Gladstone had in part put off his Establishmentarianism, but his orthodoxy and belief in the inspiration of the Bible remained unimpaired. This deprives his theological writings of serious value, though they still have interest as the work of a mind at once powerful and intensely religious, dealing with topics of the highest concern. It is not difficult to meet Hume’s philosophic objection to miracles, which seems little more than an assumption of the absolute impossibility of a sufficient amount of evidence. If the death of a man and his restoration to life were witnessed and certified by a great body of men of science, in circumstances such as to preclude the possibility of imposture, we should not withhold our belief, however contrary the occurrence might be to the ordinary course of nature. But we cannot believe anything contrary to the ordinary course of nature on the testimony of an anonymous gospel of uncertain authorship, of uncertain date, the product of an uncritical age, containing matter apparently mythical, and written in the interest of a particular religion. From considering the authenticity and sufficiency of the evidence, Gladstone, by his faith in the Bible, is debarred. So, in his critical work on Butler, he is debarred from free and fruitful discussion by the assumption, which he all the time carries with him, of the authenticity of Revelation. His faith in the inspiration of the Bible seems to go so far as to include belief in the longevity of the Patriarchs before the flood.[2] Venturing to break a lance with Huxley about the truth of the account of creation in Genesis, he could not fail to be overthrown. His apology seems to amount to this; that the Creator in imparting an account of the creation to Moses, was so near the truth that the account could, by dint of very ingenious interpretation, be made not wholly irreconcilable with scientific fact. Gladstone continued greatly to venerate Newman, and apparently allowed himself to be influenced in his reasoning by the _Grammar of Assent_, a sort of _vade mecum_ of self-illusion, the characteristic purport of the Cardinal’s very subtle but not very masculine and very flexible mind.