Mr. Blaine was with us in London and I told Mr. Gladstone he had expressed to me his wonder and pain at seeing him in his old age hat in hand, cold day as it was, at a garden party doing homage to titled nobodies. Union of Church and State was touched upon, and also my "Look Ahead," which foretells the reunion of our race owing to the inability of the British Islands to expand. I had held that the disestablishment of the English Church was inevitable, because among other reasons it was an anomaly. No other part of the race had it. All religions were fostered, none favored, in every other English-speaking state. Mr. Gladstone asked: "How long do you give our Established Church to live?" My reply was I could not fix a date; he had had more experience than I in disestablishing churches. He nodded and smiled. When I had enlarged upon a certain relative decrease of population in Britain that must come as compared with other countries of larger area, he asked: "What future do you forecast for her?" I referred to Greece among ancient nations and said that it was, perhaps, not accident that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Burns, Scott, Stevenson, Bacon, Cromwell, Wallace, Bruce, Hume, Watt, Spencer, Darwin, and other celebrities had arisen here. Genius did not depend upon material resources. Long after Britain could not figure prominently as an industrial nation, not by her decline, but through the greater growth of others, she might in my opinion become the modern Greece and achieve among nations moral ascendancy. He caught at the words, repeating them musingly: "Moral ascendancy, moral ascendancy, I like that, I like that." I had never before so thoroughly enjoyed a conference with a man. I visited him again at Hawarden, but my last visit to him was at Lord Randall's at Cannes the winter of 1897 when he was suffering keenly. He had still the old charm and was especially attentive to my sister-in-law, Lucy, who saw him then for the first time and was deeply impressed. As we drove off, she murmured, "A sick eagle! A sick eagle!" Nothing could better describe this wan and worn leader of men as he appeared to me that day. He was not only a great, but a truly good man, stirred by the purest impulses, a high, imperious soul always looking upward. He had, indeed, earned the title: "Foremost Citizen of the World." In Britain, in 1881, I had entered into business relations with Samuel Storey, M.P., a very able man, a stern radical, and a genuine republican. We purchased several British newspapers and began a campaign of political progress upon radical lines. Passmore Edwards and some others joined us, but the result was not encouraging. Harmony did not prevail among my British friends and finally I decided to withdraw, which I was fortunately able to do without loss.[69]