Mr. Disraeli was now for the first time in unequivocal conduct of the government. He had a clear Conservative majority in his support. The House and the whole nation had become accustomed to his manners and methods. Certainly England and all the world were now acquainted with his abilities. With little reserve we may regard him intellectually as the most brilliant Prime Minister of Great Britain, but his other powers were not equal to his intellect. He prevailed by force of mind, by wit, by long--head-edness, sometimes by subtlety. There was in his constitution the capacity of a fox—a great fox, but nevertheless a fox. That he was a true English-man none can any longer doubt. That he had confirmed his reputation with the aristocracy of Great Britain and with the reigning house cannot be doubted.

It is always difficult and critical to begin. In fact, there was not at this juncture much to begin with. The Conservative victory hardly implied action, but rather rest from action. As for Mr. Gladstone, though he gave no sign, he must have felt deeply the late reverse. That political disaster had come by the defection of his friends. The solidarity of the Liberal party had been broken. Some of the leaders had gone over to the enemy. There was much ribald jesting about Mr. Gladstone's downfall. As for the Liberal party, the situation was quite serious. It was virtually without a leader. Mr. Gladstone wished to retire. Nor may we suppose that this desire was the result of personal considerations. In the interval between the late election and the assembling of Parliament he had expressed his wishes in a letter to Lord Granville, stating that he had sent to the members of Parliament a circular bearing upon such matters as related to the opening of the parliamentary session. He said that, while regarding it as his duty to do this, he had not expressed in the circular what was personal to himself or defined his individual position.

Then Mr. Gladstone went on to say: “For a variety of reasons personal to myself I could not contemplate any unlimited extension of active political

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service, and I am anxious that it should be clearly understood by those friends with whom I have acted in the direction of affairs that at my age I must reserve my entire freedom to divest myself of all the responsibilities of leadership at no distant time. The need of rest will prevent me from giving more than an occasional attendance in the House of Commons during the present session.

" I should be desirous, shortly before the commencement of the session of 1875, to consider whether there would be advantage in placing my serv­ices for a time at the disposal of the Liberal party or whether I should then claim exemption from the duties I have hitherto discharged. If, however, there should be reasonable ground for believing that, instead of the course which I have sketched, it would be preferable, in the view of the party gen­erally, for me to assume at once the place of an independent member; I should willingly adopt the latter alternative. But I shall retain all that de­sire I have hitherto felt for the welfare of the party, and if the gentlemen composing it should think fit either to choose a leader or make provision ad interim, with a view to the convenience of the present year, the person des­ignated would of course command from me any assistance which he might find occasion to seek and which it might be in my power to render."

The views of the great leader as outlined in this letter were accepted by his following rather because he wished it so than from preference. There was thus a quasi-Liberal leadership at the ensuing session of Parlia­ment. Mr. Gladstone was frequently absent from the House, and this fact gave opportunity to the victorious Conservatives for much satirical comment about the condition of her majesty's opposition. The situation was not pleasing to Mr. Disraeli, who knew well enough that the strong bracing of a well-organized and well-led opposition is one of the essentials of brilliant and successful government in Great Britain. He wanted his rival to be always in his place. Perhaps he recognized the fact that his own powers were brought into the highest efficiency by that kind of political antagonism by which he had so long been trained.

The first event of a new Parliament is the address from the throne and the formal debate thereon. On the occasion of the opening of the session of 1874 Mr. Gladstone appeared and spoke to the address. In doing so he offered a justification of the late government in dissolving Parliament and appealing to the country while that government still held a nominal majority in the House. Mr. Gladstone said that the majority ought to be unequiv­ocal. It was his duty to know whether the country would make it so. The question had been submitted, and the majority had declared for the other side. A new government had thus been constituted, and that government in its turn was entitled to a fair opportunity for carrying its principles into action. It was because he deemed it right for the country to decide upon

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the question of the correctness of the policy of the late government that he had declared a dissolution.

It now appeared that though the Conservatives were completely vic­torious they had little to do. There was certainly no further progress to be promoted. If anything should be done it must be simply in a confirma­tory, or possibly a reactionary, way. One member, a certain Mr. Smollett, sought to produce the requisite parliamentary heat by offering a resolution of censure on Mr. Gladstone for having dissolved the late Parliament. This motion was not supported by the government, and Mr. Gladstone himself waved it aside without effort. Meanwhile, among the first facts revealed was this that the disputed figures of Mr. Gladstone relative to revenue and sur­plus, presented to the House about a year previously, were now shown to be correct. According to these figures the Conservative government found itself at the very outset in the possession of the almost uncomfortable sur­plus of five and a half million pounds.

Now it was that Conservatism must try its hand at some mild-man­nered legislation on the religious, or rather ecclesiastical, question. The House of Lords began to stir, and in that body a bill was brought forward by the Duke of Richmond relative to the Church patronage in Scotland. In that country the Established Kirk was supported by a system of lay pat­ronage, and it was the purpose of the Duke of Richmond's bill to change the lay system for another, to be controlled by the congregation. The terms of the bill were such as to abolish all Church patronage, from that of the crown to that of the laity, and at the same time to create an ecclesiastical or kirk constituency, having the prerogative of selecting ministers, etc. The patronage was to rest henceforth with the male communicants, and those who were to be legislated out of their rights were to receive compen­sation therefore.

It was a mild-mannered and easy-going sort of reform in which there was as little virtue as danger. There was, however, some opposition to the measure, and Mr. Gladstone spoke against it. He expressed his regrets at having to enter upon the discussion of a subject in ecclesias­tical controversy. He reviewed the measure before the House, and also an amendment proposed declaring it inexpedient to legislate without further inquiry on the subject of patronage in the Church of Scotland. Mr. Gladstone wished to know what the government was going to do for that numerous class that had been driven out of the Established Kirk. Such people had been obliged to organize for themselves and to support their own Church system without aid. Was it the intention of the bill to return such Scotch Dissenters to the Church from the privileges of which they had been excluded? If so, he had nothing further to say; but the bill in its present aspect was not fair, and was not generous.

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Besides, there had not been in Scotland, as there had been in Ireland, a cry for disestablishment.

The presentation of the bill, said the speaker, had forerun any demand for it. Nevertheless, since the bill had been prepared a demand had sprung up for disestablishment. An immense majority of the Scots had in the General Assembly declared in favor of such a policy. The speaker did not wish to be responsible for raising the question of disestablishment in Scotland. Then the speaker added, " I am not an idolater of establish­ments "—a remark which created much excitement and cheering in the House. Then the speaker continued to the effect that he did not wish to raise a controversy on the subject of disestablishments unless there should be the strongest justifying circumstances. "If the cheer," said he," we have just heard—and it was, perhaps, a very fair, natural, and legitimate cheer— was intended to imply that I am a great enemy of establishment because I used every effort in my power to put an end to an establishment in Ireland, I must say, in answer to that cheer, that I do not repent the part I took. So far from repenting it, if I am to have a character with posterity at all— supposing posterity is ever to know that such a person as myself existed in this country—I am perfectly willing that my character should be tried simply and solely by the proceedings to which I was a party with regard to the Irish Church Establishment.

“I would, however," said Mr. Gladstone," in this case recognize distinc­tions that are founded in the nature of things. In Scotland there has been no general movement of principle toward disestablishment ; and although an Established Church in a minority is an anomaly, it is an anomaly which I was well content to tolerate, and which the masses of the people of Scot­land were justly and wisely prepared to tolerate, and not to be guided by abstract principles, but by a careful regard to the state of facts, But when in that state of things the government throws down the challenge before them ; proposes to invest this ecclesiastical body, or even the committee or commission of it, with powers never before entrusted to an ecclesiastical body, but which will infallibly be quoted in support of high clerical preten­sions in other quarters ; and when in doing that it does it, as the right hon­orable and learned lord says, in the sense of strengthening the Established Church, but declining to recognize, for every practical purpose, the existence of those great Presbyterian communities whom you drove out and com­pelled to become Dissenters, entirely declining to recognize them, except as bodies from whom you make a certain profit by withdrawing one adherent from them here, and another from them there—that is a challenge, I think, to them to take up a question of the public and national endowment of religion such as was never before issued by a government under any circumstances, and such as, in my opinion, it is totally inconsistent with prudence and

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wisdom to issue. If we have been rash—which I do not admit—our rash- ness will certainly fade into utter insignificance by the side of the gratuitous hardihood of the government, which, as it appears to me, determines to initiate a religious war in Scotland under the influence of the best motive but under circumstances the most slippery and dangerous."

Notwithstanding this able speech it could but be evident that the Duke of Richmond's bill would be passed. It was a government measure, and no power at that juncture could prevail against it. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone was able to command only one hundred and nine votes in his favor. The prime minister did not deem it important to debate the question with his antag- onist, but contented himself with saying something of a flattering character about Mr. Gladstone's reappearance in the House, with the expression of a hope that he might be often there, to aid with his presence and influence the proper balance of her majesty's government.

It might be noted at this time that the lords of the upper House unusually active. The Conservative triumph was for them a matter of great encouragement. Even our lords the bishops arose from the fog and pro- posed something. He of Canterbury brought forward a bill for the Regula- tion of Public Worship. What was proposed is difficult of apprehension by the American reader. In a country and among a people where worship is supposed to be a matter of heart and sentiment, and not a thing of form, it may not be easily apprehended in what sense a government may enact a law for the regulation of that which in the nature of the case is not subject to statutory regulation.

The bill of the Archbishop of Canterbury provided that a directory power over the forms of worship should be given to the bishop of the diocese, in order that he might enforce the ritual according to the canon and prayer book of the English Church. It was alleged at this time that the people of England, though belonging to the Establishment, had departed scandalously in this direction and in that from the exact forms of the ritual The departure had been in both directions. On the one side there was a movement toward the simple methods of worship in use among the Evangelicals. On the other side there was an approximation to the splendor and formality of Rome. A good deal of local freedom in these matters had supervened, and the Archbishop of Canterbury introduced his measure in order to establish conformity and against that principle of Frederick the Great, whose fun-damental notion was that in his kingdom every man should be saved as he pleased! The bill proposed provided for the organization of a board of assessors with the bishop for president. When any grievance existed respect-mg the forms of worship a parishioner might report the same with complaint to the bishop, and the latter might, at his option, call together his board and submit the matter to them. The bottom idea of it was, however, that the

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bishop himself should have the right of holding the forms of public worship strictly to the canon and the prayer book.

This measure came down in an amended form to the House of Com­mons, and Mr. Gladstone made a speech thereon which was said to have moved the House not a little. He referred to the fact that the presentation of this measure had brought him from his retirement, and that he came to point out the false issues that were herein presented to Parliament. He wished to do something to scatter what appeared to be a common delusion and a prevailing ignorance relative to the subject-matter covered by this bill. He called attention to the fact that the measure, instead of having been evolved by the concurrence of the representatives of the Church and the leader of the State (meaning the prime minister), had been announced to the public in a newspaper! Even this great impropriety might be passed over but for the essential badness of the thing proposed.

The speaker then said that ritualism was one of the smallest matters at issue. He declared that if the privilege of enforcing uniformity was conceded to the bishops as provided in this bill then any officious bishop would have the power to eradicate all the local usages, the time-honored customs and traditions which had grown up with respect to public worship in Great Britain. These customs and traditions were a part of the undoubted rights of the people. These rights could not be interfered with by any power except a despotic power. He went on to show that the existing canon law required many things to be performed which the experience of worshipers had discarded as either useless or impracticable. It was not convenient to catechize children at every afternoon service. It was not necessary to read the Athanasian Creed thirteen times a year. The hymns of the Church even were not in accordance with he rubrics, and in many other particulars usage had departed for the sake of convenience and propriety from forms which were now a dead letter.

The speaker then went on to say that he had no objection to expend­ing time and effort in the discussion of the question before the House. It was in principle a question of vast importance. He would not be the man to plead difficulty or inconvenience in considering it. For his part he would from stage to stage, as far as he might, point out the real nature of the thing proposed. He would endeavor to assist the House in sifting to the bottom the hurtful elements of the measure, and would try to dispel some of the gross illusions that prevailed in the country. Then he continued in the following eloquent strain: “I think I have shown the House that inconvenience must arise from the very first slip of judgment on the part of a bishop who may allow an improper suit to proceed. Well, then, the House may say fairly, ' Do not you think something ought to be done?' and I think the idea that something ought to be done is what weighs upon the

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minds of most men. I will tell you what I think ought to be done in prin­ciple. The House can do nothing without acknowledging how much we owe to the great mass of the clergy of the Church of England for their zeal and devotion.

“For eighteen years," continued the speaker, " I was a servant of a very large body of them. My place is now most worthily occupied by another; but I have not forgotten, and never can forget, the many sacrifices they were always ready to make and the real liberality of mind which upon a thou­sand occasions they have shown. But even that is a thing totally insignifi­cant in comparison with the work which they are doing. You talk of the observance of the law. Why, sir, every day and night the clergyman of the Church of England, by the spirit he diffuses around him, by the lessons he imparts, lays the nation under a load of obligation to him. The eccentrici­ties of a handful of men, therefore, can never make me forget the illustrious merit of the services done by the mass of the clergy in an age which is beyond all others luxurious, and, I fear, selfish and worldly. These are the men who hold up to us a banner on which is written the motto of eternal life and of the care for things unseen which must remain the chief hope of man through all the vicissitudes of his mortal life."

Mr., Gladstone did not conclude with this bit of peroration on the pending bill, but proceeded to the constructive side, and offered a series of reso­lutions covering the ground under discussion. The first of these was as follows : " That in proceeding to consider the provisions of the bill for the regulation of public worship this House cannot do otherwise than take into view the lapse of more than two centuries since the enactment of the present rubrics of the common prayer book of the Church of England ; the multi­tude of particulars embraced in the conduct of divine service under their provisions ; the doubts occasionally attaching to their interpretation, and the number of points they are thought to leave undecided ; the diversities of local custom which under these circumstances have long prevailed, and the unreasonableness of proscribing all varieties of opinion and usage among the many thousands of congregations of the Church distributed throughout the land."

In the next resolution there was a declaration that the House would be reluctant to place in the hands of every single bishop powers such as those contemplated in the Archbishop of Canterbury's bill. The third resolution acknowledged the general indebtedness of Great Britain to the clergy for their influence and devotion to the welfare of the people and their stand with respect to public order. The fourth section declared will- ingness to provide remedies against any neglect or departure from strict law which might show a design to alter, without national consent, the spirit or substance of the national religion. The fifth clause declared that the

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members of the Church should receive adequate protection against pre­cipitate and arbitrary changes of established customs ; and the sixth stated the high value of concurrence in such matters between her majesty's gov­ernment and the ecclesiastical authorities in the initiative of all legislation affecting the Established Church.

Here, then, was a scheme much more comprehensive than that of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was constructed on precisely the opposite theory of what ought to be done relative to the given subject-matter. The debate continued for several days—not that anyone supposed that Mr. Gladstone would be able to force the substitution of his resolutions for the pending bill. That was, politically speaking, impossible. Not even the Liberals would solidly support the Gladstonian theory. There appeared a distinct purpose in the House to stand by the government measure, and by that policy to prevent the further extension of the ritualistic tendency. Mr. Gladstone, seeing the inevitable, withdrew his resolutions, and the bill for the regulation of public worship was passed by a large majority.

The next measure was an amendment to what was called The Endowed Schools Act. The endowed schools had been under the control since 1869 of a body called the Endowed Schools Commissioners. The object of the amendment was to transfer the government of such institutions to the Charities Commissioners, and also to change the sense of the former Act. The bottom intent was to reconfirm the Church of England in the powers and prerogatives which she had hitherto enjoyed to administer authority over those schools which had been founded with recognition of a bishop as the head of the institution. The whole measure was a covert proceeding against the educational legislation which had been obtained in the Liberal epoch under the management of Honorable William E. Forster.

The bill of amendment was distinctly reactionary. The anti-Church party in England, made up of all the refugees of religion, were alarmed and angered at the proposition to put back numerous schools, which had been emancipated within ten years past, under an ecclesiastical despotism. Of course Mr. Forster himself spoke against the bill, denouncing it as reac­tionary and unjust. It was an attempt, he said, to reestablish the old claim of the Established Church to primacy in the matter of controlling the edu­cational system of Great Britain. Mr. Gladstone followed in like argument. He showed that for a period of a hundred and thirty years (1530-1660) the Church had had no title to such endowments as those considered in the pending measure. The fact that Church instruction was to be given in schools did not imply Church management of them. The legislation now-proposed was retrogressive. It was intended to undo the beneficent work of the recent Parliament. He called attention of the House to the fact that for fifty years the initiative of every progressive policy, whether in legisla-

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tion or administration, had been taken by the Liberal party. This done, the Conservative party had been wont to move up and occupy the advanced positions. He gave citations of several instances in which this had been done. Some of these examples went back to the close of the seventeenth century.

In conclusion the speaker broke into an unusual strain, asking and demanding to know what the pending bill or amendment really amounted to. He referred to the statement of a member that the present matter was a legacy from the Liberal government. The speaker admitted that many legacies had been left by the Liberal government. In fact, every feature of current policy in every part of the State was a legacy from the Liberal government. “What," said the speaker, "are we now asked to do? The majority of this Parliament is invited to undo the work of their predeces­sors in office, in defiance of precedent, which should weary the House by enumerating, so great are their numbers and uniformity. It is rather remarkable that what is now the majority is about to undo an act which they never opposed in its passage. I believe that the conditions with ref­erence to schools before the Toleration Act and before the Reformation were carried in this House without a division. I believe I am even strictly correct in saying that this provision was not only agreed to without a divi­sion, but without an adverse voice, when the question was put from the chair. Yet they now avail themselves of the first opportunity they have to attempt to repeal what they did not object to when it was before Parlia­ment. Is this wise? Is it politic? Is it favorable to the true interests of the Established Church?"

Mr. Gladstone went on to inquire what judgment had been passed upon the English nation by men of the highest character and intelligence in foreign countries. He asserted that such men had uttered truths with regard to England, her people, and her policies which it would be well to consider. "What have they told us," said he, "of their judgment of the course and conduct of the British legislature? If you consult any one of those great political writers who adorn the literatures of their own coun­tries you will find their language respecting us uniform. When they look at our political constitution they are struck by the multitude of obstructions which, for the defense of minorities, we allow to be placed in the way of legislation. They are struck by observing that the immediate result is great slowness in the steps we take; but when they refer to the consequences of this slowness they find one great and powerful compensation, and it is that in England all progress is sure. Vestigia nulla retrorsum. Whatever has been once decided, whatever has once taken its place in the statute book or has been adopted in our administration, no feelings of party-and no vicissitudes of majorities or minorities are allowed to draw the

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nation into the dangerous, though they may be the seductive, paths of retrogression.

" That is the principle," said Mr. Gladstone, " to which we appeal ; and even were the rights of the case Jess clear, even were it equitable instead of inequitable, for the Church to make the claims which are made in her behalf by the government, most unwise would it be on the part of any administra­tion—and, of all others, most unwise on the part of the Conservative admin­istration—to give a shock to one of the great guiding principles and Jaws which have governed the policy of this country throughout a course of many generations, and the solidity and security of which is one of the main guarantees of the interests we possess and the liberty we enjoy."

The effect of this strong presentation was noticeable in the result. The bill was passed by a majority of ninety-two, and the motion forgoing into committee on the measure prevailed. Mr. Disraeli, however, more shrewd than his following, perceived the danger that was abroad on the score of such a measure, and consented in committee to a considerable mod­ification in the bill, whereby it was limited to a simple transfer of the gov­ernment of the endowed schools from the commissioners to the Charity Board. He did this with the allegation that the parts of the bill for the withdrawal of which the government gave consent were so complicated as not to be easily understood. This concession gave opportunity to Mr. Gladstone to attack the government with more than his usual energy; but we need not here repeat the polemics of the occasion.

The episode which we have just described was the beginning of a gen­eral inquiry on Mr. Gladstone's part into the fundamental principles of an educational polity for Great Britain. Indeed, before the period at which we have now arrived he was engaged in this useful and important stud). It was known abroad that the ex-prime minister was an adept in educational controversies, and he was frequently invited to deliver public addresses on the subject. One of these was spoken just after the adjournment of the parliamentary session of 1872, being addressed to the public on the occa­sion of the annual distribution of prizes to the students in Liverpool College. The address on this occasion was in its main theme a plea for the higher education; but the speaker concerned himself not a little with those forms of extreme unbelief which had arisen in connection with the scientific evolu­tion., He noticed in particular the great work of David Friedrich Strauss, Der Alte unci der JVeue Glaude (“The Old Belief and the New "), just then issued. He also spoke of the divisions and disagreements in belief among Christians, and denied that the existence of such divisions rendered 1 difficult to know what real Christianity is. He held that Christians, though disagreeing in belief, have nevertheless a substantial unity in fundamental doctrine. He called attention of the students to the fact that fifteen hun-

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dred years had elapsed since the great controversies respecting the Deity and the Godhead had been determined. Since that remote period there had been a fundamental agreement of nearly all Christians on the cardinal doc­trines of religion.

Then the speaker continued as follows: “It is the opinion and boast of some that man is not responsible for his belief. Lord Brougham was at one time stated to have given utterance to this opinion, whether truly I know not. But this I know, it was my privilege to hear from his own lips the needful and due limitation of that proposition. ‘Man,' he said, ' is not responsible to man for his belief.' But as before God one and the same law applies to opinions and to acts, or rather to inward and to outer acts, for opinions are inward acts. Many a wrong opinion may be guiltless because formed in ignorance, and because that ignorance may not be our fault; but who shall presume to say there is no mercy for wrong actions also when they, too, have been due to ignorance, and that ignorance has not been guilty ? The question is not whether judgments and actions are in the same degree influenced by the condition of the moral motives. It is unde­niable that self-love and passion have an influence upon both; then, so far as that influence goes, for both we must be prepared to answer. Should we, in common life, ask a body of swindlers for an opinion upon swindling, or of gamblers for an opinion upon gambling, or of misers upon bounty? And if in matters of religion we allow pride and perverseness to raise a cloud between us and the truth, so that we see it not, the false opinion that we form is but the index of that perverseness and that pride, and both for them, and for it as their offspring we shall be justly held responsible.

"Who they are upon whom this responsibility will fall it is not ours to judge. These laws are given to us, not to apply presumptuously to others, but to enforce honestly against ourselves. Next to a Christian life, my friends, you will find your best defense against reckless novelty of specula­tion in sobriety of temper and in sound intellectual habits. Be slow to stir inquiries which you do not mean particularly to pursue to their proper end. Be not afraid to suspend your judgment, or feel and admit to yourselves how narrow are the bounds of knowledge. Do not too readily assume that to us have been opened royal roads to truth which were heretofore hidden from the whole family of man; for the opening of such roads would not be so much favor as caprice. If it is bad to yield a blind submission to authority it is not less an error to deny to it its reasonable weight. Eschewing a servile adherence to the past, regard it with reverence and gratitude, and accept its accumulations in inward as well as outward things as the patrimony which it is your part in life both to preserve and to improve."

After the parliamentary session of 1875 was well under way Mr. Glad-

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stone attended the House of Commons but infrequently. He busied him­self in retirement with his intellectual pursuits. Quite different these were from the pursuits of Mr. Disraeli under like circumstances. The latter when politically undone was wont to retreat to imaginative literature, and to occupy his faculties with the writing of fiction. Like his father before him, he achieved in the world of polite letters a wide and lasting reputation. It was under such circumstances that he composed his novels, nearly all of them political in their motif. His Vindication of the British Constitution was written when he was thirty years of age. Vivian Grey was published in 1826; The Young Duke, in 1831 ; the Wondrous Tale of troy in 1833; the Revolutionary -Epic, in 1834 ; Henrietta Temple, in 1837 ; Coningsiy, in 1844; Sybil, in 1845 ; Tancred, in 1847; the Life of George Bentinck, in 1852; Tothair, in 1870; and Endymion, in 1880, the year before his death.

Very different from these employments of Mr. Disraeli were those of Gladstone. His serious, almost saturnine mind, could but be occupied with heavier themes. To him the condition of society, the tendencies of religious thought, the circumstances of progress, and the evolution of governmental principles appeared more worthy of literary consideration. In 185 1, as we have seen, he published his celebrated Tetters on the State Persecutions of the Neapolitan Government. His Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age was published in 1858; the fuzientus Mundifm 1869; his great essay in review of John Robert Seeley's Ecce Homo, in 1868 ; his pamphlets on The Vatican Decrees, in 1874—75; his Bulgarian Horrors, in 1876; and his Homeric Synchronism, in 1876. These works were by no means all that he produced; but they were typical of much more in the same serious and elevated sphere of literature.

The reader will observe from the dates just given how the time of Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden was occupied in the interval of his rest after the overthrow of the Liberal ministry in 1874. Nor may we pass from this subject without noticing the fact that the friends of Mr. Gladstone felt them­selves frequently justified in contrasting the literary avocations of Glad­stone with those of his rival. Capital was sometimes made out of the contrast. The Liberal newspapers were not slow to use such a circumstance to the detriment of the "Asian Mystery" and the glorification of their favorite. On a certain occasion the Pall Mall Gazette found reason to draw the contrast referred to in a memorable manner, saying, " Like the psalmist, the Liberal leader may well protest that verily he has cleansed his heart in vain and washed his hands in innocence; all day long he has been plagued by Whig lords and chastened every morning by Radical manufacturers. As blamelessly as any curate he has written about Ecce Homo, and. he has never made a speech, even in the smallest country town, without calling out with David, ' How foolish am I, and how ignorant !" For all this what does he

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see? The scorner [meaning Mr. Disraeli] who shot out the lip and shook the head at him across the table of the House of Commons last session [this was written in 1868] has now more than heart could wish; his eyes, speak­ing in an oriental manner, stand out with fatness, he speaketh loftily, and pride compasseth him as with a chain. . . . That the writer of frivolous stories about ' Vivian Grey ' and ' Coningsby' should grasp the scepter be­fore the writer of beautiful and serious things about Ecce Homo—the man who was epigrammatic, flashy, arrogant, before the man who never perpe­trated an epigram in his life, is always fervid, and would as soon die as admit that he had a shade more brain than his footman—the Radical corrupted into a Tory before the Tory purified and elevated into a Radical—is not this enough to make an honest man rend his mantle, and shave his head, and sit down among the ashes inconsolable? Let us play the too underrated part of Bildad the Shuhite for a space, while our chiefs have thus unwelcome leisure to scrape themselves with potsherds, and to meditate upon the evil way of the world." This may certainly suffice as a specimen of the Liberal estimate of the superiority of the sober, unwitty Gladstone to the flam­boyant, coruscating Disraeli.

Several years after his address to the Liverpool students Mr. Glad­stone delivered another of like, but superior, character in aid of the Buckley Institute. This address was also given in a recess of Parliament, namely, in the summer of 1878. His theme was that of the benefit of the brotherly societies among workingmen. To this class he addressed himself with sym­pathetic interest. In the first place he insisted that such organizations should be founded on enduring principles—such principles as must not be abandoned under chaneine circumstances. Otherwise the working-men who might enter the brotherhoods in early life would be obliged as they grew older to abandon their favorite halls on account of vicious or vitiated principles underlying the organization.

Mr. Gladstone said that he hoped the retail dealers of the country, coming to transact their business on the basis of money payments instead of credits, would be at length the friendly competitors of the brotherly societies. These societies might be extended to many industrial pursuits— some to manufacturing, some to farming, some to this, and some to that— for the immediate benefit of themselves and the general benefit of all. The trades unions ought to be conducted on the principles the speaker had out-lined. He said that it was difficult to carry large and liberal ideas into such organizations and to control them thereby. Certainly such principles ought to control on the question of the employment of women and boys and girls, who were often held down by a narrow and selfish policy. That this should be so was bad for the unions themselves. The labor of women and children ought to be put on the highest and most generous plane, and

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the regulation of their labor ought to be humane to a degree. There should be a provision for recreation, for games, for refreshments. -Every­thing generous and liberal should be provided by the unions for their mem­bership, and such a policy would be found to be most beneficial even from a selfish point of view.

In particular the speaker would urge upon his hearers the necessity of providing opportunities of intellectual development for the working classes. He was glad to believe that such opportunities were then more abundant than they had ever been before. The instruction of the common people was easier and more ample than at any former period. Publishers, by dissemi­nating means of information to the millions, had performed the part of Socrates, who was said to have brought down philosophy from heaven to earth. In the time of the speaker's boyhood books and all literature had been beyond the reach of the working people. As a boy he used to go to the stalls of the booksellers and find there nothing that was within the reach of the common man. He had himself paid two pounds sixteen shil­lings for his first copy of Shakespeare, but such a copy could now be bought for three shillings—less than one eighteenth of the former price. All man­ner of books had become accessible.

“We may be told," said Mr. Gladstone," that you want amusement; but that does not exclude improvement. There are a set of worthless books written now and at times which you should avoid, which profess to give amuse­ment; but in reading the works of such authors as Shakespeare and Scott there is the greatest possible amusement in its best form. Do you suppose that when you see men engaged in study they dislike it? No. There is labor, no doubt, of a certain kind—mental labor—but it is so associated with in­terest all along that it is forgotten in the delight which it carries in its per­formance, and no people know that better than the working classes. I want you to understand that multitudes of books now are constantly being prepared and placed within reach of the population at large, for the most part executed by writers of a high stamp, having subjects of the greatest in­terest, and which enable you at a moderate price, not to get a cheap litera­ture which is secondary in its quality, but to go straight into the very heart, if I may say so, into the sanctuary of the temple of literature, and become acquainted with the greatest and best works that the men of our country have produced. It is not to be supposed that workingmen, on coming home from labor, are to study Euclid and works of that character, and it is not to be desired unless in the case of very special gifts ; but what is to be desired is that some effort should be made by men of all classes to, and perhaps by none more than by the laboring class, to lift ourselves above the level of what is purely frivolous and to endeavor to find our amusement in making ourselves acquainted with things of real interest and beauty."

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From these examples of Mr. Gladstone's public utterances the reader is able to judge of the lines on which his mind was making its excursions in the period just after the overthrow of the Liberal ministry. It was more than four years from that event, namely in June of 1879 that he delivered another address in similar vein on the occasion of the distribution of prizes at the school of Mill Hill. The various institutions were anxious to gain the services of the statesman on such occasions. It might be noted that the more popular the school the more Mr. Gladstone's presence was desired. The institution at Mill Hill was under the patronage of the Nonconformists, who were as proud of their local interest as were they of the Church Estab­lishment of theirs.

On the occasion referred to Mr. Gladstone began with the very obvious exhortation to his young hearers that they should not make their prizes the he-all and the end-all of their exertions. Neither should those students who had failed to receive prizes feel on that account a loss of inspiration. Everything depended upon the future exertion of the young people, without much retrospective consideration of what they had or had not accomplished at school. The mind of the speaker reverted to the circumstances of his own education nearly sixty years previously. He declared that he had not renounced his fidelity to those time-honored schools to which he was per­sonally indebted. He told the youth of Mill Hill that though they had not the advantages that were so abundantly offered at the noble and ancient seats of learning, they should not for that reason feel themselves disparaged, Those institutions themselves were once fresh and new.

“If you are not sustained," said he, addressing the students, " by ancient traditions, neither are you hampered by any prejudices which in certain cases may prevail. All that you have achieved is before you. Their great experiences are at your service and command. You have power to appro­priate to yourselves every good rule they have made, and you have the power, where you are not satisfied with the results, to correct them.

These are great advantages; and that which others possess because their lathers handed it down to them, you, I hope, are gradually and progressively accumulating, in order to hand it over to those who may come after you. However, it was a great and bold undertaking to establish a school of this kind in a field which was already occupied by those great institutions so well known as the public schools of England. "I need not say I pay them [meaning the founders of Mill Hill School] the highest honor for determining to give this advantage of a public school" action, not on a basis merely neutral or negative with regard to religion, but on a basis which would supply all their wants and enable the pupils, according to the conscientious convictions their parents entertained, and in which they have been reared, to prepare themselves for that Christian life

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on which they are about to enter. I earnestly hope that upon that basis on which you have begun you will continue to stand. As you have not been ashamed or afraid to face the difficult enterprise of founding this public school, so I trust you will never be ashamed or afraid of recognizing, not a generalizing and neutralizing religion, but a religious teaching fully equal to all the honorable purposes of life."

It was in this vein that Mr. Gladstone was wont to address young people on the occasions when he was called to deliver formal speeches to them. This, as we see from the dates, happened frequently in the interval of his retirement. We have not yet recounted the circumstances which Jed to his resignation of the Liberal leadership. After his first letter to Lord Granville he addressed to that nobleman a second under date of January 6, 1875. In this he referred to his former communication, expressive of his personal desires. He said that the time had arrived, as he thought, when he ought to revert to the subject of his letter of March 12, 1874.

“Before determining," said he," whether I should offer to assume a charge which might extend over a length of time, I have reviewed "with all the care in my power a number of considerations, both public and private, of which a portion, and these not by any means insignificant, were not in existence at the date of that letter. The result has been that I see no public advantage in my continuing to act as the leader of the Liberal party, and that at the age of sixty-five, and after forty-two years of a laborious public life, I think myself entitled to retire on the present opportunity. This retirement is dictated to me by my personal views as to the best method of spending the closing years of my life. I need hardly say that my conduct in Parliament will continue to be governed by the principles on which I have hitherto acted ; and whatever arrangements may be made for the treat­ment of general business, and for the advantage or convenience of the Liberal party, they will have my cordial support. I should, perhaps, add that I am at present, and mean for a short time to be, engaged on a special matter which occupies me closely." (This referred to his preparation of the pamphlets on The Vatican Decrees!)

Discussion not a little ensued as to who should fill, or rather occupy, Mr. Gladstone's place as leader of the Liberals. There was much confusion among them on the subject. They had two men, upon either of whom, so far as their abilities were concerned, the honor and responsibility might have been well conferred. These were Mr. Robert Lowe and Mr. John Bright. Either would have made a leader of which no party would have had occasion to blush so far as the intellectual force of the one chosen might be concerned; but many other elements were needed in a successful leader. Mr. Lowe was in several particulars one of the most brilliant men in Parliament; but he was powerful in only a few particulars. He was not

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altogether discreet. His record on questions of prime importance was not wholly consistent. He was capable of losing his balance under provocation, and not very capable of regaining it.

As for Mr. Bright, all the world is acquainted with the sterling qualities of that great and honest man. If the Liberal party had required a leader who was simply great and honest, those who were in search would on com­ing to Mr. Bright have had to exclaim, Seek-no-farther! But it was neces­sary then, as it has been always necessary, that a great political leader should have the ability of putting his conscience suddenly in his boot and dapping on a mask through which to utter platitudes. The faculty of doing this work adroitly has ever been regarded as a prime essential. It was precisely the faculty that John Bright never had. In fact, Mr. Gladstone himself had it in so small a measure that his deficiency in this particular was always remarked by the subtle politicians with whom he had to deal. Hence neither Mr. Lowe nor Mr. Bright could answer the call. There were four others who were canvassed, namely, Mr. William E. Forster, Sir Wil­liam Vernon Harcourt, Mr. George Joachim Goschem, and Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquis of Harrington. After much discussion the choice fell on the last named statesman, who, notwithstanding his titles in the nobility was, for his substantial qualities and undoubted liberalism, cheerfully accepted by the party.

The 21st of April in this year saw Mr. Gladstone again in the House of Commons. On that date Mr. Osborne Morgan introduced a measure known as the Burials Bill. It was proposed that in case of burial in the grounds of a parish church the friends of the dead should have a right to choose what service so ever they would have rendered on the occasion. Here again we strike a question the like of which could not arise in the United States. For why should not the friends of the dead have a right to bury them with any services or no services at all, according to their liking? Strange indeed that the State should ever presume in any age or country to prescribe the particular religious form with which the bodies of the dead should be consigned to the windowless chambers !

But in England such presumption existed. Mr. Gladstone, learning of the pending of this bill, came into the House and spoke in its defense, saying that he was not willing to stop with supporting the measure with a silent vote. He admitted that it was a hardship that clergymen of the Establish­ment should be obliged to perform burial services where neither they nor the friends of the dead desired to have it done. This was certainly a truism of the contention! He agreed with Mr. Morgan that those who were not communinicants of the Church of .England had serious cause of protest when they were debarred from the privilege of having their own religious forms observed at the funerals of their deceased friends. This was a real

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grievance. There was one feature of the case, said the speaker, in which the clergyman of the parish had rights in case of the burial of persons not belonging to the communion. The clergyman was responsible for the safe keeping of the churchyard. He might properly see that the same was not trodden down by unruly crowds. Otherwise, the burial in the parish yard

might well be conceded to Nonconformists, the ceremony being conducted in their own manner. Mr. Bright took up the theme with his accustomed ability, and when it came to a vote the ministerial majority against it was reduced to fourteen.

It was now Mr. Gladstone's privilege as a member of the opposition to criticize the budgets of his Conservative successor, Sir Stafford Northcote. This he did on the presentation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s report for the year 1875. He spoke on the reading of the budget, and criticized

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severely the proposition of Sir Stafford relative to reducing the national debt. The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to create in a novel man­ner a sinking fund, to the amount of the interest on twenty-eight million pounds annually. By this means he hoped according to his calculations to pay off within a period of thirty years two hundred and thirteen million pounds of the public debt.

Mr. Gladstone assailed this project both destructively and construct­ively. He said that Sir Stafford Northcote's estimates for revenue, involv­ing his ability to create the sinking fund, were incorrect. On the other side, he said that there were three methods by which the national debt might be reduced. The first of these was by a surplus of revenues over expenditures. The second was by converting the debt into terminable annuities, and the third was by fixed appropriations. Much, he contended, had already been accomplished; but he was sure that the plan now proposed would not work out the expected results in the ensuing thirty years. Certainly there was not at the present time a farthing of surplus to justify the estimates of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

A new sinking fund, continued Mr. Gladstone, could not be produced by enacting a tax for its production. No finance minister in the world would have the hardihood to propose such an undertaking. Such a minister of finance as that had not yet appeared among the nations. " History," said Mr. Gladstone, with more than his accustomed humor, "has not produced any such creation ; no such lusus nature has as yet appeared ; and I do not think that the government of a party which justly prides itself on an adherence to the traditions of the past, on learning lessons from antiquity, on avoiding vain theories and keeping to the lessons of experience, ought to be the people to delude us by projects such as this into the marshes in which we shall be plunged, instead of remaining upon the safe highroad by which we have hitherto traveled."

In this encounter Sir Stafford Northcote was able to turn the tables at one point on his distinguished antagonist. He showed that what Mr. Glad­stone said about terminable annuities was quite inconsistent with one of his former utterances on the same subject. For the rest the Chancellor of the Exchequer was obliged to fall back upon the government majority to carry the adoption of the budget against the criticisms of the ex-prime minister.

We have here reached a period in the history of Great Britain and of Mr. Gladstone's life when the public mind was profoundly agitated on eccle­siastical questions. The future, we think, will be surprised at the nature of these questions, or rather at the fact that the highest thought of Great Britain was earnestly concerned about them. It is probable that the reli­gious and ecclesiastical history of the British nation is the most complicated of any in the world. Without being at the bottom a really religious race

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the English family has made a tremendous display of activity and concern about Church matters. At the first England was a Catholic country; but English Catholicism had its roots in a subsoil of profound paganism. With the Reformation England was broken off from Rome, but was not otherwise much reformed.

The great spiritual concern that broke over Germany and Switzerland and France was virtually unfelt in the cold British Isles. But the people 01 England must needs reform the Church to the extent of getting an estab­lishment of their own. Romanism retreated into Ireland, while a really Reformed Kirk, perhaps the most stony-hearted in the world, established itself in Scotland. By and by there came in England the dissenting insur­rections, with the resultant effect of creating a whole brood of earnest sects, each of which, without knowledge of history or any large view of mankind, sincerely regarded itself as the center and first fountain of pure Christianity, all the rest being false centers and false fountains, spouting bitter waters, the streams whereof instead of refreshing, made miasmatic all lands and islands where they flowed.

Rome scorns to be called a denomination; and the Church of England scorns it almost as much. Indeed, there is hardly any sect that relishes being designated as a denomination. Each one, according to its own con­sciousness, is the be-all and the end-all of the matter. Rome has her ritual, vast and splendid, uniform and elaborate, spectacular and sacred. The Church of England has hers also, not so vast and splendid, not so uniform or elaborate, not so spectacular or sacred. In fact, the vague hint of free thought in the English Establishment showed itself somewhat from the first in the disposition to employ variant forms of worship.

The sects, in the beginning, were nearly all rebels against ritual in what forms so ever. But as soon as they got themselves severally established—-with perhaps the exception of the Quakers—each proceeded to get for itself a poor, humble ritual and meager hint of forms; for man, being human, must have his forms for everything. The thing without a form in human matters seems to be merely nebulous. Ever since the beginning of the dissenting insurrections the organizations resulting from such movements have more and more enlarged and strengthened their forms, so that from the extreme democracy of Quakerism, up through all the lean concerns by way of Pres-byterianism to the Episcopal Establishment, and through it to Rome, the tendency has been to reestablish with greater or less elaboration and splen­dor those very ritualistic conditions that were cast off by the great German rebellion against the mother Church.

Now, at the time of which we speak, namely, the years 1875-79, the epoch of Mr. Gladstone's first retirement, the question of how much ritual, precisely, came, as we have said, to be regarded in the English Establish-

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ment as a matter of the greatest moment. There was a Romeward draught, and a draught toward the Evangelicals. The two forces pulled asunder, and the English Church was distraught thereby. So came the ritualistic contro­versy in which Mr. Gladstone bore a conspicuous part. Just after his retire­ment from office he began in a spirited manner to compose essays on ritualism and the Romanist complications that had thrust themselves so powerfully upon his attention.

Mr. Gladstone was capable of being surprised. Rome had surprised him. In the great Irish legislation of 1869-71 he had thought himself to be legislating in the interest, or at least according to the desires, of the Roman Catholics. Nearly seven eighths of the Irish people were of this faith and order. Mr. Gladstone thought that he would please them greatly with his Disestablishment Bill and Irish Land Bill; but he found, as we suppose, to his amazement, that he had pleased them not at all.

The Irish bishops and the Romanist party in general turned about and assailed their benefactor. Meanwhile the ultra-Protestant party denounced him and slandered him for his alleged treason to his own country and league with Rome. We may admit that the treatment to which he was subjected might well justify the high spirit, if not positive animosity, with which he now assailed the Romanists and Romanizing tendencies of the age. His first essay on ritualism was published in the October number of the Contempo­rary Review for the year 1874. In this article he defined the thing about which he was writing by saying that ritualism " is unwise, undisciplined, reaction from poverty, from coldness, from barrenness, from nakedness ; it is overlaying purpose with adventitious and obstructive encumbrance; it is departure from measure and from harmony in the annexation of appearance to substance, of the outward to the inward ; it is the caricature of the beautiful; it is the conversion of help into hindrances ; it is the attempted sub-sitution of the secondary for the primary aim, and the real failure and Paralysis of both."

This paragraph, in addition to being a clear exposition of Gladstone's views relative to the subject-matter of the contention, is a happy example of his unconquerable disposition to employ the general and the abstract, to the exclusion of the concrete and the direct in the forms of speech. From the above point of departure the writer soon reached the essence of the dispute, and charged home upon the opposite party with the greatest spirit. He gave utterance in the part we are about to quote to sentiments that stung the Roman Catholics to the quick.

In his general statement the statesman said: "There is a question which it is the special purpose of this paper to suggest for consideration, my fellow-Christians generally, which is more practical, and of greater importance, as it seems to me, and has far stronger claims on the attention

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of the nation and of the rulers of the Church than the question whether a handful of the clergy are or are not engaged in an utterly hopeless and visionary effort to Romanize the Church and people of England. At no time since the sanguinary reign of Mary has such a scheme been possible. But, if it had been possible in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries it would still have become impossible in the nineteenth; when Rome has sub­stituted for the proud boast of semper eadem a policy of violence and change in faith ; when she has refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused; when no one can become her convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another; and when she has equally repudi­ated modern thought and ancient history. I cannot persuade myself to feel alarm as to the final issue of her crusades in England, and this, although I do not undervalue her great powers of mischief."

This part of Mr. Gladstone's essay had the effect of angering the Roman Catholics not a little. He went on to contend that the ultimate ritual of the Christian Church must be found in the teaching of the apostles. The scriptural origin and character of religious forms he had endeavored to express in the series of resolutions which he had offered in the House of Commons not long ago, during the debate on the bill for the Regulation of Public Worship. These resolutions he now incorporated in his article.

The appearance of the treatise aroused the religionists of all views to heated controversy. Many replies were published, some of them exceed­ingly intemperate. The contention extended so far that Mr. Gladstone published a second article in the same periodical for July of 1875. In this he carried the war into Africa, and rose to a measure of belligerency which he did not often display. In the course of his review he said that in order to remove the grounds of misapprehension respecting his arguments he would express them all in the form of theses, and would make these the basis of whatever he should say. His propositions, five in number, were as follows :

" 1. The Church of this great nation is worth preserving, and for that end much may well be borne. "2. In the existing state of minds and of circumstances, preserved it cannot be, if we now shift its balance of doctrinal expression, be it by any alteration of the prayer book (either way) in contested points, or be it by treating rubrical interpretations of the matters heretofore most sharply con­tested on the basis of ' doctrinal significance.' " 3. The more we trust to moral forces, and the less to penal proceed­ings (which are to a considerable extent exclusive one of the other), the better, for the Establishment, and even for the Church. "4. If litigation is to be continued, and to remain, within the bounds of

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safety, it is highly requisite that it should be confined to the repression of such proceedings as really imply unfaithfulness to the national religion "5. In order that judicial decisions on ceremonial may habitually enjoy the large measure of authority, finality, and respect, which attaches in gen­eral to the sentences of our courts, it is requisite that they should have uni­form regard to the rules and results of full historical investigation and should, if possible, allow to stand over for the future matters insufficiently cleared, rather than decide them upon partial and fragmentary evidence."

This second article, so strongly controversial, did not pour oil on the waters. The author found it necessary to carry on his ecclesiastical cam­paign against Rome, and this he did in his celebrated pamphlets on The Vat­ican Decrees, to which publication we have already referred. He had been challenged to produce proof of the truth of the several theses, and this he proceeded to do. He dwelt in particular upon the second and the third proposition; that is, that the Church of Rome had " refurbished and paraded anew every rusty tool she was fondly thought to have disused; and that no one could now become her convert without renouncing his moral and men­tal freedom and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another." These propositions Mr. Gladstone proceeded to elaborate and to fortify with arguments that were highly edifying to those who were of his opinion, and equally annoying to those against whom they were directed.

Nor should we fail to keep in mind the gravamen of recent offending on the part of Rome which was the issuance five years previously of the dogma of infallibility—a doctrine which must needs be morally offensive to all adherents of the Church of England, and indeed of every other Church, save only Rome herself. Mr. Gladstone attacked the dogma in a mem­orable way. One of his principal paragraphs on this subject was as follows: Absolute obedience, it is boldly declared, is due to the pope, at the peril of salvation, not alone in faith, in morals, but in all things which concern the discipline and government of the Church. Thus are swept into the papal net whole multitudes of facts, whole systems of government, prevailing, though in different degrees, in every country in the world. Even in the United States, where the severance between Church and State is supposed to be complete, a long catalogue might be drawn of subjects belonging to the domain and competency of the State, but also undeniably affecting the government of the Church; such as, by way of example, marriage, burial, education, prison discipline, blasphemy, poor relief, incorporation, mortmain, religious endowments, vows of celibacy, and obedience.

"In Europe the circle is wider, the points of contact and of interlacing almost innumerable. But on all matters respecting which any pope may think proper to declare that they concern either faith, or morals, or the gov­ernment, or discipline of the Church, he claims, with the approval of a council

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undoubtedly ecumenical in the Roman sense, the absolute obedience at the peril of salvation, of every member of his communion. It seems not as yet to have been thought wise to pledge the council in terms to the Sylla­bus and Encyclical. That achievement is probably reserved for some one of its sittings yet to come. In the meantime it is well to remember that this claim in respect of all things affecting the discipline and government of the Church, as well as faith and conduct, is lodged in open day by and in the reign of a pontiff who has condemned free speech, free writing- a free press, toleration of nonconformity, liberty of conscience, the study of civil and philosophical matters in independence of the ecclesiastical authority, marriage, unless sacramentally contracted, and the definition by the State of the civil rights {jura) of the Church; who has demanded for the Church, therefore, the title to define its own civil rights, together with a divine right to civil immunities and a right to use physical force ; and who has also proudly asserted that the popes of the Middle Ages, with their coun­cils, did not invade the rights of princes; as, for example, Gregory VII, of the Emperor Henry IV, or Pius V, in performing the like paternal office for Elizabeth."

In the further prosecution of his argument Mr. Gladstone came to close quarters with his enemies. He made for them a sort of dilemma, which, indeed, it would have been difficult for them then or ever to meet. He demanded, first, a demonstration (from the Church of Rome) that neither in the name of faith, nor in the name of morals, nor in the name of the gov­ernment or discipline of the Church, is the Pope of Rome able, by virtue of the powers asserted for him by the Vatican decree, to make any claim upon those who adhere to his communion, of such a nature as can impair the integrity of their civil allegiance; or else, secondly, that, if and when such claim is made, it will, even although resting on the definitions of the Vati­can, be repelled and rejected ; just as Bishop Doyl, when he was asked what the Roman Catholic clergy would do if the pope intermeddled with their religion, replied frankly, "The consequence would be that we should oppose him by every means in our power, even by the exercise of our spiritual authority."

Such was the alternative, or rather the dilemma, in which Mr. Gladstone placed his antagonists. Of course no assurances could be given by them under either proposition; from which Mr. Gladstone proceeded to make cer­tain deductions : " First, that the pope, authorized by his council, claims for himself the domain of faith, of morals, of all that concerns the government and discipline of the Church ; second, that he, in like manner, claims the power of determining the limits of those domains ; third, that he does not sever them, by any acknowledged or intelligible line, from the domains of civil duty and allegiance; and fourth, that he therefore claims, and claims

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from the month of July, 1870, onward, with plenary authority, from every convert and member of his Church, that he shall ' place his loyalty and civil duty at the mercy of another,' that other being himself."

Mr. Gladstone went on with great earnestness to demonstrate that these hurtful deductions relative to the policy of the papacy were material considerations of the greatest importance. He said that he himself for thirty years, under changing conditions and in many' relations of life, had labored to promote and establish the civil rights of the Roman Catholics in the British Empire. He and his party had labored to this end. Up to the time of the publication of the Vatican decrees the opinions of Roman­ists in matters of civil liberty had been free. Now they were free no longer. Up to that time he had felt that the government of Great Britain ought to secure equal rights to Ireland, that country being Catholic. Hence the Irish legislation which he had promoted. And for what good? How had the Liberal party been treated in repayment for its acts of justice and liberality?

In the next place the writer showed that the only progress made by Roman Catholicism had been a certain extension of its influence among the upper classes of society. Probably the women were more than ever subject to the influence of the Catholic Church. The Pope of Rome did not of late control more souls than formerly, but he controlled more acres. As for himself, Mr. Gladstone said that he should hereafter be guided, as thereto-fore, by the principle of equal rights for all—this without regard to religious differences. He desired the government to do the same, and hoped that the members of the Roman communion would come under the benefit of this liberal policy. He was in hopes that the State would, as theretofore, leave the domain of religious conscience free and restrict its activities to its own sphere let the State allow no private caprice or any foreign arrogance to dictate to it in matters affecting the proper discharge of its duties. “England expects every man to do his duty," said he, and he thought that none were better able than the Liberal party to exact the performance of duty from all.

Then Mr. Gladstone continued: "Strong the state of the United Kingdom has always been in material strength, and its moral panoply is now we may hope, pretty complete. It is not then for the dignity of the crown and people of the United Kingdom to be diverted from a path which they have deliberately chosen, and which it does not rest with all the myr- mindons of the apostolic chamber either openly to obstruct or secretly to undermine. It is rightfully to be expected, it is greatly to be desired, that the Roman Catholics of this country should do in the nineteenth century what their forefathers of England, except a handful of emissaries, did in the sixteenth, when they were marshaled in resistance to the Armada, and in

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the seventeenth, when, in spite of the papal chair, they sat in the House of Lords under the oath of allegiance. That which they are entitled to desire we are entitled also to expect; indeed, to say we did not expect it would, in my judgment, be the true way of conveying an ' insult' to those con­cerned.

“In this expectation we may be partially disappointed. Should those to whom I appeal thus unhappily come to bear witness in their own per­sons to the decay of sound, manly, true life in their Church, it will be their loss more than ours. The inhabitants of those islands, as a whole, are stable, though sometimes credulous and excitable; resolute, though sometimes boastful; and a strong-headed and stout-hearted race will not be hindered, either by latent or by avowed dissents due to the foreign influence of a caste, from the accomplishment of its mission in the world."

The general effect of this publication, made in the years 1874-75, was to arouse the Romanist party to a high degree of antagonism. Mr. Glad­stone's pamphlet was a challenge thrown down to the oldest and most powerful Christian organization in the world. Replies began to be made on every hand. Cardinals Manning and Newman entered the lists against the ex-prime minister. Archbishops and bishops published their answers galore. In England, on the Continent, even to the gates of Rome, the echoes of the controversy were heard. In a few instances defenders of Mr. Gladstone's publication were found in the enemy's ranks. This is equivalent to saying that there were Roman Catholics of high estate and character who did not support the decree of infallibility. Not a few pointed out the dangerous extremes and ultimate catastrophe to which the promulgation and accept­ance of that dogma would lead.

Mr. Gladstone for his part returned to the controversy and published a second paper, under the title of Vaticanism: An Answer to Reproofs and Replies. In this he said that it had not been his purpose to traduce the Roman Catholic Church, but merely to show that the Vatican decrees did presume to claim for the pope the right of supreme dominion over the loyalty and civil duty of the citizenship of all countries. This claim must be resisted. He admitted that in the hearts of men the papal decrees were received with varying degrees of submissiveness, but that they were received at all was a just cause of alarm and of opposition on the part of patriots throughout the world. He next referred to the secession of Cardinal John Henry Newman from the Church of England and its calamitous results to Protestantism. He thought that the defection of the pious and scholarly Newman was a more serious thing- to the Church of England than the evangelical insurrection of Wesley and his followers. Nevertheless he could not accept Dr. Newman's answer, though he admitted that the answer was honestly given. The fact that such an answer had been prepared by one

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who had been the light and ornament of the English Church was sufficient cause for anxiety.

Mr. Gladstone then continued by the reassertion and further develop­ment of the doctrines announced in his former pamphlet. He set forth the proofs to establish certain general conclusions at which he had arrived. These were, first, that the position of the Roman Catholics had been altered by the decrees of the Vatican on papal infallibility and in obedience to the pope; secondly, that the extreme claims of the Middle Ages had been sanc­tioned, and had been revived without the warrant or excuse which might in those ages have been shown for them ; thirdly, that the claims asserted by the pope were such as to place civil allegiance at his mercy; and, fourthly, that the State and people of the United Kingdom had a right to rely on the assurances they had received, that papal infallibility was not and could not become an article of faith in the Roman Church, and that the obedience due to the pope was limited by laws independent of his will These propositions the author sustained with great ability and in a manner much more temperate than had been shown by many of his opponents.

The period here before us in Mr. Gladstone's life was occupied in a great measure with intellectual activities. The statesman spent the greater part of his time on his estate of Hawarden. It was at this time that he ac­quired his character of a rusticated philosopher among the nations. Hawarden began to be already a place to be visited and admired, not for itself, but for the sturdy genius of a man old in years, but not old in bodily or intellectual vigor. Gladstone at this time began to be a woodchopper in public report. He was more than ever admired for his democratic manners, for the sim-plicity of his character, for his stalwart personality. It was known hence-forth that the sage of Hawarden rose with the morning light; that he was often abroad in shirt sleeves, with his ax, felling a tree or chopping wood, more for the exercise than for the pursuit. A temperate, cool-headed man this, who had little thought of ending his activities at so early a period in his life, no thought at all of even the possibility of consuming his remaining energies in idleness and the dissipations of great old men. As we have said, this was a time of vigorous intellectual activity. The larger part of the statesman's energy was now devoted to his writings. One great essay followed another. The greater part of them had for their themes some phase of the religious controversy that was on in the country. Be- sidesthe pamphlets on " The Church of England and Ritualism," which ap- peared in the Conlemporary Review for. October, 1874, and July, 1875, Mr. Gladstone soon afterward—namely, in October, 1875—contributed to the Church of England Quarterly Review an article on Italy and her Church, which, like its predecessors, evoked several controversial papers in answer.

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Then, in the Contemporary Review for June of 1876, came another remark­able study on “The Courses of Religious Thought."

In March of 1877 the author followed with a remarkable article on the “Influence of Authority on Matters of Opinion," which first appeared in The Nineteenth Century. To this also several replies were published, and the author returned to the theme with what he called a " Rejoinder on Authority in Matters of Opinion." This appeared in The Nineteenth Century for July, 1877. In the following year he published one of his strongest reviews, under the title of " The Sixteenth Century Arraigned before the Nine­teenth: A Study of the Reformation." This contribution appeared in the Contemporary Review for October, 1878. Finally, in July of 1879, Mr. Glad­stone published in the British Quarterly Review an able study, entitled "The Evangelical Movement: Its Parentage, Progress, and Issue." The mere enumeration of these great studies may serve to show the American reader the extent and persistency of Mr. Gladstone's inquiries into the religiocivil questions of the times.

But the reviews to which we have referred did not by any means include all of the literary work of Mr. Gladstone during the time of the Conserv­ative ascendancy (1875-80). He prosecuted his work in other directions, as well as along the lines of religious controversy. In the Quarterly Review for October, 1874, appeared an article on “Bishop Patteson," which was from the pen of Mr. Gladstone. In July of 1876 he published in the Church of England Quarterly Review a contribution on the “Life and Work of Dr. Norman Macleod," and in the same month appeared, in the Quarterly Re-View, his celebrated critique of Macaulay, to which we shall hereafter refer. In the following December there appeared in the Contemporary Review Mr. Gladstone's article on "The Hellenic Factor in the Eastern Problem," and this was followed in May of 1877, by an able study which appeared in The Nineteenth Century, under the title of " Montenegro, or Tsarnagora: A sketch." Then came, in August of the same year, a great paper on “The Aggression of Egypt, and Freedom in the East," which was published in The Nineteenth Century. To these historical studies we must add, as be-longing to this period, the “Life of the Prince Consort," which appeared in the Church of England Quarterly Review for January, 1878. In the previous November Mr. Gladstone had published in The Nineteenth Century his political article on “The County Franchise, and Mr. Lowe Thereon." This was followed by another on the same subject, entitled “Last Words on the County Franchise," which appeared in The Nineteenth Century for January, 1878. But the last zaords did not prove to be the last, for in July following Mr. Gladstone contributed to " A Modern Symposium," in the same magazine, what he called" Postscriptum on the County Franchise," of which, the author, in his published works, offers the following apology :

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“It was an inconsistency to write this postscript after my ' Last Words.' But the soft and silken cord with which the editor of The Nineteenth Cen­ tury guides his contributors usually draws them whithersoever he will. E. G., 1878." Nor did the statesman, in the midst of his intellectual indus­tries, forget America and the Americans. In September of 1878 he pub­lished in the North American Review his article entitled " Kin beyond Sea." This was devoted to ourselves and our institutions. The temper of it may be understood from the poetical quotation with which it begins:

"When Love unites, wide space divides in vain, And hands may clasp across the spreading main."

Out of all this may be gathered an adequate general view of the Gladstonian activities at that period which is covered by the greater number of his general essays, namely, the years 1875-80, inclusive. These essays con­stitute the major part of the seven volumes which were subsequently fath­ered by the author and republished, with notes and additions, under the title of Gleanings of Past Years.

It was during the Conservative ascendancy—which might almost be defined as the reign of Benjamin Disraeli—corresponding, of course, with the epoch of Mr. Gladstone's retirement that the Eastern Question again appeared as a disturbing force in the affairs of Europe. It showed itself in several conspicuous forms. Now it was declared as an element of discord underlying the outrages and turbulence in Herzegovina. Now it showed itself in a war in Afghanistan. Now it declared itself still more distinctly in the Turco-Russian War of 1877-78.

The whole of Europe was concerned in these matters, and England, in particular, had a part in them. The question was, in a word, what it is to­day, and that is, what Europe shall do with the unspeakable Turk. Mr. Gladstone held and expressed the view that the Turk ought to be expelled from Europe bag and baggage—the last three words passing into a colloquial proverb expressive of a policy. Great Britain, as a government, however, was a party to the compact for upholding the Ottoman power in Europe, and the Conservative party was especially committed to this method.

If Mr. Disraeli found cause to complain of Gladstone that the latter, in 1868, threw suddenly upon him the Irish question, seven centuries old, he had again, in 1875, cause to complain that history had brought to the door the Eastern Question once more in a bag out of Herzegovina. In that country there was an insurrection against the Turkish government. Her­zegovina was under the dominion of Turkish pashas who were so many Mohammedan despots. The trouble began in 1875, and by the beginning of. the following year culminated in actual war. Count Andrassy, State representative of Austria, thereupon drew up a scheme of reform and sent the

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same to the powers, by whom it was ratified and submitted to the sultan who accepted it. But in a few months a revolt broke out in Bulgaria where the Bashibazouks loosed themselves and committed horrors unspeak­able in civilized language.

Before the middle of the year the Emperor of Russia and his prime

minister went to Berlin, whither Emperor William of Germany and Bis-marck had come, to discuss the Eastern Question, and where they did discuss it in a manner looking to hard terms for Turkey. But Great Britain dissented; fand the bulgarian insurrection was suppressed. At this juncture Abdul Aziz, Sulttan of the Turks, was deposed and assassinated. Mr. Disraeli, when interrogated in the House of Commons, said that, owing to the end of the Bulgarian revolt, the governmental memorandum of disagree-

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ment would not be presented, and that a result would be reached in the way of settlement which would be honorable to England.

It was at the opening of Parliament in 1876 that the remarkable per­sonage at the head of the government was enabled to rise and announce that Victoria, by the grace of God Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, had added to her royal titles that of Empress of India. There was opposition from the Liberal side, and particularly from the radical ranks, to the proclamation, and it was agreed that the new honor and title of the queen should not be employed in the home kingdom of Great Britain, but only abroad; that is, in India itself.

About this time the newspaper reports which were sent from Bulgaria to London aroused the country to a pitch of excitement. It appeared that the ravages in that country were beyond description. Such horrors had not been committed in modern times. One of the stories was to the effect that forty innocent girls had been confined in a straw loft and there burnt to death. Possibly the reports were exaggerated; but the disposition of Mr. Disraeli to put them aside and to perpetrate witty sayings on such a subject in the House of Commons was well calculated to arouse public indignation and to contribute to his overthrow. The Bulgarian trouble extended into Servia, and then into Montenegro. Nor need we here repeat the story of the war that ensued.

Mr. Gladstone reappeared at this juncture in the House of Commons and interrogated the government about the sending of a fleet to Besika Bay. The prime minister replied that the fleet was not intended to uphold the Ottoman power, but to protect British interests. He also said that the Berlin memorandum could not be justly condemned as the cause of war He alleged that the other powers were at one with Great Britain, and that the policy of neutrality would be upheld. He thought that the reports about the atrocities in the East had been exaggerated. He said that the government had no official information respecting them, and that in any event Turkey was not the especial protégé of England. Finally, it was the business as well as the policy of Great Britain to maintain the British Empire, and that the government would do, whatever conditions might arise. This speech was delivered on the nth of August, 1876, and on the follow­ing day it was announced in the English newspapers that Benjamin Disraeli was to be immediately raised to the peerage, with the title of the Earl of Beaconsfield! The prime minister was in favor with the crown.

It was on the 27th of August, 1876, that Mr. Disraeli received the overwhelming honor to which no doubt he had looked forward for years He had already, on a previous occasion, accepted the title of duchess for Mrs. Disraeli, but as for himself his time had not then come. Now, at the age of seventy-two, with only a few remaining years before him and with

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international fame behind, he accepted the title of Earl of Beaconsfield which was equivalent to announcing his retirement from the heated arena of British politics. He issued to his constituents on the occasion a farewell address in which he said: “Throughout my public life I have aimed at two chief results. Not insensible to the principle of progress, I have endeavored

to reconcile change with that respect for tradition which is one of the main elements of our social strength, and in external affairs I have endeavored to develop and strengthen our empire, believing that combination of achievement and responsibility elevates the character and condition of a people." This last expression of the statesman is to be read and understood in the light of the fact that it was under his auspices, and somewhat against the prejudices of the progressive party in England, that Queen Victoria was made Empress of India.

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As to the complications in Eastern Europe, news from that quarter of the world grew more and more portentous. Mr. W. Baring, an agent of the British government, made an official report in which the stones about the outrages in Bulgaria were authenticated. Mr. Baring showed that as mani­as twelve thousand people had perished miserably by fire and sword in the single province of l'hilippopolis. At Batak a massacre had been perpe-' trated the like of which had hardly been known since the Crusades. More than a thousand people took refuge in a church, where they were shut up by the Bashibazouks, who climbed to the roof and fired the building above and within. The horror that ensued may never be described. The victims of the atrocity were burned to death and left in a blackened mass in the ruins.

The story of these deeds created a shudder of detestation in Great Britain, and the anger of the nation was kindled not a little against the Turks. In Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet, Bulgarian Horrors and the Ques­tion of the East, he set forth the three principal objects which Great Britain should follow in bringing the Turkish atrocities to a speedy end. These were, first, to put a stop to the anarchical misrule and abominable intrigues and lawlessness of the Turks in Bulgaria ; second, to make provision against the recurrence of such outrages by exempting Bulgaria, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, from the further rule of the Turkish government; third, to redeem by such measures the compromised honor of Great Britain, who had demanded much and pledged much, but thus far obtained nothing in the way of protection for the Christian subjects of the porte.

Mr. Gladstone urged that the British government, which had been working in one direction, should now work in another, and that other should look to the total extinction of the executive power of the Ottoman Empire in Bulgaria. He added: “Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned." Mr. Gladstone after­ward explained that his demand for the total retirement of the Turks "bag and baggage" from the scene of their crimes had respect only to the civil, the executive, and the political machinery of government, and not to the Turkish people themselves. They had a right to remain, but not to govern, or rather misgovern, any longer.

What we here describe happened in the year 1876. While our Cen­tennial Exposition at Philadelphia was on in full grandeur Mr. Gladstone, following up his war cry, made a great speech to his constituents at Black-heath. He compared the atrocities of modern history with those recently committed by the Turks, making it appear that the former were no more

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than a cupful of crime to the horrid deluge of the latter. He said that it was the duty of the powers to prescribe at once to the Turks under what conditions they should hereafter exercise their rights in the suffering prov­inces. Speaking as if to the offenders, he said: " You shall receive a rea­sonable tribute; you shall retain your titular sovereignty; your empire shall not be invaded; but never again while the years roll their course, so far as it is in our power to determine, never again shall the hand of violence be raised by you; never again shall the dire refinements of cruelty be devised by you for the sake of making mankind miserable in Bulgaria."

Mr. Gladstone was insistent that all civilized Europe should act together in enforcing these demands. He thought, however, that of all the powers Russia and England were called in particular to support the cause of the suffering Christians in the Turkish provinces. He said that he did not suppose Russia to be more exempt than other countries from the influences of selfishness and ambition; but he was sure she, like the others, had the pulse of the common humanity which was throb­bing in all. This pulse was beating strongly, almost ungovernably, among the Russian people. Then he continued: "Upon the concord and hearty cooperation—not upon a mere hollow truce between England and Russia, but upon their concord and hearty, cordial cooperation—depends a good settlement of this question. Their power is immense. The power of Russia by land for acting upon these countries as against Turkey is perfectly resistless; the power of England by sea is scarcely less important at this moment. For I ask you, what would be the condition of the Turkish armies if the British admiral now in Besika Bay were to inform the government of Constantinople that from that hour until atonement had been made—until punishment had descended, until justice had been vindicated—not a man, nor a ship, nor a boat should cross the waters of the Bosporus, or the cloudy Euxine, or the bright AEgean, to carry aid to the Turkish troops?"

This speech at Blackheath may be regarded as the reappearance of Mr. Gladstone in public life after more than two years of obscuration. He per­ceived that another struggle was coming, and that a governmental policy had to be determined. Mr. Disraeli (now Lord Beaconsfield) also understood this fact, and found himself on the defensive. He tried to ward off the conse­quences of Mr. Gladstone's attack and of the rising sentiment of the country

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against his policy. He went so far as to intimate that the utterances and general course pursued by the Liberals were as anarchical and withal as bad as the Bulgarian atrocities—an expression belonging to the sphere of political persiflage and falsehood rather than to the sphere of statesmanship and truth.

Meanwhile Russia stood impatiently with drawn sword, menacing the Turkish borders. The porte, on the 1st of November, 1876, agreed to an armistice of eight weeks, and the czar, on the following day, agreed with the English ambassador at Constantinople to maintain the status quo, except so far as the occupation by Russian forces of a part of Bulgaria. Meanwhile, a week later, Lord Beaconsfield at a ministerial banquet gave utterance to sentiments which encouraged the czar to believe that he would be permitted by the powers to proceed independently to the chastisement of the Turks.

The powers had sent their representatives, or at least nominated them, to a conference at Constantinople, and thither the ambassadors repaired, arriving in the early part of December. The representative of Great Britain was the Marquis of Salisbury. The Liberal party in England was now abroad by its representatives discussing the condition of Eastern affairs, and urging the government to unite with the powers in suppressing the Turkish outrages. In pursuance of this plan a great meeting was held in St. James's Hall, on the 8th of December, 1876, at which several of the most distinguished publicists of Great Britain delivered addresses. Among these was Mr. Gladstone, who made on the occasion a remarkable speech, saying, in the first place, that it was not his intention or the intention of those whom he represented to embarrass the government, but rather to con­vince the government that it was acting, and had for a year been acting, in direct opposition to the will of the English people. The prime minister, in his public utterances, had seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that England had any duties to perform with respect to the Christians of the Turkish provinces. More recently Lord Beaconsfield had admitted that there were such duties to be performed. Sir Stafford Northcote had made a similar admission.

The speaker said that he hoped the instructions of Lord Salisbury at Constantinople were not accordant with the sentiment which had generally been expressed by her majesty's government. He also greatly hoped that the conference at Constantinople would demand the future independence of the Turkish provinces and the security for their exemption against further injustice and outrage. All this was no longer a privilege to England, but her solemn duty. " It is a case," said Mr. Gladstone, "of positive obliga­tion, and, under the stringent pressure of that obligation, I say that, if at length long-suffering and long-oppressed humanity in these provinces is

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lifting itself from the ground, and beginning to contemplate the heavens, it is our business to assist the work. It is our business to acknowledge the obligation, to take part in the burden, and it is our privilege to claim for our country a share in the honor and in the fame. This acknowledgment of duty, this attempt to realize the honor, is what we at least shall endeavor to obtain from the government; and with nothing less than this shall we who are assembled here be, under any circumstances, persuaded to say 'content.'" The conference at Constantinople began its sittings on the 23d of December. A plan of reform was prepared and was about to be announced, when on the 30th of the month the sultan made known to the ambassadors of the powers that he was about to promulgate a new constitution, which would include reform in the matters complained of. So there was a suspen­sion of proceedings for three weeks. When the conference finally closed, the proposals which it had prepared for an international commission, and also for the appointment of governors general for the provinces by the ' sultan for a term of five years, under the approval of the powers, were both rejected by the porte, and matters were left in virtually the same condition as they had been before—except the announcement of the new constitution of the Turkish empire.

Such was the condition of affairs when, on the 8th of February, 1877, Parliament convened. Mr. Gladstone was in attendance and spoke on the address from the throne. A few days afterward he again addressed the House more at length on the Eastern Question and the duties of England with respect thereto. Those duties did not involve a war with Turkey, but did involve the maintenance of good faith and the principle of protection to the Christian populations of Bulgaria, Herzegovina, Servia, and the rest. the speaker showed himself to be deeply in earnest, and his address was in the nature of a challenge to the ministerial policy.

Mr. Chaplin spoke in reply, accusing Mr. Gladstone and his followers of having attempted with their speeches and pamphlets to force a policy upon Great Britain in opposition to the policy of the executive government. Warming up to the occasion, Mr. Chaplin said that the right honorable gen­tleman (meaning Mr. Gladstone) must do one of two things : either he must make good the statements which he had published and uttered, or else withdraw them, as there was no other course for an honorable man to pursue! This seemed to imply that if Mr. Gladstone did not prove or disavow his publication he was not an honorable man. Hereupon the speaker called Mr. Chaplin to order for unparliamentary language, and he was obliged, not indeed to prove, but to disavow!

The House was astonished at what followed. Mr. Gladstone had, of course, no notice of the challenge which was to be given him on the occasion. The challenge involved a wide range of discussion; but he immediately

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arose and replied to Mr. Chaplin in a memorable manner. He said that the honorable gentleman had not attended the public meetings of which he com­plained. He should have done so, and there challenged him (Mr. Glad­stone) for his proofs. In the beginning of the speech there were signs of interruption, but this aroused the statesman' to the proper excitement for a great address. He put down first one interlocutor, and then another, but did not lose sight of the original offender.

Referring to Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Gladstone continued: “He says, sir, that I have been an inflammatory agitator, and that, as soon as I have got into this House, I have no disposition to chant in the same key. But before these debates are over—before this question is settled—the honorable gen­tleman will know more about my opinions than he knows at present, or is likely to know to-night. I am not about to reveal now to the honorable gentleman the secrets of a mind so inferior to his own. I am not so young as to think that his obliging inquiries supply me with the opportunities most advantageous to the public interest for the laying out of the plan of a cam­paign. By the time the honorable gentleman is as old as I am, if he comes in his turn to be accused of cowardice by a man of the next generation to himself, he probably may find it convenient to refer to the reply I am now making, and to make it a model, or, at all events, to take from it hints and suggestions, with which to dispose of the antagonist that may then rise against him." This certainly was sufficient to dispose of the rash gentleman who had aroused the old parliamentarian of whom he might well beware.

Mr. Gladstone in the next place replied to the assertion that he had himself by his pamphlet on the “Bulgarian Horrors " and by his Blackheath speech become the fomentor of the mischief that was abroad in Europe. If this were so, why did not some member of the government reply with a pamphlet to the contrary, and with a speech denying and confuting his own? That would have been the proper method of extinguishing a false agitation. The speaker went on to show that other patriotic Englishmen, such as Lord Derby, had done their part to arouse the just resentment of England on the score of the Turkish outrages. Then Mr. Gladstone, still unwilling to let Mr. Chaplin pass from view, continued: “I will tell the honorable gentleman something in answer to his questions, and it is that I will tell him nothing at all. I will take my own counsel, and beg to inform him that he shall have no reason whatever to complain, when the accounts come to be settled and cast up at the end of the whole matter, of any reticence or suppressions on my part."

As for the policy of the government, the speaker said it had become necessary- to watch that policy lest it should conflict with the sentiment and purpose of England. As to Lord Salisbury, he had confidence in that states­man to uphold the honor of his country; but he had fears that there might

be two policies in the government councils. As for Parliament, there was before that body a great and solemn question to be determined. It was the question of the East. This question had returned, and must be met with all its absorbing interests. In the original entrance of the Turks into Europe, it might be said there was a turning point in human history. " To a great extent," said he, " it continues to be the cardinal question, the question which casts into the shade every other question, and the question which is now brought before the mind of the country far more fully than at any period of our history, far more fully than even at the time of the Crimean war, when we were pouring forth our blood and treasure in what we thought to be the cause of justice and right. And I endeavored to impress upon the minds of my audience at Taunton, not a blind prejudice against this man or that, but a great watchfulness, and the duty of great activity.

It is the duty of every man to feel that he is bound for himself, accord- ing to his opportunities, to examine what belongs to this question, with regard to which it can never be forgotten that we are those who set up the power of Turkey in 1854; that we are those who gave her the strength which has been exhibited in the Bulgarian massacres ; that we are those who made the treaty arrangements that have secured her for twenty years from almost a single hour of uneasiness brought about by foreign interven- tion;. and that, therefore, nothing can be greater and nothing deeper than our responsibility in the matter. It is incumbent upon us, one and all, that we do not allow any consideration, either of party or personal convenience, to prevent us from endeavoring to the best of our ability to discharge this great duty, that now, at length, in the East, has sprung up; and that in the midst of this great opportunity, when all Europe has been called to collect­ ive action, and when something like European concert has been established when we learn the deep human interests that are involved in every stage of the question—as far as England at least is concerned, every Englishman should strive to the utmost of his might that justice shall be done."

The Eastern Question soon dragged itself into the Turco-Russian War. The powers trifled with the question until Russia, within the limits of her opportunity, went to the task of punishing the Turks by herself. On the 24th of April, 1877, war was declared; the conference of Constantinople was acknowledged as a failure; the protocol which had been prepared at London became of no effect, and proclamations of neutrality were issued by England, France, and Italy.

On the 7th of May the question of the conduct of the government with regard to these great matters came up in the House of Commons, and Mr. Gladstone, reappearing in that body, offered the following resolutions: " First, That this House finds just cause of dissatisfaction and complaint in the conduct of the Ottoman porte with regard to the dispatch written by the Earl

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of Derby on September 21, 1876, and relating to the massacres in Bulgaria. Second, that until such conduct shall have been essentially changed, and guar­antees on behalf of the subject populations other than the promises or osten­sible measures of the porte shall have been provided, that government will be deemed by this House to have lost all claim to receive either the mate­rial or the moral support of the British crown. Third, That in the midst of the complications which exist, and the war which has actually begun, this House earnestly desires the influence on the British crown in the coun­cils of Europe to be employed with a view to the early and effectual devel­opment of local liberty and practical self-government in the disturbed prov­inces of Turkey, by putting an end to the oppression which they now suffer, with the imposition upon them of any other foreign dominion. Fourth, That, bearing in mind the wise and honorable policy of this country in the proto­col of April, 1826, and the treaty of July, 1827, with respect to Greece, this House furthermore earnestly desires that the influence of the British crown to the promoting [of] the concert of the European powers in exacting from the Ottoman porte, by their united authority, such changes in the govern­ment of Turkey as they may deem to be necessary for the purposes of humanity and justice, for effectual defense against intrigue, and for the peace of the world should be upheld. Fifth, that a humble addresses, setting forth the prayer of this House, according to the tenor of the foregoing reso­lutions, be prepared and presented to her majesty."

In this case it appeared that Mr. Gladstone had overdrawn the mark. It was feared by many that the resolutions if adopted would lead to an offensive-defensive alliance with Russia. A considerable part of the Liberal contingent held this view, and would not follow the leader. The third reso­lution was modified into a simpler form, and the other three were expedi­ently abandoned by Mr. Gladstone. But the statesman rallied all his force for the defense of his third resolution. To this he spoke with great cogency. He criticized the government, which he accused of following only an ambig­uous policy. It was not enough that England should give a moral support to the cause of right in the East. The remonstrances of the government had not prevailed with the porte. It was not possible to fix the guilt of what had occurred in the Turkish provinces on any party or parties except on the Turkish government itself. The Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire had had ground to expect defense and protection from Great Britain as well as from Russia. When the Liberal party was in power it had acted vigorously and consistently in suppressing the outrages in Syria. Ever since the Crimean War the Christians under the Mohammedan sway had not been properly safeguarded. The great battle for freedom throughout the world had not been fought to a successful conclusion. Great Britain ought to ask herself whether she had well performed her duty. There had

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been times in the past when England was the hope of freedom. There had been times when every high aspiration of mankind had been answered with another in England, when every blow struck for emancipation was rein­forced with another blow struck by a Briton.

People who enjoyed freedom under British institutions ought to desire the diffusion of freedom to others. “You talk to me," said he, “of the established tradition and policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to an established tradition older, wider, nobler far—a tradition, not which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek the promotion of these interests in obeying the dictates of honor and justice. . . . There is now before the world a glorious prize. A portion of those unhappy people [meaning the Christians of the Turkish provinces] are still as yet making an effort to retrieve what they have lost so long, but have not ceased to love and desire. Speak of those in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another portion—a band of heroes such as the world has rarely seen—stand on the rocks of Montenegro, and are ready now, as they have ever been during the four hundred years of their exile from their fertile plains, to sweep down from their fastnesses and meet the Turks at any odds for the reestablishment of justice and peace in those countries. Another portion still, the five million Bulgarians, cowed and beaten down to the ground, hardly venturing to look upward, even to their Father in heaven, have extended their hands to you.

“But, sir, the removal of that load of woe and shame is a great and noble prize. It is a prize well worth competing for. It is not yet too late to try to win it. I believe there are men in the cabinet who would try to win it if they were free to act on their own beliefs and aspiration. It is not yet too late, I say, to become competitors for that prize, but be assured that whether you mean to claim for yourselves even a single leaf in that immortal chapter of renown which will be the reward of true labor in that cause, or whether you turn your backs upon that cause and upon your own duty, I believe for one that the knell of Turkish tyranny in these provinces has sounded; so far as human eye can judge it is about to be destroyed. The destruction may not come in the way or by the means that we should choose ; but, come this boon from what hand's it may it will be a noble boon, and as a noble boon will gladly be accepted by Christendom and the world." The debate was thus on in full force. The party of the government declared that the idea of acting in concert with the other powers to obtain the desired ends in the East could be no longer entertained. The Liberals generally held the opposite view. Mr. Gladstone was insistent that com­bined Europe ought to act against Turkey and enforce a satisfactory reform. He did not believe that under such compulsion the porte would go to war with the combined powers. It was the duty of Europe to send an interna­tional fleet of sufficient strength to neutralize that of Turkey.

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The speaker then compared the efforts of civilization against the Turk­ish power to the work of Sisyphus rolling the stone up the mountain slope. “Time," said the speaker, " is short; the sands of the hourglass are run­ning out. The longer you delay the less in all likelihood you will be able to save from the wreck of the integrity and independence of the Turkish Empire. If Russia should fail her failure will be a disaster to mankind and the condition of the suffering races, for whom we are supposed to have labored, will be worse than it was before. If she succeeds, and if her con­duct be honorable, nay, even if it be but tolerably prudent, the performance of the work she has in hand will, notwithstanding all your jealousies and all your reproaches, secure for her an undying fame. When that work shall be accomplished, though it be not in the way and by the means I would have chosen, as an Englishman I shall hide my head, but as a man I shall rejoice. Nevertheless to my latest day I will exclaim, Would God that in this crisis the voice of the nation had been suffered to prevail; would God that in this great, this holy deed, England had not been refused her share.'"

Mr. Gladstone was correct at this juncture in believing that the British nation was with him; but the Conservative majority in the House pre­vailed, and his resolution was rejected. This was done by a general vote on party lines, though the Home Rulers were about evenly divided. Though he was thus thwarted in the effort to obtain a declaration from the House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone continued to agitate through the remainder of the year and down to the close of the Turco-Russian War.

Of that great and bloody conflict we need not here give any extended account. We have already indicated the relations of Mr. Gladstone to the war policy in the East. Suffice it to say that the general plan of Russia in the great campaign of 1877 was to cross the Danube, traverse the Balkans, beat the Turks in battle, possibly capture Constantinople, and thus, accord­ing to the declaration of Prince Gortchakoff, "fulfill the duty imposed upon him [the czar] by the interests of Russia, whose peaceable development was impeded by the constant troubles in the East."

A large Russian army, collected in the South, traversed Roumania and crossed the Lower Danube on the 22d of June. Another division crossed the Middle Danube about two weeks later. The czar himself took the field and made a proclamation to the Bulgarians. The Turkish outposts were broken in. The Grand Duke Nicholas, with his division, reached Tirnova. General Gurko pressed on toward Shipka Pass, but was seriously resisted. A battle was fought at Tundja Brook on the 16th of July, which resulted in the first victory for the Russians. The Turks then concentrated at Shipka Pass. Grand Duke Nicholas, on the 16th of July, captured Nikopolis, and then marched against the town of Plevna, which became one of the strategic points of the war.

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Here, however, the Russians were impeded and brought to a halt. Osman Pasha, one of the greatest of Turkish generals, planted himself in the way, with an army of fifty thousand men, for the defense of Plevna. Suleiman Pasha checked the progress of General Gurko, and Mehemet Ali rathered an army of sixty-five thousand men at Rasgrad. For the time the Russian invasion was brought to a dead pause; but the invaders gathered force, and Shipka Pass was taken. The efforts of the Turks to regain it were unsuccessful. About the middle of August bloody battles were fought for the possession of the pass. From the 6th to the 9th of September the Russians made one desperate assault after another on Plevna, in the course of which they lost in a principal charge no fewer than eighteen thousand men. Then followed a siege of five months duration, when Osman Pasha, reduced by starvation rather than by military force, was obliged to capitu­late. By the surrender the country was opened for two hundred and fifty miles in the direction of Constantinople.

Meanwhile the Grand Duke Michael, eldest brother of the czar, was conducting a great campaign in Asia. He proceeded first to the capture of the fortress of Batoum, and afterward against Ardahan, Kars, and Erzeroum. At Kars there was a memorable siege, which lasted until the 17th of Novem­ber, when the place was carried by assault, and only three hundred Turks were found alive within! The siege of Erzeroum was not concluded until the 31st of January, 1878, and was then terminated by an armistice. At last the Russians in the European field issued from Shipka Pass and fell upon the Turkish army at Shenovo, carried the place by storm, captured a division of twelve thousand, and compelled another division of about twice that number to capitulate.

Thus in a war of about seven months' duration the military power of the Turks was completely broken down. The Russians advanced and took possession of AdrianopJe. The last shot of the war was fired on the 20th of January, in an unimportant engagement, at Tehorlu. By this time the alarmed sultan sent his commissioners to confer with the agents of the czar, and the conditions of peace were quickly agreed upon. The sultan con-ceded the following terms: That Bulgaria should be erected into an inde­pendent principality; that Montenegro, Roumania, and Servia should also become independent; that the Turkish government in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be thoroughly reformed; that Viddin, Rustchuk, and Silistria should be surrendered to the Russians; that several Turkish fortresses should be evacuated; and that a war indemnity should be paid to Russia.

It was on the 3d of March, 1878, at the town of San Stefano, that a treaty between Russia and Turkey, on the basis here indicated, was signed. It appeared that the Ottoman empire was about to be ground into powder he victorious wheels of the autocratic car.

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When matters had proceeded thus far, however, the great powers of Europe suddenly put forth the hand and arrested the proceedings. They declared, under the leadership of England, that the questions included in settlement by the treaty of San Stefano were European questions and could not be determined except by the concurrence of the European powers. The settlement imposed by the czar on the sultan should be reviewed by a con­gress of the powers to be held in the city of Berlin. Accordingly, on the 13th of July, 1878, such congress was convened—perhaps the most mem­orable of its kind in the after third of the nineteenth century. England was represented by the Earl of Beaconsfield; Austria, by Count Andrassy ; the German empire, by Prince Bismarck ; Russia, by Prince Gortchakof and General Shuvaloff. All of the States sent their ablest men to the confer­ence, which, indeed, included at its sittings the finest international talent of the world.

Among the ambassadors the Earl of Beaconsfield was conspicuous. That statesman was here in his glory. Not one of the ambassadors pos­sessed a more penetrating and comprehensive genius. With this were blended also a kind of subtlety and an element of wit peculiarly favor­able to success in diplomacy. The earl succeeded in leading the game. Twenty sessions of the Congress were held, and the provisions of the treaty of San Stefano were thoroughly reviewed and greatly modified before they were accepted. Russia was obliged to yield several important points, but she yielded with good grace, and the peace which was concluded was comparatively acceptable to all, with the exception of the humiliated Turk. The Earl of Beaconsfield returned in high fame to England, where he was received with great applause as the champion of the British Empire who had brought home “peace with honor."

Meanwhile, however, affairs in the British Empire went forward on their own lines of evolution. Mr. Gladstone and his following might well claim the honor of having instigated the government to greater activity in asserting itself in European matters. No doubt the prime minister did avail himself of the policy of his adversaries, who were all the time endeav­oring to force upon the government the duty of recognizing the claims of oppressed peoples.

In the meantime the sentiment of England, near the close of the Turco-Russian War, veered around to one of distrust of Russia. It was feared that that power would plunge down on Constantinople and thus make it neces­sary for Great Britain to take up the cause of the very Turk for whom the international contention had prevailed. A war party sprang up in Eng­land—a party wanting to go to war on general principles—a party that was positively disappointed when it was known that Russia had kept faith with the powers by refusing to march on Constantinople. The Earl of Beacons-

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field found himself in a sort of national whirlpool. He could not identify himself with the arrogant leaders of the war party, and at the same time he must, as prime minister and chief representative of Great Britain, "uphold" as he himself expressed it, "the character and prestige of Eng­land."

This situation produced what has been called the Jingo party in Eng­land. The Jingoes were that class who were determined by war to make Great Britain cock of the walk. No difference what the war might be or with whom, provided it was war. The adherents of this class, especially the younger and louder leaders, went about singing and yelling a bit of precious doggerel, to this effect :

" We don't want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money, too."

This beautiful effusion was heard nightly in the streets of London, and many took up the chorus from which they got their name of Jingoes. They chose to make themselves the chief enemies of Mr. Gladstone, who, though he strongly urged the government to espouse the cause of the oppressed in the Turkish provinces, held always to the doctrine of accomplishing the reform without a resort to war. The reader understands full well that peaceable element in his character which led him ever to regard war as the prime horror of human history—something to be resorted to only in times when no other remedy could avail. At the period of which we speak Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were on a certain occasion grossly insulted in a West End street by a band of half-drunken Jingoes, who were making night hideous. The statesman and his wife were obliged to find shelter in the hallway of a house until the hooting hoodlums disappeared.

At least two honors should be noted as having been awarded to Mr. Gladstone in this year. One of these was especially significant. The time of Lord Beaconsfield as lord rector of the University of Glasgow expired in November, 1878, and Sir Stafford Northcote was nominated as the Con­servative candidate for the position. The Liberals chose Mr. Gladstone as their candidate, and he was elected over Sir Stafford by a majority of nearly two to one. Two months afterward the formation of a Liberal Palmerston club at Oxford was celebrated by the undergraduates, and Mr. Gladstone was invited to speak. In the course of his remarks he took up the Eastern Question (for the treaty of San Stefano had not yet been concluded), and criticized the policy of the government for sending the British fleet into the Dardanelles. This act, he thought, was a violation of international law. The statesman defended himself against the charge generally circulated by the Conservatives that he had become in his old age a reckless agitator. He admitted that for the last eighteen months he had been an agitator.

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He had agitated for what he considered to be the cause and interest of his country. He avowed that his course had been inspired with the hope of prevailing against what he considered the evil policy of Lord Beacons-field. A vote of credit just then pending in Parliament he thought the most indefensible measure ever presented.

The remarks of Mr. Gladstone—as, indeed, everything that he now said in a pu