Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/23

 "Church Principles considered in their Results  Results ." Lord Macaulay, in "The Edinburgh Review," thus spoke the judgment of posterity: "We dissent from his opinions; but we admire his talents. We respect his integrity and benevolence, and we hope that he will not suffer political avocations so entirely to engross him as to leave him no leisure for literature and philosophy."

In those days Mr. Gladstone held the untenable doctrine that it is the business of the State to uphold "the true religion." He ardently strove to find for the State Church a moral basis and justification which it can never have. In so doing he was "in earnest," but oblivious of the wisdom of One who understood the genius of Christianity better than himself: "My kingdom is not of this world." Since then "the slow and resistless force of conviction" has come to his aid. In 1841 Sir Robert Peel came back to office, and Mr. Gladstone was made Vice-President of the Board of Trade. In 1843 he became President of the Board, and for the first time his wonderful genius as an administrator had full scope. In 1845 he resigned office rather than be a party to adding to the endowments of the Romanist college of Maynooth, Ireland, which he had condemned in his work on "Church and State." Shiel wittily remarked that "the statesman had been sacrificed to the author." In point of fact, his resignation is a standing rebuke to those who have basely accused him of place-hunting.

From this time onwards Mr. Gladstone exhibited, in increasing measure and in numerous ways, his leaning towards Liberal opinions. Canningite and Oxford influences began to lose their hold over him. "I trace," he said at Oxford in December, 1878, "in the