At this time Mr. Maurice wrote to his son: ‘I am glad you have seen Gladstone, and have been able to judge a little of what his face indicates. It is a very expressive one—hard-worked, as you say; not, perhaps, especially happy; more indicative of struggle than of victory, but not without promise of that. I admire him for his patient attention to details, and for the pains which he takes to prevent himself from being absorbed in them. He has preserved the type which I remember he bore at the University thirty-six years ago, though it has undergone curious developments.’ When in February, 1868, Parliament met, it was announced that Lord Derby, owing to failing health, had resigned—that Mr. Disraeli was to be Premier. And then came Mr. Gladstone’s turn. The Liberal party, once more united, had things all their own way. Mr. Gladstone brought in a Bill to abolish compulsory Church rates, and that was carried. He announced that he held the condition of the Irish Church to be unsatisfactory. In March he moved: ‘1. That in the opinion of this House it is necessary that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an Establishment, due regard being had for all personal interests and to all individual rights of property. 2. That, subject to the foregoing considerations, it is expedient to prevent the creation of new personal interests by the exercise of any public patronage, and to confine the operations of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to objects of immediate necessity or involving individual rights, pending the final decision of Parliament. 3. That an humble address be presented to Her Majesty, humbly to pray that, with a view to the purposes aforesaid, Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to place at the disposal of Parliament interest in the temporalities, in archbishoprics, bishoprics, and other ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in Ireland and in the custody thereof.’ ‘I am sorry,’ writes Bishop Wilberforce, ‘Mr. Gladstone has moved the attack on the Irish Church. It is altogether a bad business, and I am afraid Gladstone has been drawn into it from the unconscious influence of his restlessness at being out of office. I have no doubt that his hatred to the low tone of the Irish Church has had a great deal to do with it.’