The "Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage
and Control" are greatly elated by Mr. Gladstone's declaration atrt. Austell in favour of Disestablishment for Wales and Scotland, and regard his declaration in relation to England as an implicit avowal that even here it is a mere question of time and of moral education. This elation is quite natural and justified by Mr. Gladstone's language, if his personal adhesion to the cause of Disestablishment is, as it may be, a matter of the first importance. But the Liberation Society seem to us to display less than their usual shrewdness in not seeing that Mr. Gladstone has now bound up the cause of Disestablishment so completely with the cause of Home- rule, that ,if -the latter fails, the former will receive a very serious blow ; while even if the latter wins its first battle, the former will be almost indefinitely delayed, and perhaps be beaten in the end. Home-rule must now succeed completely before Disestablishment is likely to win even its first step in the game.
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