establish non-sectarian colleges in Ireland, and to increase the
appropriation to Maynooth. The College of Maynooth, which was
established for the education of Roman Catholic priests and laymen, had
fallen into poverty and decay. In order to gratify the Irish, the
government offered to increase the grant already made from $45,000 to
$150,000 a year. This appropriation was not to be subject to any annual
vote, and the affairs of the College were to be executed by the Board of
Works. These proposals placed Mr. Gladstone in a position of great
difficulty. He must either support Sir Robert Peel's measure, or retire
from the Cabinet into isolation, if not subject to the imputation of
eccentricity. He took council with his friends, Archdeacon Manning and
Mr. Hope, who advised him to remain, and with Lord Stanley who warned
him that his resignation must be followed by resistance of the proposals
of the government, which would involve him in a storm of religious
agitation. But Mr. Gladstone persisted in his intention, in what seemed
like giving up his brilliant prospects, but said it would not
necessarily be followed by resistance to the proposal about Maynooth.

Mr. Gladstone said that the proposed increase in the Maynooth endowment
and the establishment of non-sectarian colleges were at variance with
views he had written and uttered upon the relations of the Church and
State. "I am sensible how fallible my judgment is," said Mr. Gladstone,
"and how easily I might have erred; but still it has been my conviction
that although I was not to fetter my judgment as a member of Parliament
by a reference to abstract theories, yet, on the other hand, it was
absolutely due to the public and due to myself that I should, so far as
in me lay, place myself in a position to form an opinion upon a matter
of so great importance, that should not only be actually free from all
bias or leaning with respect to any consideration whatsoever, but an
opinion that should be unsuspected. On that account I have taken a