Iteaetc of Rti-itwt, lO/i/Oe. 



Lea ding A rticles . 



?83 



LORD HUGH CECIL ON MR. GLADSTONE. 



When Lord Hugh Cecil some time ago delivered 

 an impassioned speech on a religious question in the 

 House of Commons, two old friends of Mr. Glad- 

 stone met each other at the close of the speech with 

 the simultaneous observation, " That was Gladstone 

 in his younger days." This incident is recalled by 

 the curiously belated but singularly beautiful re- 

 view of Mr. Morley's " Life of Gladstone," which is 

 contributed by Lord Hugh Cecil to the Nineteenth 

 Century. After a tilting tribute to Mr. Morley's 

 masterly achievement. Lord Hugh passes to deal 

 with Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone, he says, is in 

 an unusual degree among great men an edifying and 

 invigorating example; not because of his talents, 

 which might arouse envy — " we feel towards Xaj)©- 

 leon as c-ne of the unemployed may tte supposed to 

 feel towards the Duke of Westminster." The most 

 eminent feature of his character was not his talents, 

 hut rather his will and self-discipline. 



HIS I'OWEB OP (X)NCENTEATION. 



Take away that mental economy which he called 

 power of concentration, and how much of his great- 

 ness would remain? 



Apart from his acliievements as a speaker it is hard to 

 sav liow miu'li of liis multifarious ;iini forceful activity 

 wa"s (1h« to natural, anil how much to acquired power. The 

 results were wonderful; but then Mr. Gladstone used every 

 minute of his time, and made available tor his purpose 

 overy atom of his intellect. His life was loug. measuretl by 

 years. It, was double or treble the ordinary S]iaii. if only 

 the moments devoted to furthering the deliberate purposes 

 of life are reckoned. His force carried all before it. but it 

 -w.-is I)ecau8e he liad no paper battalions in his army. 

 W'lieu the bugle sound6<l every faculty was in its place and 

 at command, armed and clotbi d with all the resources of 

 knowledge, and drilled, after Frederick the Great's fashion, 

 to march ' like a i)air of compasses." This was moral 

 rather than mcnt-il power. It was. that is to say. by moral 

 control and discipline tliat he stood out among men even 

 of the first class. 



Lord Hugh goes on to point out how this mental 

 economy limited a sense of humour. Fun he had, 

 but he had not sufficient self-consciousness to possess 

 the humour which depends on the mind laying itself 

 in concentric circles, ring within ring, like a coiled 

 serpent. It also led to the occasional apparent lapse 

 from perfect candour, and to his lack of consistency. 

 Inconsistency is less easy to a self-conscious man. 



A PARTY-LEADER'S CHANGE OF VIEW. 



Then follows a passage that is almost pathetic in 

 view of recent events. Lord Hugh says: — 



A party leader's change of opinion is no mere private 

 eonversion. important only or mainly to himself. It is a 

 great public act. involving consequences, serious and pain- 

 ful, to man.y persons. Party is rooted deep. Its fibres 

 spread on all sides, binding man to man, and weaving 

 themselves in with many social and friendly relations. 

 Tlie follower of an inconsistent leader has therefore to 

 achieve an imitative conversion or to rupture a hundred 

 ties, none of vrliicb tears without a pang. This is so in 

 different degrees for all the party, from the member of 

 Parliament to the humblest worker in the constituencies. 

 But for so many as make politics their profession the lot is 

 harder still. For if they choose the higher path and pre- 

 fer their conscience to their party, how are they to follow 

 their calling? There is no room for them, on our system. 

 between the two parties. They must, in middle or old age 

 it ma.v be. seek a new jDTofeseion or they must come 

 to accommodation with their life-long opponents. All this 



dislocation and consequent pain is involved in the incon- 

 sistency of a party leader. The public interest may justify 

 it. may require it, as it may the sacrifice of other private 

 claims. But everv leader ought to shrink from it, unless 

 the public interest does not imperatively demand it. and 

 it he finds himself obliged to it. .should spare no care to 

 show what consideration may be possible to those of his 

 followers who cannot chansje their minds at the same 

 moment that he changes his. For he is their debtor; he is 

 doing them wrong. Public duty may force him to it, but 

 it is none the less a wrong to them: and wlia.ever atone- 

 ment he can make to them ought not to l)e wanting. All 

 this shouM have been present to the mind of Mr. Gladstone 

 in 1886. 



Mr. Gladstone could not see himself as others saw 

 him, could not in imagination suppose himself a 

 Liberal Unionist, and realise how things would look 

 from that point of view. 



THE SECRET OF COURAGE. 



But it is when Lord Hugh comes to deal with Mr. 

 Gladstone's religious faith, which he describes as the 

 most notable quality of all, that we feel the essential 

 kinship of the two men. It is not Mr. Gladstone's 

 t .xfierience only that the writer describes when 

 speaking of the divided bias of his mind. He 

 says : — 



Unquestionably here is one of the explanations of his un- 

 equalled courage. The conscious deiiendence on unseen 

 help, llie inner vision which never wae hidden from him 

 that, great as were political affairs, there were much 

 greater things going forward; the Mosaic sight of the in- 

 visible, which is the strength of the religious character, 

 gave him a steadiness of purpose and a dignity of bearing 

 which no stress could subvert. 



WHICH PARTY IS MORE CHRISTIAN? 



Lord Hugh sinks to a lower level when he indulges 

 in a digression and declares, " it is harder to deter- 

 mine whether Christianity makes rather for Liberal- 

 ism or Conservatism." This paragraph is l^rd 

 Hugh all over: — 



A Liberal and a Conservative, alike religious, see a man 

 lying dead drunk in the gutter; *' How shameful," says the 

 Liberal. to see the image of God thus degraded! Parlia- 

 ment must interfere." " What c;in save human nature 

 from, degradation," answers the Conservative, "save only 

 Divine grace? And an Act of Parliament is no sacrament." 



The Radicalism that is envious and bitter, the Conser- 

 vatism that is materialist and selfish — these creeds are 

 aliea from Christianity. 



GOiADSTONE A CATHOLIO- 



But again the younger statesman returns to the 

 loftier standpoint when he says: — 



I have called Mr. Gladstone, in conventional phrase, a 

 High Churchman; but if the word be strictly understood, 

 it is much more illuminating to call him a Catholic. For 

 that is what he was, a O;itholic, conscious and proud of his 

 membership of the Apostolic and Universal Church, a 

 patriot citizen of the City of God. He felt for the Catholic 

 Cliurch a zeal which resembled but transcended patriotism, 

 and tiie power of this sentiment is traceable all through 

 his life, both in great acts and in small. When in 1858 

 he kissed the hand of an Ionian bishop; when he traversed 

 Eugl.aud and Scotland, storming at the wrongs of the Bal- 

 kan Christians; when lie denounced the errors of Vati- 

 canism; when on the threshold of death he strove to avert 

 tlie papal condemnation of Anglican orders, it was as a 

 Catholic that he felt and acted, it was as the sworn 

 knight of the queen who is glorious within, whose clothing 

 is of wrought gold. 



—AND THEREFORE NOT A JINGO. 



In Mr. Gladstone's catholicity Lord Hugh finds 

 the secret that gradually loosened his attachment to 

 the principle of Church Establishment, and that 

 made him the opponent of what is now called Tm- 



