Mr. Disraeli, in illustrating the evils of disestablishment on civil
society, referred to the effect of the disestablishment of Catholicism in France, and said that we now had the Arch- bishop of Paris in the dungeons of the Red Republic, while in Ireland the Archbishop of Dublin had been "excommuni- cated" by the Irish Church. When this remark reached the Irish Church Synod, the members were very prosaically indignant, and Lord James Butler moved a formal and pompous resolution repudiating the statement, and praying in the most orthodox fashion for the Archbishop's long life and happiness. Mr. Disraeli, called to account in the House of Commons, referred to his own habit of figurative speech, and turned the matter off by a joke at the controversial asperities of the Synod. Really he had done the Archbishop a great service. Dr. Trench has become almost popular since it was publicly rumoured that the Synod was powerful and bold enough to defy him, and the rumour got believed. The Synod rose 50 per cent. in its own self-respect, and so could afford to be amiable to its Archbishop.
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