Of all the things with which men are concerned,
religion was that which had the strongest hold upon his thoughts and
feelings. He had desired, when quitting the university, to become a
clergyman, and it was only his father's opposition that made him abandon the
idea. Never thereafter did he cease to take the warmest and most constant
interest in all the ecclesiastical controversies that distracted the
Established Church. He was turned out of his seat for Oxford University by
the country clergy, who form the bulk of the voters. He incurred the bitter
displeasure of four fifths of the Anglican communion by disestablishing the
Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland, and from 1868 to the end of his life
found nearly all the clerical force of the English establishment arrayed
against him, while his warmest support came from the Nonconformists of
England and the Presbyterians of Scotland. Yet nothing affected his devotion
to the church in which he had been brought up, nor to the body of
Anglo-Catholic doctrine he had imbibed as an undergraduate. After an attack
of influenza which had left him very weak in the spring of 1891, he
endangered his life by attending a meeting on behalf of the Colonial
Bishoprics Fund, for which he had spoken fifty years before. His theological
opinions tinged his views upon not a few political subjects. They filled him
with dislike of the legalization of marriage with a deceased wife's sister;
they made him a vehement opponent of the bill which established the English
Divorce Court in 1857, and a watchfully hostile critic of all divorce
legislation in America afterward. Some of his friends traced to the same
cause his low estimate of German literature and even his political aversion
to the German Empire. He could not forget that Germany had been the fountain
of rationalism, while German Evangelical Protestantism was more schismatic
and further removed from the medieval church than it pleased him to deem the
Church of England to be. He had an exceedingly high sense of the duty of
purity of life and of the sanctity of domestic relations, and his rigid
ideas of decorum inspired so much awe that it used to be said to a person
who had told an anecdote with ever so slight a tinge of impropriety, "How
many thousands of pounds would you take to tell that to Gladstone?" When
living in the country, it was his constant practice to attend daily morning
service in the parish church, and on Sunday to read in it the lessons for
the day; nor did he ever through his long career transgress his rule against
Sunday labor. Religious feeling, coupled with a system of firm dogmatic
beliefs, was the mainspring of his whole career, a guiding light in
perplexities, a source of strength in adverse fortune, a consolation in
sorrow, a beacon of hope beyond the disappointments and shortcomings of
life. He did not make what is commonly called a profession of religion, and
talked little about it in general society, though always ready to plunge
into a magazine controversy when Christianity was assailed. But those who
knew him well knew that he was always referring current questions to, and
trying his own conduct by, a religious standard. He was a remarkable example
of the coexistence together with a Christian virtue of a quality which
theologians treat as a sin. He was an exceedingly proud man, yet an
exceedingly humble Christian. With a high regard for his own dignity and a
keen sensitiveness to any imputation on his honor, he was deeply conscious
of his imperfections in the eye of God, realizing the sinfulness and
feebleness of human nature with a medieval intensity. The language of
self-depreciation he was wont to use, though people often thought it unreal,
was the genuine expression of his sense of the contrast between the
religious ideal he set up and his own attainment. And the tolerance which he
extended to those who attacked him or who had (as he thought) behaved ill in
public life was largely due to this pervading sense of the frailty of human
character, and of the inextricable mixture in conduct of good and bad
motives. "It is always best to take the charitable view," he once observed
in passing through the division lobby, when a friend had quoted to him the
saying of Dean Church that Mark Pattison had painted himself too black in
his autobiography--"always best, especially in politics."
This indulgent
view, which seemed to develop in his later years, was the more remarkable
because his feelings were strong and his expressions sometimes too vehement.
There was nothing in it of the cynical "man of the world" acceptance of a
low standard as the only possible standard, for his moral earnestness was as
fervent at eighty-eight as it had been at thirty. Although eminently
accessible and open in the ordinary converse of society, he was in reality a
reserved man; not shy, stiff, and externally cold, like Peel, nor always
standing on a pedestal of dignity, like the younger Pitt, but revealing his
deepest thoughts only to a very few intimate friends, and treating all
others with a courteous friendliness which, though it put them quickly at
their ease, did not encourage them to approach any nearer. Thus, while he
was admired by the mass of his followers, and beloved by the small inner
group of family friends, the great majority of his colleagues, official
subordinates, and political or ecclesiastical associates felt for him rather
respect than affection, and would have hesitated to give him any of
friendship's confidences. It was regretfully observed that though he was
kindly and considerate, would acknowledge all good service, and gladly offer
to a junior an opportunity of distinction, he seldom seemed sufficiently
interested in any one of his disciples to treat him with special favor or
bestow those counsels which a young man so much prizes from his chief. But
for the warmth of his devotion to a few early friends and the reverence he
always paid to their memory, a reverence touchingly shown in the article on
Arthur Hallam which he published in 1898, sixty-five years after Hallam's
death, there might have seemed to be a measure of truth in the judgment that
he cared less for men than for ideas and causes. Those, however, who marked
the pang which the departure to the Roman Church of his friend Hope Scott
caused him, those who in later days noted the enthusiasm with which he would
speak of Lord Althorp, his opponent, and of Lord Aberdeen, his chief,
dwelling upon the beautiful truthfulness and uprightness of the former and
the sweet amiability of the latter, knew that the impression of detachment
he gave wronged the sensibility of his own heart. Of how few who have lived
for more than sixty years in the full sight of their countrymen, and have
been as party leaders exposed to angry and sometimes dishonest criticism,
can it be said that there stands on record against them no malignant word
and no vindictive act! This was due not perhaps entirely to natural
sweetness of disposition, but rather to self-control and to a certain
largeness and dignity of soul which would not condescend to anything mean or
petty. Nor should it be forgotten that the perfectly happy life which he led
at home, cared for in everything by a devoted wife, kept far from him those
domestic troubles which have soured the temper and embittered the judgments
of not a few famous men. Reviewing his whole career, and summing up the
impressions and recollections of those who knew him best, this dignity is
the feature which dwells most in the mind, as the outline of some majestic
Alp moves one from afar when all the lesser beauties of glen and wood, of
crag and glacier, have faded in the distance. As elevation was the note of
his oratory, so was magnanimity the note of his character.
The favorite
Greek maxim that no man can be called happy till his life is ended must, in
the case of statesmen, be extended to warn us from the attempt to fix any
one's place in history till a generation has arisen to whom he is a mere
name, not a familiar figure to be loved, opposed, or hated. Few reputations
made in politics keep so far green and fresh that men continue to read and
write and speculate about the person when those who can remember him living
have departed. Out of all the men who have played a leading part in English
public life in the present century there are but seven or eight--Pitt, Fox,
Canning, Wellington, Peel, O'Connell, Disraeli, perhaps Melbourne and
Brougham--who still excite our curiosity. The great poet or the great artist
lives longer--indeed, he lives as long as his books or his pictures; the
statesman, like the musician or the actor, begins to be forgotten so soon as
his voice is still, unless he has so dominated the men of his own time, and
made himself a part of his country's history, that his personal character
becomes a leading factor in the course which events took. Tried by this
test, Mr. Gladstone's fame seems destined to last. His eloquence will soon
become merely a tradition, for his printed speeches do not preserve its
charm. His main acts of policy, foreign and domestic, will have to be judged
by their still unborn consequences. If his books continue to be read, it
will be rather because they are his than in respect of any permanent
contribution they have made to knowledge. But whoever follows the annals of
England during the memorable years from 1843 to 1894 will meet his name on
almost every page, will feel how great must have been the force of an
intellect that could so interpenetrate the events of its time, and will seek
to know something of the wonderful figure that rose always conspicuous above
the struggling throng. There is a passage in the "Odyssey" where the seer
Theoclymenus, in describing a vision of death, says: "The sun has perished
out of heaven." To Englishmen, Mr. Gladstone has been like a sun which,
sinking slowly, has grown larger as he sank, and filled the sky with
radiance even while he trembled on the verge of the horizon. There were able
men, and famous men, but there was no one comparable to him in power and
fame and honor. Now he is gone. The piercing eye is dim, and the mellow
voice is silent, and the light has died out of the sky. |