The augmentation of the Maynooth grant led to the resignation of Mr. Gladstone, who occupied the position of President of the Board of Trade in the Government of Sir Robert Peel. He was not at all opposed to the measure, which, in fact, he supported as a private member; but he considered that his book entitled “The State in its Relations with the Church,” first published in 1838, contained some passages which precluded him from taking part as a Minister in the proposed measure. In addressing the House on the 4th of February he observed:--“I have a strong conviction, speaking under ordinary circumstances and as a general rule, that those who have borne the most solemn testimony to a particular view of a great and constitutional question ought not to be parties responsible for proposals which involve a material departure from it.” Religious questions were at that time prominently before the public, and Sir Robert Peel showed an anxiety to remove those restrictions which had formerly been considered necessary to the safety of the State and Church. During the session of 1845, a Bill was introduced by the Government for removing the test by which Jews were excluded from certain municipal offices. The existing state of the law was ridiculously inconsistent; for, while a Jew might be the High Sheriff of a county, or Sheriff of London, he was not allowed to be a Mayor, an Alderman, or a member of the Common Council. Before occupying any of these offices, he had to swear “on the true faith of a Christian,” which of course no Jew would do. A measure to remove the anomaly was introduced into the Upper House by Lord Lyndhurst, the Lord Chancellor, and, strange to say, it passed through that Assembly, which had previously resisted all attempts in the same direction. The Bill underwent no danger in the House of Commons, for the Lower Chamber had in previous sessions endeavoured to effect the same reform. Prince Albert was extremely gratified by Sir Robert Peel’s Budget for 1845, which not only, as we have seen, reduced or obliterated a vast number of vexatious duties, but at the same time placed the finances of the country on so excellent a footing as to enable the Minister to ask for the Navy and Ordnance Estimates an increase of a million and a half so as to augment the power of Great Britain at sea. For the security of our ports, seven sail of the line were always to be available in the Channel, and three on foreign stations; and the Prince saw in these arrangements a renewed guarantee for the peace of Europe. He was also much pleased by an allusion, in the financial statement of the Prime [Illustration: MAYNOOTH COLLEGE.]