ife with a vehemence, an
impetuosity, and a torrent of fierce indignation that swept everything
before it. If this be, as I think it is, the one distinctive feature
of his character, it seems to explain away what are called the
inconsistencies of his life. Inconsistencies there were none in his
life. He had been brought up in the most unbending school of Toryism.
He became the most active reformer of our times. But whilst he became
the leader of the Liberal party and an active reformer, it is only due
to him to say that in his complex mind there was a vast space for what
is known as conservatism. His mind was not only liberal but
conservative as well, and he clung to the affections of his youth
until, in questions of practical moment, he found them clashing with
that sense of right and abhorrence of injustice of which I have
spoken. But the moment he found his conservative affections clash with
what he thought right and just, he did not hesitate to abandon his
former convictions and go the whole length of the reforms demanded.
Thus he was always devotedly, filially, lovingly attached to the
Church of England. He loved it, as he often declared. He adhered to it
as an establishment in England, but the very reasons and arguments
which, in his mind, justified the establishment of the Church in
England, compelled him to a different course as far as that church was
concerned in Ireland. In England the Church was the church of the
majority, of almost the unanimity of the nation. In Ireland it was
the church of the minority, and, therefore, he did not hesitate. His
course was clear: he removed the one church and maintained the other.
So it was with Home Rule. But coming to the subject of Home Rule,
though there may be much to say, perhaps this is neither the occasion
nor the place to say it. The Irish problem is dormant, not solved; but
the policy proposed by Mr. Gladstone for the solution of this question
has provoked too much bitterness, too deep division, even on the floor
of this House, to make it advisable to say anything about it on this
occasion.

I notice it, however, simply because it is the last and everlasting
monument of that high sense of justice which, above all things,
characterized him. When he became convinced that Home Rule was the
only method whereby the long-open wound could be healed, he did not
hesitate one moment, even though he were to sacrifice friends, power,
popularity. And he sacrificed friends, pow