Whether or not the elder Pitt was a deist, the younger gave very plain signs of being at least no more. Gladstone (Studies subsidiary to the Works of Bishop Butler, ed. 1896, pp. 30-33) has sought to discredit the recorded testimony of Wilberforce (Life of Wilberforce, 1838, i, 98) that Pitt told him "Bishop Butler's work raised in his mind more doubts than it had answered." Gladstone points to another passage in Wilberforce's diary which states that Pitt "commended Butler's Analogy" (Life, i, 90). But the context shows that Pitt had commended the book for the express purpose of turning Wilberforce's mind from its evangelical bias. Wilberforce was never a deist, and the purpose accordingly could not have been to make him orthodox. The two testimonies are thus perfectly consistent; especially when we note the further statement credibly reported to have been made by Wilberforce (Life, i, 95), that Pitt later "tried to reason me out of my convictions." We have yet further the emphatic declaration of Pitt's niece, Lady Hester Stanhope, that he "never went to church in his life ... never even talked about religion" (Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope, 1845, iii, 166-67). This was said in emphatic denial of the genuineness of the unctuous death-bed speech put in Pitt's mouth by Gifford. Lady Hester's high veracity is accredited by her physician (Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope, 1846, i, pref. p. 11). No such character can be given to the conventional English biography of the period. We have further to note the circumstantial account by Wilberforce in his letter to the Rev. S. Gisborne immediately after Pitt's death (Correspondence, 1840, ii, 69-70), giving the details he had had in confidence from the Bishop of Lincoln. They are to the effect that, after some demur on Pitt's part ("that he was not worthy to offer up any prayer, or was too weak,") the Bishop prayed with him once. Wilberforce adds his "fear" that "no further religious intercourse took place before or after, and I own I thought what was inserted in the papers impossible to be true." There is clear testimony that Charles James Fox, Pitt's illustrious rival, was no more of a believer than he, [911] though equally careful to make no profession of unbelief. And it was Fox who, above all the English statesmen of his day, fought the battle of religious toleration [912]--a service which finally puts him above Burke, and atones for many levities of political action.