The Real Gladstone: An Anecdotal BiographyRitchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
History
The Real Gladstone: An Anecdotal Biography
Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing)
Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart), 1809-1898
experience which we have gained in England and in Scotland, where the
course of generations has now taught us, not as a dream or a theory, but
as practice and as life, that the best and surest foundation we can find
to build upon is the foundation afforded by the affections, the
convictions, and the will of the nation; and it is thus, by the decree of
the Almighty, that we may be enabled to secure at once the social peace,
the fame, the power, and the permanence of the empire.’
In another style, but very characteristic, I quote from the speech
delivered by Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden in the Jubilee year, reviewing the
reign of the Queen:
‘Now, I have said quite enough for this occasion, and I think enough to
justify me in reminding you that although a jubilee may be regarded as an
affair of form and ceremony, there is a great deal more than form and
ceremony in this Jubilee. It invites us and compels us to cast our
thoughts backward over that long series of years with which we are almost
all of us familiar, and it imposes upon us the duty of deep thankfulness
to the Almighty, who in these late days, when our history is so long, and
when some might have thought that our nation and our constitution had
grown old, has given us as a people a renovated youth; who has inspired
us with renewed activity and with buoyant hope; who has conducted us thus
far upon the road to improvement and advancement in the pursuit, not of
false, but of true human happiness; who has made the laws of this country
no longer odious, no longer suspected, but dear to the people at large,
and who has thereby encouraged us—I will not say much of encouragement to
men of my age, whose life is in the past more than in the future—it has
encouraged all those who are grown up or coming on, who are in the first
glow of youth or in the prime and vigour of manhood, to persevere and
endeavour to make the coming years, if they can, not worse, but better
than those which have gone by. I beseech you, if you owe the debt of
gratitude to the Queen for that which I have described, for her hearty
concurrence in the work of public progress and improvement, for the
admirable public example which her life has uniformly set, for her
thorough comprehension of the true conditions of the great covenant
between the throne and the people—if you owe her a debt of gratitude for
these, may I say to you: Try to acknowledge that debt by remembering her
in your prayers. Depend upon it that when St. Paul enjoined that prayers
should be made for all men, and gave the commanding and the leading place
to prayers for kings and all in authority, St. Paul spoke the language
not only of religion, but of the most profound social justice and human
common-sense. Do not imagine that because in this world some live in
greater splendour and greater enjoyment than others, they therefore live
free of temptation, so as not to need the prayers of their
fellow-Christians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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