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The Grand Old Man

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Truly has an eminent writer said: "When a Prime Minister in
difficulties, looking about for men to fill the minor offices of his
administration, sees among his supporters a clever and comely young man,
eloquent in speech, ready in debate, with a safe seat, an ample fortune,
a high reputation at the university, and a father who wields political
influence in an important constituency, he sees a Junior Lord of the
Treasury made ready to his hand."

Appealing to his constituents at Newark, who, two years before, had sent
him to Parliament, he was re-elected. Mr. Handley having retired,
Sergeant Wilde was elected with Mr. Gladstone without opposition. Mr.
Gladstone was "chaired," or drawn by horses through the town, seated on
a chair, after the election, and then addressed the assembled people to
the number of 6,000, his speech being received with "deafening cheers."

Shortly after Parliament assembled, Mr. Gladstone was promoted to the
office of Under-Secretary for the Colonies. His official chief was Lord
Aberdeen, afterwards Prime Minister; and thus began a relation which was
destined to greatly affect the destinies of both statesmen.

Mr. Gladstone gave ample proof in his new office of his great abilities
and untiring energies.

In March he presented to the House his first bill, which was for the
better regulation of the transportation of passengers in merchant
vessels to the continent and to the Islands of North America. This bill,
which contained many humane provisions, was very favorably received. The
new Parliament, which met February 10, 1835, contained a considerable
Liberal majority. The old House of Commons had been destroyed by fire
during the recess, and the new Commons reassembled in the chamber which
had been the House of Lords, and for the first time there was a gallery
for reporters in the House.

"A standing order still existed, which forbade the publication of the
debates, but the reporters' gallery was a formal and visible recognition
of the people's right to know what their representatives were doing in
their name." However, the new Ministry was but short-lived, for Sir
Robert Peel resigned April 8th, and Mr. Gladstone retired with
his chief.

Mr. Gladstone spent the days of his retirement from ministerial office
partly in study, and partly in recreation. Being free to follow the bent
of his own inclinations, he ordered his life according to his own
ideals. He lived in chambers at the Albany, pursued the same steady
course of work, proper recreation and systematic devotion, which he had
marked out at Oxford. He freely went into society, dined out frequently,
and took part in musical parties, much to the edification of his friends
who were charmed with the beauty and cultivation of his rich baritone.
His friend Monckton Milnes had established himself in London and
collected around him a society of young men, interested in politics and
religion, and whom he entertained Sunday evenings. But this arrangement
"unfortunately," as Mr. Milnes said, excluded from these gatherings the
more serious members, such as Acland and Gladstone. Mr. Milnes expressed
his opinion of such self-exclusion in these words: "I really think when
people keep Friday as a fast, they might make a feast of Sunday." But
Mr. Gladstone evidently was not of this opinion, and remained away from
these Lord's Day parties. However at other times he met his friends, and
received them at his own rooms in the Albany, and on one memorable
occasion entertained Wordsworth at breakfast and a few admirers of this
distinguished guest.

Mr. Gladstone's relaxations were occasional, and the most of his time
was devoted to his Parliamentary duties and study. His constant
companions were Homer and Dante, and he at this time, it is recorded,
read the whole of St. Augustine, in twenty-two octavo volumes. He was a
constant attendant upon public worship at St. James', Piccadilly, and
Margaret Chapel, and a careful critic of sermons. At the same time he
diligently applied himself to the work of a private member of the House
of Commons, working on committees and taking constant part in debate.

In 1836 the question of slavery again came up before Parliament. This
time the question was as to the working of the system of negro
apprenticeship, which had taken the place of slavery. It was asserted
that the system was only slavery under another name. He warmly and ably
defended again the West Indian planters. He pleaded that many of the
planters were humane men, and defended also the honor of his relatives
connected with the traffic so much denounced, when it was assailed. He
contended that while the evils of the system had been exaggerated, all
mention of its advantages had been carefully withheld. The condition of
the negroes was improving. He deprecated the attempt made to renew and
perpetuate the system of agitation at the expense of candor and truth.
He also at this time spoke on support of authority and order in the
government of Canada, and on Church Rates, dwelling upon the necessity
of national religion to the security of a state. Mr. Gladstone was not
only a Tory but a High Churchman.

King William IV died June 20, 1837, and was succeeded by Queen Victoria.
A general election ensued. The Parliament, which had been prorogued by
the young queen in person, was dissolved on the 17th of July. Mr.
Gladstone, without his consent, was nominated to represent Manchester in
the House, but was re-elected for Newark without opposition. He then
turned his steps towards Scotland, "to see what grouse he could persuade
into his bag." The new Parliament met October 20th, but no business of
importance came before it until after the Christmas holidays.

In 1838 a bill was presented in both Houses of Parliament for the
immediate abolition of negro apprenticeship. Many harrowing details of
the cruelties practiced were cited. Mr. Gladstone returned to the
championship of the planters with increased power and success. His long,
eloquent and powerful speech of March 30th, although on the unpopular
side of the question, is regarded as having so greatly enhanced his
reputation as to bring him to the front rank among Parliamentary
debaters. Having impassionately defended the planters from the
exaggerated charges made against them, he further said: "You consumed
forty-five millions of pounds of cotton in 1837 which proceeded from
free labor; and, proceeding from slave labor, three hundred and eighteen
millions of pounds! And this, while the vast regions of India afford the
means of obtaining at a cheaper rate, and by a slight original outlay,
to facilitate transport, all that you can require. If, Sir, the
complaints against the general body of the West Indians had been
substantiated, I should have deemed it an unworthy artifice to attempt
diverting the attention of the House from the question immediately at
issue, by merely proving that delinquencies existed in other quarters;
but feeling as I do that those charges have been overthrown in debate, I
think myself entitled and bound to show how capricious are the honorable
gentlemen in the distribution of their sympathies among those different
objects which call for their application."

Mr. Gladstone, "having turned the tables upon his opponents," concluded
by demanding justice, and the motion before the House was rejected.

About one month later Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, afterwards Bishop of
Oxford, and of Winchester, wrote to Mr. Gladstone: "It would be an
affectation in you, which you are above, not to know that few young men
have the weight you have in the House of Commons, and are gaining
rapidly throughout the country. Now I do not wish to urge you to
consider this as a talent for the use of which you must render an
account, for so I know you do esteem it, but what I want to urge upon
you is that you should calmly look far before you; see the degree of
weight and influence to which you may fairly, if God spares your life
and powers, look forward in future years, and thus act _now_ with a view
to _then_. There is no height to which you may not fairly rise in this
country. If it pleases God to spare us violent convulsions and the loss
of our liberties, you may at a future day wield the whole government of
this land; and if this should be so, of what extreme moment will your
_past steps_ then be to the real usefulness of your high station....
Almost all our public men act from the merest expediency.... I would
have you view yourself as one who may become the head of all the better
feelings of this country, the maintainer of its Church and of its
liberties, and who must now be fitting himself for this high
vocation.... I think my father's life so beautifully shows that a deep
and increasing personal religion must be the root of that firm and
unwearied consistency in right, which I have ventured thus to press
upon you."

Mr. Gladstone began his Parliamentary life as a Tory. Later he developed
into a Liberal, a Radical, and yet there is not one who conscientiously
doubts his utter honesty. His life has been that of his
century--progressive, liberal, humanitarian in its trend.

[Illustration: Grattan]




CHAPTER IV


BOOK ON CHURCH AND STATE

We have now followed Mr. Gladstone in his course until well on the way
in his political career, and yet he is but twenty-eight years of age.
His personal appearance in the House of Commons at this early stage of
his Parliamentary life is thus described: "Mr. Gladstone's appearance
and manners are much in his favor. He is a fine looking man. He is about
the usual height and of good figure. His countenance is mild and
pleasant, and has a highly intellectual expression. His eyes are clear
and quick. His eyebrows are dark and rather prominent. There is not a
dandy in the House but envies what Truefit would call his 'fine head of
jet-black hair.' It is always carefully parted from the crown downwards
to his brow, where it is tastefully shaded. His features are small and
regular, and his complexion must be a very unworthy witness if he does
not possess an abundant stock of health.

"Mr. Gladstone's gesture is varied, but not violent. When he rises he
generally puts both his hands behind his back, and having there suffered
them to embrace each other for a short time, he unclasps them and allows
them to drop on either side. They are not permitted to remain long in
that locality before you see them, again closed together and hanging
down before him. Their reunion is not suffered to last for any length of
time, Again a separation takes place, and now the right hand is seen
moving up and down before him. Having thus exercised it a little, he
thrusts it into the pocket of his coat, and then orders the left hand to
follow its example. Having granted them a momentary repose there, they
are again put into gentle motion, and in a few seconds they are seen
reposing _vis-a-vis_ on his breast. He moves his face and body from one
direction to another, not forgetting to bestow a liberal share of his
attention on his own party. He is always listened to with much attention
by the House, and appears to be highly respected by men of all parties.
He is a man of good business habits; of this he furnished abundant proof
when Under-Secretary for the Colonies, during the short-lived
administration of Robert Peel."

From this pen picture and other like notices of Mr. Gladstone he must,
at that time, have attained great distinction and attracted a good deal
of attention for one so young, and from that day to this he has
commanded the attention not only of the British Senate and people, but
of the world at large. And why? may we ask, unless because of his modest
manner and distinguished services, his exalted ability and moral worth.

"The House of Commons was his ground," writes Justin McCarthy. "There he
was always seen to the best advantage."

Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone wrote with the same earnestness and ability
with which he spoke. It was early in life that he distinguished himself
as an author, as well as an orator and debater in the House of Commons.
And it was most natural for him to write upon the subject of the Church,
for not only his education led him to the consideration of such themes,
but it was within his sphere as an English statesman, for the law of the
land provided for the union of the Church and State. It was in 1838,
when he was not thirty years of age, that he wrote his first book and
stepped at once to the front rank as an author. He had ever been a
staunch defender of the Established Church and his first appearance in
literature was by a remarkable work in defense of the State Church
entitled, "The State in its Relations with the Church." The treatise is
thus dedicated: "Inscribed to the University of Oxford, tried and not
found wanting through the vicissitudes of a thousand years; in the
belief that she is providentially designed to be a fountain of
blessings, spiritual, social and intellectual, to this and other
countries, to present and future times; and in the hope that the temper
of these pages may be found not alien from her own."

This first published book of Mr. Gladstone's was due to the perception
that the _status_ of the Church, in its connection with the secular
power, was about to undergo the severe assaults of the opponents of the
Union. There was growing opposition to the recognition of the Episcopal
Church as the Church of the State and to taxation of people of other
religious beliefs for its support; and this objection was to the
recognition and support of any Church by the State. What is called the
"American idea"--the entire separation of the Church and State--or as
enunciated first by Roger Williams in 1636, in Rhode Island, that the
magistrate should have authority in civil affairs only, was becoming
more and more the doctrine of dissenters. Preparations were already
being made for attacking the national establishment of religion, and
with all the fervor springing from conviction and a deep-seated
enthusiasm, he came forward to take part in the controversy on Church
and State, and as a defender of the Established or Episcopal Church
of England.

Some of the positions assumed in this work have since been renounced as
untenable, but its ability as a whole, its breadth and its learning
could not be denied. It then created a great sensation, and has since
been widely discussed. After an examination and a defense of the theory
of the connection between Church and State, Mr. Gladstone thus
summarizes his principal reasons for the maintenance of the Church
establishment:

"Because the Government stands with us in a paternal relation to the
people, and is bound in all things not merely to consider their existing
tastes, but the capabilities and ways of their improvement; because it
has both an intrinsic competency and external means to amend and assist
their choice; because to be in accordance with God's mind and will, it
must have a religion, and because to be in accordance with its
conscience, that religion must be the truth, as held by it under the
most solemn and accumulated responsibilities; because this is the only
sanctifying and preserving principle of society, as well as to the
individual, that particular benefit, without which all others are worse
than valueless; we must, therefore, disregard the din of political
contention and the pressure of novelty and momentary motives, and in
behalf of our regard to man, as well as of our allegiance to God,
maintain among ourselves, where happily it still exists, the union
between the Church and the State."

Dr. Russell in the following quotation not only accounts for this
production from the pen, of Mr. Gladstone, but gives also an outline of
the argument:

"Naturally and profoundly religious ... Mr. Gladstone conceived that
those who professed the warmest regard for the Church of England and
posed as her most strenuous defenders, were inclined to base their
championship on mistaken grounds and to direct their efforts towards
even mischievous ends. To supply a more reasonable basis for action and
to lead this energy into more profitable channels were the objects which
he proposed to himself in his treatise of 1838. The distinctive
principle of the book was that the State had a conscience. This being
admitted, the issue was this: whether the State in its best condition,
has such a conscience as can take cognizance of religious truth and
error, and in particular whether the State of the United Kingdom at that
time was, or was not, so far in that condition as to be under an
obligation to give an active and an exclusive support to the established
religion of the country.

"The work attempted to survey the actual state of the relations between
the State and the Church; to show from history the ground which had been
defined for the National Church at the Reformation; and to inquire and
determine whether the existing state of things was worth preserving and
defending against encroachment from whatever quarter. This question it
decided emphatically in the affirmative. Faithful to logic and to its
theory, the book did not shrink from applying them to the external case
of the Irish Church. It did not disguise the difficulties of the case,
for the author was alive to the paradox which it involved. But the one
master idea of the system, that the State as it then stood was capable
in this age, as it had been in ages long gone by, of assuming
beneficially a responsibility for the inculcation of a particular
religion, carried him through all. His doctrine was that the Church, as
established by law, was to be maintained for its truth; that this was
the only principle in which it could be properly and permanently upheld;
that this principle, if good in England, was good also for Ireland; that
truth is of all possessions the most precious to the soul of man; and
that to remove this priceless treasure from the view and the reach of
the Irish people would be meanly to purchase their momentary favor at
the expense of their permanent interests, and would be a high offense
against our own sacred obligations."

We quote also from the opening chapter of the second volume of this
work, which treats of the connection subsisting between the State of the
United Kingdom and the Church of England and Ireland, and shows Mr.
Gladstone's views at that period of his life upon the relations of the
Church as affecting Ireland in particular. The passage also indicates
the changes that have taken place in his mind since the time when he
defended these principles. It also shows the style in which this
remarkable book was written and enables us to compare, not only his
opinions now and then, but his style in writing then with his style now.

"The Protestant legislature of the British Empire maintains in the
possession of the Church property of Ireland the ministers of a creed
professed, according to the parliamentary enumeration, of 1835, by
one-ninth of its population, regarded with partial favor by scarcely
another ninth, and disowned by the remaining seven. And not only does
this anomaly meet us full in view, but we have also to consider and
digest the fact, that the maintenance of this Church for near three
centuries in Ireland has been contemporaneous with a system of partial
and abusive government, varying in degree of culpability, but rarely,
until of later years, when we have been forced to look at the subject
and to feel it, to be exempted in common fairness from the reproach of
gross inattention (to say the very least) to the interests of a noble
but neglected people.

"But, however formidable at first sight the admissions, which I have no
desire to narrow or to qualify, may appear, they in no way shake the
foregoing arguments. They do not change the nature of truth and her
capability and destiny to benefit mankind. They do not relieve
Government of its responsibility, if they show that that responsibility
was once unfelt and unsatisfied. They place the legislature of the
country in the condition, as it were, of one called to do penance for
past offences; but duty remains unaltered and imperative, and abates
nothing of her demand on our services. It is undoubtedly competent, in a
constitutional view, to the Government of this country to continue the
present disposition of Church property in Ireland. It appears not too
much to assume that our imperial legislature has been qualified to take,
and has taken in point of fact, a sounder view of religious truth than
the majority of the people of Ireland in their destitute and
uninstructed state. We believe, accordingly, that that which we place
before them is, whether they know it or not, calculated to be beneficial
to them; and that if they know it not now, they will know it when it is
presented to them fairly. Shall we, then, purchase their applause at the
expense of their substantial, nay, their spiritual interests?

"It does, indeed, so happen that there are powerful motives on the other
side concurring with that which has here been represented as paramount.
In the first instance we are not called upon to establish a creed, but
only to maintain an existing legal settlement, when our constitutional
right is undoubted. In the second, political considerations tend
strongly to recommend that maintenance. A common form of faith binds the
Irish Protestants to ourselves, while they, upon the other hand, are
fast linked to Ireland; and thus they supply the most natural bond of
connection between the countries. But if England, by overthrowing their
Church, should weaken their moral position, they would be no longer
able, perhaps no longer willing, to counteract the desires of the
majority tending, under the direction of their leaders (however, by a
wise policy, revocable from that fatal course) to what is termed
national independence. Pride and fear, on the one hand, are therefore
bearing up against more immediate apprehension and difficulty on the
other. And with some men these may be the fundamental considerations;
but it may be doubted whether such men will not flinch in some stage of
the contest, should its aspect at any moment become unfavorable."

Of course the opponents of Mr. Gladstone's views, as set forth in his
book, strongly combated his theories. They replied that "the taxation of
the State is equal upon all persons, and has for its object their
individual, social and political welfare and safety; but that the
taxation of one man for the support of his neighbor's religion does not
come within the limits of such taxation, and is, in fact, unjust and
inequitable."

It was no easy task for Mr. Gladstone, with all his parliamentary
duties, to aspire to authorship, and carry his book through the press.
In preparing for publication he passed through all the agonies of the
author, but was nobly helped by his friend, James R. Hope, who
afterwards became Mr. Hope-Scott, Q.C., who read and criticised his
manuscript and saw the sheets through the press. Some of the letters
from the young Defender of the Faith to his friend contain much that is
worth preserving. We give some extracts.

He writes: "If you let them lie just as they are, turning the leaves one
by one, I think you will not find the manuscript very hard to make out,
though it is strangely cut in pieces and patched.

"I hope its general tendency will meet with your approval; but a point
about which I am in doubt, and to which I request your particular
attention, is, whether the work or some of the chapters are not so
deficient in clearness and arrangement as to require being absolutely
rewritten before they can with propriety be published.... Between my
eyes and my business I fear it would be hard for me to re-write, but if
I could put it into the hands of any other person who could, and who
would extract from my papers anything worth having, that might do.

"As regards myself, if I go on and publish, I shall be quite prepared to
find some persons surprised, but this, if it should prove so, cannot be
helped. I shall not knowingly exaggerate anything; and when a man
expects to be washed overboard he must tie himself with a rope to
the mast.

"I shall trust to your friendship for frankness in the discharge of your
irksome task. Pray make verbal corrections without scruple where they
are needed."

Again: "I thank you most cordially for your remarks, and I rejoice to
find you act so entirely in the spirit I had anticipated. I trust you
will continue to speak with freedom, which is the best compliment as
well as the best service you can render me.

"I think it very probable that you may find that V and VI require quite
as rigorous treatment as II, and I am very desirous to set both my mind
and eyes at liberty before I go to the Continent, which I can now hardly
expect to do before the first week in September. This interval I trust
would suffice unless you find that the other chapters stand in
equal need.

"I entirely concur with your view regarding the necessity of care and of
not grudging labor in a matter so important and so responsible as an
endeavor to raise one of the most momentous controversies which has
ever agitated human opinion,"

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