The alarmists made a last effort (at least, let us
hope it is a last effort) at St. James's Hall on Monday, to persuade the country that it does not wish to disestablish and disendow the Irish church, and to persuade the House of Lords that it ought valiantly to throw out the Bill in the exercise of its constitutional privilege. Lord Harrowby was in the chair ; the Bishop of Derry prayed for the protection of the Church against its enemies ; Mr. .Colquhoun said Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues were "the most daring and desperate band of men the country had seen since the time of James II.," and that "they were backed by all the power .of Rome ;" Lord Fitzwalter declared that "of all the Prime Ministers we had ever known, the moat ambitious, the moat unscrupulous, the most unconstitutional, and the most dangerous was the one that the Sovereign had the misfortune to appoint last ;" Mr. Morgan Howard said the country was beginning to turn against the Bill—(a very small beginning indeed, we apprehend !) ; a Mr. Harpur contended, amidst loud cheering, that if the Bill passed -"the people of Ireland would be justified in throwing off the yoke of this country ;" but what he meant by "the people of Ireland" he explained in the next sentence, when he asked triumphantly, "if England was so strong and her political horizon so clear that she did not need the help of a million and a half of able arms and willing hearts." Of course Mr. Harpur thinks she is so strong, and her horizon so clear, that she does not seed the help of the other four million or so of able arms and willing hearts. The meeting did not utter one rational word.
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