e decrees of
the council of 1870 as plainly as he has denounced law and order,
he would be silenced.

Mr. Errington, who is at Rome, will I believe have seen these
papers, and will I hope have brought the facts as far as he is
able to the knowledge of his holiness. But I do not know how far
he is able; nor how he may use his discretion. He is not our
official servant, but an independent Roman catholic gentleman and
a volunteer.

My wish is as regards Ireland, in this hour of her peril and her
hope, to leave nothing undone by which to give heart and strength
to the hope and to abate the peril. But my wish as regards the
Pope is that he should have the means of bringing those for whom
he is responsible to fulfil the elementary duties of citizenship.
I say of citizenship; of Christianity, of priesthood, it is not
for me to speak.

The cardinal replied that he would gladly find himself able to be of
service, however slight it might be, in a political crisis which must be
felt as of grave anxiety by all who understand the blessing of national
unity and peace. He thought Mr. Gladstone overrated the pope's power in
political and social matters. Absolute in questions of theology, it was
not so in political matters. If the contest in Ireland were whether
"rebellion" or whether "robbery" was a sin, we might expect him to
anathematise its denial. But his action in concrete matters, as whether a
political party is censurable or not, was not direct, and only in the long
run effective. Local power and influence was often a match for Roman
right. The pope's right keeps things together, it checks extravagances,
and at length prevails, but not without a fight. Its exercise is a matter
of great prudence, and depends upon times and circumstances. As for the
intemperate dangerous words of priests and curates, surely such persons
belonged to their respective bishops, and scarcely required the
introduction of the Supreme Authority.

VIII

We have now arrived at April 1882. The reports brought to the cabinet by
Mr. Forster were of the gloomiest. The Land Act had brought no
improvement. In the south-west and many of the midland counties
lawlessness and intimidation were worse than ever. Returns of agrarian
crime were presented in every shape, and comparisons framed by weeks, by
months, by quarters; do what the statisticians would, and in spite of
fluctuations, murders a