worship. Meanwhile their own churches, in which the great masses were instructed and cared for spiritually, had to be kept up by voluntary contributions. The proposition to do away with this grievance by the disestablishment of the State Church in Ireland ma bitterly opposed by the Conservatives; but at length, after a memorable debate, the Liberals, under the lead of Bright and Gladstone, the latter then prime minister, carried the measure. This was in 1869, but the actual disestablishment was not to take place until the year 187 1, at which time the Irish State Church, ceasing to exist as a state institution, became a free Episcopal Church. The historian May pronounces this "the most important ecclesiastical matter since the Reformation."
Proposed Disestablishment of the State Church in England and in Scotland.—The perfect application of the principle of religious equality demands, in the opinion of many English Liberals, the disestablishment of the State Church in England and in Scotland.[1] They feel that for the government to maintain any particular sect, is to give the State a monopoly in religion. They would have the churches of all denominations placed on an absolute equality. Especially in Scotland is the sentiment in favor of disestablishment very strong.
3. Growth of the British Empire in the East.
The Clew to England's Foreign Policy in the Nineteenth Century.—Seeking the main fact of modern English history, Professor Seeley[2]finds it in the expansion of England. He says, in substance, that the expansion of England in the New World and in Asia is the formula which sums up for England the history of the last three centuries. As the outgrowth of this extension into remote lands of English population or influence, England has come successively into sharp rivalry with three of the leading powers of Europe, her competitors in the field of colonization or in the race for empire. The seventeenth century stands out as an age of in-
