellion against such a supremacy; and if it [Footnote: _Sc_. the supremacy of the civil power.] could only be struck down in Ireland, it would not be long before an attack on it was made in England. What may happen to-morrow I cannot regard with much satisfaction. Gladstone's motion is the most impudent assault on the Crown which any ex-minister ever made; and Stanley's amendment is an illogical surrender of our best defence. He ought to have ended in plain words, by saying that 'the House is of opinion that the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church in Ireland would be contrary to, and in direct violation of, the fundamental and essential articles of the Treaty of Union.' The country would have then understood what we were about; it can hardly understand it now. I am out of heart and have many misgivings when ex-ministers of the Crown, and the actual minister of the Crown, assail or abandon the Crown's prerogative for the value of place and power. Yours always very sincerely, S. H. WALPOLE.