The Grand Old Man | Page 7

the pen of an eye-witness:
"Nothing was ever taken for granted between him and his sons. A
succession of arguments on great topics and small topics

alike--arguments conducted with perfect good humor, but also with the
most implicable logic--formed the staple of the family conversation.
The children and their parents argued upon everything. They would
debate as to whether a window should be opened, and whether it was
likely to be fair or wet the next day. It was all perfectly good-humored,
but curious to a stranger, because of the evident care which all the
disputants took to advance no proposition, even as to the prospect of
rain, rashly."
In such a home as this was William E. Gladstone in training as the
great Parliamentary debater and leader, and for the highest office under
the British crown. This reminds us of a story of Burke. The king one
day, unexpectedly entering the office of his minister, found the elder
Burke sitting at his desk, with his eyes fixed upon his young son, who
was standing on his father's desk in the attitude of speaking. "What are
you doing?" asked the astonished king. "I am making the greatest
minister England ever saw," was the reply. And so in fact, and yet all
unconsciously, was Sir John doing for his son, William.
William E. Gladstone "was born," says his biographer, G.W.E. Russell,
"at a critical moment in the fortunes of England and of Europe. Abroad
the greatest genius that the world has ever seen was wading through
slaughter to a universal throne, and no effectual resistance had as yet
been offered to a progress which menaced the liberty of Europe and the
existence of its States. At home, a crazy king and a profligate
heir-apparent presided over a social system in which all civil evils were
harmoniously combined. A despotic administration was supported by a
parliamentary representation as corrupt as illusory; a church, in which
spiritual religion was all but extinct, had sold herself as a bondslave to
the governing classes. Rank and wealth and territorial ascendency were
divorced from public duty, and even learning had become the handmaid
of tyranny. The sacred name of justice was prostituted to sanction a
system of legal murder. Commercial enterprise was paralyzed by
prohibitive legislation; public credit was shaken to its base; the prime
necessaries of life were ruinously dear. The pangs of poverty were
aggravated by the concurrent evils of war and famine, and the common
people, fast bound in misery and iron, were powerless to make their

sufferings known or to seek redress, except by the desperate methods of
conspiracy and insurrection. None of the elements of revolution were
wanting, and the fates seemed to be hurrying England to the brink of a
civil catastrophe.
"The general sense of insecurity and apprehension, inseparable from
such a condition of affairs, produced its effect upon even the robust
minds. Sir John Gladstone was not a likely victim of panic, but he was
a man with a large stake in the country, the more precious because
acquired by his own exertion; he believed that the safeguards of
property and order were imperilled by foreign arms and domestic
sedition; and he had seen with indignation and disgust the excesses of a
factious Whiggery, which was not ashamed to exult in the triumph of
the French over the English Government. Under the pressure of these
influences Sir John Gladstone gradually separated himself from the
Whigs, with whom in earlier life he had acted, and became the close
ally of Canning, whose return for Liverpool he actually promoted."
With such surroundings it is not to be wondered at that William E.
Gladstone entered political life a Tory, contending against the
principles he afterwards espoused. His original bent, however, was not
towards politics, but the church; and it was only at the earnest desire of
his father that he ultimately decided to enter Parliament, and serve his
country in the Legislature.
His subsequent life proved the wisdom of the choice. In the Legislature
of his country was begun, carried on and consummated grandly, one of
the most remarkable careers in the annals of history for versatility,
brilliancy, solidity and long continuance. Rarely has there been
exhibited so complete a combination of qualities in statesmanship. His
intellectual endowments were almost without a parallel, and his
achievements without a precedent. In him seemed to be centered a rich
collection of the highest gifts of genius, great learning and readiness in
debate and discourse in the House of Commons, and extraordinary
wisdom in the administration of the affairs of the nation. His financial
talent, his business aptitude, his classical attainments, and above all his
moral fervor, and religious spirit were conspicuous. Some men would

have been contented with political power, or classical learning, or
literary distinction,