y solemn
and fundamental laws by which the jurisdiction of the See of Rome
was cut off, assigned to the spiritualty of the realm the care of
matters spiritual, as distinctly and formally as to the temporalty
the care of matters temporal; and that it was an understood
principle, and (as long as it continued) a regular usage of the
Constitution, that ecclesiastical laws should be administered by
ecclesiastical judges. These were the securities on which the
Church relied; on, which she had a right to rely; and on which,
for a long series of years, her alliance was justified by the
results.

And further:--

The Church had this great and special security on which to rely,
that the Sovereigns of this country were, for a century after the
Reformation, amongst her best instructed, and even in some
instances her most devoted children: that all who made up the
governing body (with an insignificant exception) owned personal
allegiance to her, and that she might well rest on that personal
allegiance as warranting beforehand the expectation, which after
experience made good, that the office of the State towards her
would be discharged in a friendly and kindly spirit, and that the
principles of constitutional law and civil order would not be
strained against her, but fairly and fully applied in her behalf.

These securities she now finds herself deprived of. This is the great
change made in her position--made insensibly, and In a great measure,
undesignedly--which has altered altogether the understanding on which
she stood towards the Crown at the Reformation. It now turns out that
that understanding, though it might have been deemed sufficient for the
time, was not precise enough; and further, was not sufficiently looked
after in the times which followed. And on us comes the duty of taking
care that it be not finally extinguished; thrown off by the despair of
one side, and assumed by the other as at length abandoned to their
aggression.

Mr. Gladstone comes to the question with the feelings of a statesman,
conscious of the greatness and excellence of the State, and anxious
that the Church should not provoke its jealousy, and in urging her
claims should "take her stand, as to all matters of substance and
principle, on the firm ground of history and law." It makes his
judgment on the present state of things more solemn, and his conviction
of the