Stanley was appointed to the Deanery of Westminster in 1863, and the lamentations of the Record, the organ of ultra-orthodox Evangelicalism, gave Punch his opportunity:—
That the wisdom and justice of the appointment of Canon Stanley to the Deanery of Westminster might be clear to everybody, the Record gives its certificate that such appointment is "a melancholy fact." Disapprobation by the Record having been thus signified, of course every sensible person must now be convinced that the Dean is the right man in the right place.
Comments of this sort add to the liveliness of newspaper controversy, but they do not conduce to the popularity of those who indulge in them. But at any rate they are an improvement on Punch's references to the "viperine expectorations" of the editor of the Tablet in earlier years.
The welcome extended to Père Hyacinthe in 1869 showed that Punch was not restricted in his sympathies to Protestant heretics only. But we fear that his welcome was not entirely disinterested. In his verses on "Hyacinthus Redivivus," Punch attacks Pius IX for favouring Père Hyacinthe as long as he was a winning card, and then rending him as a heretic. The lines are friendly, but reading between them one can detect a warning to M. Loyson to shun the dangers that beset the fashionable preacher in New York, whither he was then bound. We cannot resist the feeling that Punch was more pleased by the Pope's embarrassment in dealing with this modernist than anxious to see Romanism reformed from within.
In the high affairs of Church and State the year 1868 was a great landmark. After a long debate Gladstone's Resolutions on Irish Disestablishment were carried against the Government on April 5. The discussions were followed closely in Punch's "Essence of Parliament," and two interesting points are brought out. Disraeli maintained that the House had no mandate, as we now say, to deal with the Irish Church. They ought not to be asked at eight days' notice to repeal the Union. On the other hand, Gladstone argued that it would be ultra-democratic, if not anarchic, to say that Parliament could not act without appeal to the constituencies. The Government were beaten by 328 votes to 272, but remained in office till the autumn, when they appealed to the country. By the return of a Liberal majority Gladstone was left free to introduce the first instalment of his scheme for pacifying Ireland. This view is clearly set forth in Punch's doggerel stanzas headed, "Out and In":—
Gone is Dizzy,
From the busy
Cares of State repose he can.
In comes Gladdy
Who of Paddy