In choosing the Established Protestant Church of Ireland for attack, Mr. Gladstone selected the weakest spot in the Constitution; one, nevertheless, which the Conservative party were bound to defend to their last man. The Irish peasantry, except those of the greater part of Ulster, were Roman Catholics, and Roman Catholics of a peculiarly devout and enthusiastic kind. The Protestant Establishment was an alien Church, and could never be anything else; a monument of conquest which it had been unwise to set up. It presented itself to Mr. Gladstone as the very core and pillar of disaffection, and it was very easy to make out a strong case for its abolition. In March 1868 he brought forward three resolutions, declaring that it was the opinion of the House of Commons that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist, and the first division showed a majority of sixty-one in favour of the project and against the Government. In consequence of this Disraeli advised the Queen to dissolve Parliament, which was done in July. Writs were made returnable in November, and the interval was spent in such canvassing and platform work as the country had never experienced before. Mr. Gladstone was beaten in Lancashire, Mr. W. H. Smith ousted Mr. Mill from Westminster, and Mr. Roebuck lost his seat at Sheffield; nevertheless, the general result of the polls was an immense gain to the Liberals, showing a majority for them of 120 in the New Parliament. Mr. Gladstone, having found a seat at Greenwich, set to work to obey the Queen's bidding in forming a Ministry. The most notable accession to the Cabinet was that of Mr. Bright, who became Secretary of State for India, thus marking an epoch in Parliamentary history by the formal recognition of the extreme Radicals as a party in the State. The great business of the session of 1869 was, of course, the Bill to disestablish and disendow the Irish Church. No Irish question can be touched without releasing the springs of oratory of a quality beside which the most impassioned appeals of average English or Scottish speakers seem tame and halting. In the Commons the fight was a foregone conclusion; but the Irish Church was an exceedingly wealthy corporation, and the disposal of its possessions, to the value of sixteen millions sterling, afforded matter for long and complicated debates in Committee. The Lords could not be persuaded even to delay the Act on which the country and the House of Commons had spoken with so much decision. The Bill passed its second reading by a majority of thirty-three, and received the Royal Assent on July 26, 1869. Lord Derby had made his last speech on the second reading of this measure, which he resisted with much of his ancient vigour and all his splendid eloquence. He died in October of the same year, and, in the opinion of most men qualified to form one, Parliament lost in him its most polished orator. [Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Annan & Sons, Glasgow._