We have Mr. Gladstone's own admission that the Fenian agitation of the sixties was the primary cause of English interest in the Irish Church, and in the great land question. It is one of the truisms of history that agitation on unconstitutional methods is more effective than the employment of peaceful persuasion. Catholic Emancipation proved that. When Gladstone took office it was known that he would attempt to create a contented Ireland by disestablishing the Irish Church, and by passing a great Land Act. He chose as his Irish viceroy Earl Spencer, then an unknown and untried young man in his thirty-third year. To be the representative of the premier in Ireland was the most onerous and dangerous position in the Government. The viceroy found society, lay and clerical, against him, and with the passing of the Land Act of 1870 the upper-class Irish believed what they had only doubted before--that Gladstone was the worst enemy of Ireland, and that Lord Spencer was his dangerous satellite. There is no need to enter into the controversy that ensued when Gladstone introduced the Bill disestablishing the Church of Ireland, as the Protestant minority was termed absurdly. Archbishop Trench declared passionately that the disestablishment would 'put to the Irish Protestants the choice between apostasy and expatriation, and every {268} man among them who has money or position, when he sees his Church go, will leave the country. If you do that,' he continued, 'you will find the country so difficult to manage that you will have to depend upon the gibbet and the sword.' It would be unfair to dwell upon the ludicrous moanings of the Church party; they prophesied not only the extinction of the Irish Protestants, but the end of Christendom. We can be content with the knowledge that time has given us of the prosperity and progress of Protestantism in Ireland. It is a splendid example of the irony of life to recall Mr. Gladstone's declaration when the telegram arrived at Hawarden, informing him that an emissary was on his way from Windsor Castle. 'My mission,' he said, 'is to pacify Ireland.' That may have been true, but Gladstone brought a sword rather than peace to the country which had such a long and fateful connection with the statesmanship of the great Liberal. Lord Spencer, his first viceroy, experienced all the fury of rebellious Nationalism, and during his second viceroyalty had the unfortunate distinction of being the governor of a country where no man's life was safe, and where murder and outrage were as common as sand.