Part 4 (2/2)
His friend Monckton Milnes had established himself in London and collected around him a society of young men, interested in politics and religion, and whom he entertained Sunday evenings. But this arrangement ”unfortunately,” as Mr. Milnes said, excluded from these gatherings the more serious members, such as Acland and Gladstone. Mr. Milnes expressed his opinion of such self-exclusion in these words: ”I really think when people keep Friday as a fast, they might make a feast of Sunday.” But Mr. Gladstone evidently was not of this opinion, and remained away from these Lord's Day parties. However at other times he met his friends, and received them at his own rooms in the Albany, and on one memorable occasion entertained Wordsworth at breakfast and a few admirers of this distinguished guest.
Mr. Gladstone's relaxations were occasional, and the most of his time was devoted to his Parliamentary duties and study. His constant companions were Homer and Dante, and he at this time, it is recorded, read the whole of St. Augustine, in twenty-two octavo volumes. He was a constant attendant upon public wors.h.i.+p at St. James', Piccadilly, and Margaret Chapel, and a careful critic of sermons. At the same time he diligently applied himself to the work of a private member of the House of Commons, working on committees and taking constant part in debate.
In 1836 the question of slavery again came up before Parliament. This time the question was as to the working of the system of negro apprentices.h.i.+p, which had taken the place of slavery. It was a.s.serted that the system was only slavery under another name. He warmly and ably defended again the West Indian planters. He pleaded that many of the planters were humane men, and defended also the honor of his relatives connected with the traffic so much denounced, when it was a.s.sailed. He contended that while the evils of the system had been exaggerated, all mention of its advantages had been carefully withheld. The condition of the negroes was improving. He deprecated the attempt made to renew and perpetuate the system of agitation at the expense of candor and truth.
He also at this time spoke on support of authority and order in the government of Canada, and on Church Rates, dwelling upon the necessity of national religion to the security of a state. Mr. Gladstone was not only a Tory but a High Churchman.
King William IV died June 20, 1837, and was succeeded by Queen Victoria.
A general election ensued. The Parliament, which had been prorogued by the young queen in person, was dissolved on the 17th of July. Mr.
Gladstone, without his consent, was nominated to represent Manchester in the House, but was re-elected for Newark without opposition. He then turned his steps towards Scotland, ”to see what grouse he could persuade into his bag.” The new Parliament met October 20th, but no business of importance came before it until after the Christmas holidays.
In 1838 a bill was presented in both Houses of Parliament for the immediate abolition of negro apprentices.h.i.+p. Many harrowing details of the cruelties practiced were cited. Mr. Gladstone returned to the champions.h.i.+p of the planters with increased power and success. His long, eloquent and powerful speech of March 30th, although on the unpopular side of the question, is regarded as having so greatly enhanced his reputation as to bring him to the front rank among Parliamentary debaters. Having impa.s.sionately defended the planters from the exaggerated charges made against them, he further said: ”You consumed forty-five millions of pounds of cotton in 1837 which proceeded from free labor; and, proceeding from slave labor, three hundred and eighteen millions of pounds! And this, while the vast regions of India afford the means of obtaining at a cheaper rate, and by a slight original outlay, to facilitate transport, all that you can require. If, Sir, the complaints against the general body of the West Indians had been substantiated, I should have deemed it an unworthy artifice to attempt diverting the attention of the House from the question immediately at issue, by merely proving that delinquencies existed in other quarters; but feeling as I do that those charges have been overthrown in debate, I think myself ent.i.tled and bound to show how capricious are the honorable gentlemen in the distribution of their sympathies among those different objects which call for their application.”
Mr. Gladstone, ”having turned the tables upon his opponents,” concluded by demanding justice, and the motion before the House was rejected.
About one month later Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, and of Winchester, wrote to Mr. Gladstone: ”It would be an affectation in you, which you are above, not to know that few young men have the weight you have in the House of Commons, and are gaining rapidly throughout the country. Now I do not wish to urge you to consider this as a talent for the use of which you must render an account, for so I know you do esteem it, but what I want to urge upon you is that you should calmly look far before you; see the degree of weight and influence to which you may fairly, if G.o.d spares your life and powers, look forward in future years, and thus act _now_ with a view to _then_. There is no height to which you may not fairly rise in this country. If it pleases G.o.d to spare us violent convulsions and the loss of our liberties, you may at a future day wield the whole government of this land; and if this should be so, of what extreme moment will your _past steps_ then be to the real usefulness of your high station....
Almost all our public men act from the merest expediency.... I would have you view yourself as one who may become the head of all the better feelings of this country, the maintainer of its Church and of its liberties, and who must now be fitting himself for this high vocation.... I think my father's life so beautifully shows that a deep and increasing personal religion must be the root of that firm and unwearied consistency in right, which I have ventured thus to press upon you.”
Mr. Gladstone began his Parliamentary life as a Tory. Later he developed into a Liberal, a Radical, and yet there is not one who conscientiously doubts his utter honesty. His life has been that of his century--progressive, liberal, humanitarian in its trend.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Grattan]
CHAPTER IV
BOOK ON CHURCH AND STATE
We have now followed Mr. Gladstone in his course until well on the way in his political career, and yet he is but twenty-eight years of age.
His personal appearance in the House of Commons at this early stage of his Parliamentary life is thus described: ”Mr. Gladstone's appearance and manners are much in his favor. He is a fine looking man. He is about the usual height and of good figure. His countenance is mild and pleasant, and has a highly intellectual expression. His eyes are clear and quick. His eyebrows are dark and rather prominent. There is not a dandy in the House but envies what Truefit would call his 'fine head of jet-black hair.' It is always carefully parted from the crown downwards to his brow, where it is tastefully shaded. His features are small and regular, and his complexion must be a very unworthy witness if he does not possess an abundant stock of health.
”Mr. Gladstone's gesture is varied, but not violent. When he rises he generally puts both his hands behind his back, and having there suffered them to embrace each other for a short time, he unclasps them and allows them to drop on either side. They are not permitted to remain long in that locality before you see them, again closed together and hanging down before him. Their reunion is not suffered to last for any length of time, Again a separation takes place, and now the right hand is seen moving up and down before him. Having thus exercised it a little, he thrusts it into the pocket of his coat, and then orders the left hand to follow its example. Having granted them a momentary repose there, they are again put into gentle motion, and in a few seconds they are seen reposing _vis-a-vis_ on his breast. He moves his face and body from one direction to another, not forgetting to bestow a liberal share of his attention on his own party. He is always listened to with much attention by the House, and appears to be highly respected by men of all parties.
He is a man of good business habits; of this he furnished abundant proof when Under-Secretary for the Colonies, during the short-lived administration of Robert Peel.”
From this pen picture and other like notices of Mr. Gladstone he must, at that time, have attained great distinction and attracted a good deal of attention for one so young, and from that day to this he has commanded the attention not only of the British Senate and people, but of the world at large. And why? may we ask, unless because of his modest manner and distinguished services, his exalted ability and moral worth.
”The House of Commons was his ground,” writes Justin McCarthy. ”There he was always seen to the best advantage.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Gladstone wrote with the same earnestness and ability with which he spoke. It was early in life that he distinguished himself as an author, as well as an orator and debater in the House of Commons.
And it was most natural for him to write upon the subject of the Church, for not only his education led him to the consideration of such themes, but it was within his sphere as an English statesman, for the law of the land provided for the union of the Church and State. It was in 1838, when he was not thirty years of age, that he wrote his first book and stepped at once to the front rank as an author. He had ever been a staunch defender of the Established Church and his first appearance in literature was by a remarkable work in defense of the State Church ent.i.tled, ”The State in its Relations with the Church.” The treatise is thus dedicated: ”Inscribed to the University of Oxford, tried and not found wanting through the vicissitudes of a thousand years; in the belief that she is providentially designed to be a fountain of blessings, spiritual, social and intellectual, to this and other countries, to present and future times; and in the hope that the temper of these pages may be found not alien from her own.”
This first published book of Mr. Gladstone's was due to the perception that the _status_ of the Church, in its connection with the secular power, was about to undergo the severe a.s.saults of the opponents of the Union. There was growing opposition to the recognition of the Episcopal Church as the Church of the State and to taxation of people of other religious beliefs for its support; and this objection was to the recognition and support of any Church by the State. What is called the ”American idea”--the entire separation of the Church and State--or as enunciated first by Roger Williams in 1636, in Rhode Island, that the magistrate should have authority in civil affairs only, was becoming more and more the doctrine of dissenters. Preparations were already being made for attacking the national establishment of religion, and with all the fervor springing from conviction and a deep-seated enthusiasm, he came forward to take part in the controversy on Church and State, and as a defender of the Established or Episcopal Church of England.
Some of the positions a.s.sumed in this work have since been renounced as untenable, but its ability as a whole, its breadth and its learning could not be denied. It then created a great sensation, and has since been widely discussed. After an examination and a defense of the theory of the connection between Church and State, Mr. Gladstone thus summarizes his princ.i.p.al reasons for the maintenance of the Church establishment:
”Because the Government stands with us in a paternal relation to the people, and is bound in all things not merely to consider their existing tastes, but the capabilities and ways of their improvement; because it has both an intrinsic competency and external means to amend and a.s.sist their choice; because to be in accordance with G.o.d's mind and will, it must have a religion, and because to be in accordance with its conscience, that religion must be the truth, as held by it under the most solemn and acc.u.mulated responsibilities; because this is the only sanctifying and preserving principle of society, as well as to the individual, that particular benefit, without which all others are worse than valueless; we must, therefore, disregard the din of political contention and the pressure of novelty and momentary motives, and in behalf of our regard to man, as well as of our allegiance to G.o.d, maintain among ourselves, where happily it still exists, the union between the Church and the State.”
Dr. Russell in the following quotation not only accounts for this production from the pen, of Mr. Gladstone, but gives also an outline of the argument:
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