Nor were the English Dissenters, by whose aid Mr. Gladstone had carried the Bill, very much elated about it. Their organ, the _British Quarterly Review_, at some length showed how Mr. Gladstone’s pretended disendowment had given back the State Church property to the disestablished clergy in a capitalized shape. It was enough for the mob to feel that Mr. Gladstone had put an end to the Irish State Church—that upas-tree which had long blighted the country. Be that as it may, nothing was more beautiful than Mr. Gladstone’s peroration when he moved his resolutions. Said he: ‘There are many who think that to lay hands on the National Church Establishment is a profane and unhallowed act. I sympathize with it. I sympathize with it, while I think it is my duty to overcome and suppress it. There is something in the idea of a National Establishment of religion—of a solemn appropriation of a part of the commonwealth for conferring upon all who are ready to receive it what we know to be an inestimable benefit; of saving that part or portion of the inheritance from private selfishness, in order to extract from it, if we can, pure and unmixed advantages of the highest order for the population at large. There is something attractive in this—so attractive that it is an image that must always command the homage of the many. It is somewhat like the kingly ghost in “Hamlet,” of which one of the characters of Shakespeare says: ‘“We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence; But it is as the air invulnerable, And our vain blows malicious mockery.” But, sir, this is to view a religious Establishment upon one side only—upon what I may call the ethereal side; it has likewise a side of earth. And here I cannot do better than quote some lines written by the present Archbishop of Dublin at a time when his genius was devoted to the Muses. He said, speaking of mankind: ‘“We who did our lineage high Draw from beyond the starry sky, Are yet upon the other side, To earth and to its dust allied.”