Mr. Gladstone’s latest utterances on the subject of Christianity appeared in 1895. He pleads for an eternity of punishment. His latest article on the subject appeared in the American Pictorial Bible. The following passage, in which he surveys the world, is worth reprinting: ‘The Christian religion,’ he says, ‘is for mankind the greatest of all phenomena. It is the dominant religion of the inhabitants of this planet in at least two important respects. It commands the largest number of professing adherents. If we estimate the population of the globe at 1,400,000,000—and some would state it at a higher figure—between 400 and 500 of these, or one-third of the whole, are professing Christians; and at every point of the circuit the question is not one of losing ground, but of gaining it. The fallacy which accepted the vast population of China as Buddhists in the mass has been exploded, and it is plain that no other religion approaches the numerical strength of Christianity—doubtful, indeed, if there be any other which reaches one-half of it. The second of the particulars now under view is perhaps more important. Christianity is the religion in the command of whose professors is lodged a proportion of power far exceeding its superiority of numbers, and this power is both moral and material. In the area of controversy it can be said to have hardly an antagonist. Force, secular or physical, is accumulated in the hands of Christians in a proportion almost overwhelming, and the accumulation of influence is not less remarkable than that of force. This is not surprising, for all the elements of influence have their home within the Christian precinct. The art, the literature, the systematic industry, invention, and commerce—in one word, the forces of the world are almost wholly Christian. In Christendom alone there seems to be an inexhaustible energy of world-wide expansion.’ In conclusion, we give a couple of extracts from Mr. Gladstone’s more recent articles of universal interest. In one he makes a noble contribution to the praise of books. ‘Books are,’ he says, ‘the voices of the dead. They are a main instrument of communion with the vast human procession of the other world. They are the allies of the thought of men. They are in a certain sense at enmity with the world. Their work is, at least, in the two higher compartments of our threefold life. In a room well filled with them no one has felt or can feel solitary. Second to none, as friends to the individual, they are first and foremost among the _compages_, the bonds and rivets of the race.’ But books want housing and arranging, and they are multiplying so rapidly that they threaten to get beyond all control. In an article in the _Nineteenth Century_, from which we quote the above, Mr. Gladstone, with a light-hearted relish of the subject it is pleasant to see, gives some of his ideas on the subject of arrangement.