He has rarely been able to advance as rapidly or as far as he wished; and more than once he has gone by a way that few of us liked.  But if he was not always right, he has been courageous enough to set himself right.  If he made a mistake in our affairs when he said Jefferson Davis had founded a nation, he offered reparation when he secured the Geneva Arbitration, and loyally paid its award.  If he made a mistake in Irish affairs in early attempts at an unwise coercion he more than made amends when he led that recent magnificent struggle in Parliament and before the English people, which ended in a defeat, it is true, but a defeat more brilliant than many victories and more hopeful for Ireland. [Applause.]

And over what a length of road has he led the English people!  From rotten boroughs to household suffrage; from a government of classes to a government more truly popular than any other in the world outside of Switzerland and the United States.  Then consider the advance on Irish questions.  From the iniquitous burden of a gigantic and extravagant church establishment, imposed upon the people of whom seven-eighths were of hostile faith, to disestablishment; from the principle stated by Lord Palmerston with brutal frankness that “tenant-right is landlord’s wrong,” to judicial rents and the near prospect of tenant ownership on fair terms; from the arbitrary arrests of Irish leaders to the alliance of the Prime Minister and ruling party with the prisoner of Kilmainham Jail! [Loud cheers.] It has been no holiday parade, the leadership on a march like that.  Long ago Mr. Disraeli flung at him the exultant taunt that the English people had had enough of his policy of confiscation; and so it proved for a time, for Mr. Disraeli turned him out.  But Mr. Gladstone knew far better than his great rival did the deep and secret springs of English action, and he never judged from the temper of the House or a tour of the London drawing-rooms.  Society, indeed, always disapproved of him, as it did of those kindred spirits, the anti-slavery leaders of American politics.  But the frowns of Fifth Avenue and Beacon Street have not dimmed the fame of Sumner and Chase; of Seward and Lincoln [a voice:  “And of Wendell Phillips.”  Cheers]; nor does Belgravia control the future of Mr. Gladstone’s career any more than it has been able to hinder his past.

More than any other statesman of his epoch, he has combined practical skill in the conduct of politics with a steadfast appeal to the highest moral considerations.  To a leader of that sort defeats are only stepping-stones, and the end is not in doubt.  A phrase once famous among us has sometimes seemed to me fit for English use about Ireland.  A great man, a very great man, whose name sheds lasting honor upon our city said in an impulsive moment—­that he “never wanted to live in a country where the one-half was pinned to the other by bayonets.”  If Mr. Gladstone ever believed in thus fastening Ireland