At length came Monday, March 1, and Mr. Gladstone unfolded his scheme. For some three hours and a half Mr. Gladstone occupied the attention—the absorbed attention—of an eager House. It was one of his grandest oratorical triumphs. Complicated details, which in other hands would have been dry and lifeless, kept the listener spellbound. ‘It was strange,’ writes the Archbishop, ‘to hear Gladstone on Monday last unfold his scheme in the House of Commons, knowing beforehand what it was all to be, and having, indeed, had a rehearsal of it in my library.’ Mr. Gladstone’s Bill was in accordance with the resolutions he had moved when in opposition. The actual moment of Disestablishment he proposed to postpone until January 1, 1871; but from the passing of the Act the creation of private interests was to cease, and the property of the Church was to pass at once into the hands of Commissioners appointed for the purpose. All the ecclesiastical laws of the Disestablished Church were to exist as a binding contract to regulate the internal affairs of the Disestablished Church until such time as they should be altered by the voluntary agency of whatever new governing body would be appointed. The churches and burial-grounds were to become on application the property of the Disestablished Church, and the glebe-houses as well, on payment of the somewhat heavy existing building charges. The whole value of the Church property was estimated at sixteen millions; of this sum, £8,500,000 would be swallowed up in the necessary compensation of various kinds, and the remaining seven and a half millions would be applied to the advantage of the Irish people, but not to Church purposes. Special provision was made for incumbents and unbeneficed curates. As to the post-Reformation grants, Mr. Gladstone fixed a dividing line at the year 1680, agreeing that all grants made from private sources subsequent to that year should be handed over intact to the Disestablished Church. As to the remaining seven millions and a half, it was to be devoted to the relief ‘of unavoidable calamities and suffering not provided for by the Poor Law,’ to the support of lunatic and idiot asylums, institutions for the relief of the deaf and dumb and blind, and other kindred objects. These details, one after another, were set forth with great clearness, and the speech was closed with a magnificent peroration, which drew a warm tribute of admiration even from the bitterest opponents of the Bill.