it for the uses of the general
public." The Government, therefore, accepted Lord John Russell's
resolution as a distinct challenge to a trial of strength on an
essential question of policy.

[Sidenote: 1835--William Ewart Gladstone]

The debate which followed lasted through four days, and all the members
of the House on both sides took part in it. The reports of that
momentous debate may be read with the deepest interest even at this
day, when some of the prophecies intended as terrible warnings by some
of the Conservative orators have long since been verified as facts, and
are calmly accepted by all parties as the inevitable results of
rational legislation. Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham,
and most others who spoke on the Ministerial side spoke with one voice,
in warning the House of Commons that if it claimed a right to touch any
of the revenues of the Irish State Church in order to appropriate them
for the general education of the Irish people, the result must be that
the time would come when the Irish Church itself would no longer be
held sacred against the desecrating hand of the modern reformer, would
be treated as no longer necessary to the welfare of the Irish people,
and would be severed from the State and left upon a level {247} with
the Roman Catholic Church and the various dissenting denominations.

One appeal which may be said to run through the whole of the speeches
on the side of the Government is familiar to the readers and the
audiences of all political debates, whore any manner of Reform is under
discussion. "You are asked"--so runs the argument--"to adopt this sort
of policy in order to satisfy the demands of a certain class of the
population; but how do you know, what guarantee can you give us, that
when we have granted these demands they will be content and will not
immediately begin to ask for more? We granted Catholic Emancipation in
order to satisfy Ireland, and now is Ireland satisfied? It was only
the other day we granted Catholic Emancipation, and now already Ireland
declares, through her representatives, that she ought to have part of
the revenues of the Irish State Church taken away from that Church and
applied to the common uses of the Irish people. If she gets even that,
will Ireland be contented? Will she not go on to demand repeal of the
Union?" We turn with peculiar interest to the speech of a young Tory
member which was listened to with great attention during