My Memory of Gladstone — Inside the Classic

heart of clericism as well as Toryism, and the advance of Liberalism threatened the Anglican State Church, as well as the oligarchy of rotten boroughs. The Tractarian movement of sacerdotal reaction was already on foot. Gladstone imbibed the ecclesiastical as well as the political spirit of the place, and formed a friendship, which proved lasting, with the authors of the mediævalising movement. He published a defence of the Anglican State Church, which, as we know, was terribly cut up by Macaulay. The Reviewer, however, ends with a defence of religious establishments really weaker than anything in Gladstone. The State, according to Macaulay, though religion is not its proper business, has some time and energy to spare which it may usefully devote to the regulation of religion.

Gladstone cast off by degrees his extreme Establishmentarianism. He came at last to disestablishing the Church in Ireland and pledging himself to disestablishment in Wales. But he remained firmly attached to the Church of England, encircled by High Church friends, who were really nearer to his heart than anybody else, deeply, even passionately, interested in all their questions, and an assiduous writer on their side. He was suspected of being a Papist. A Papist he certainly was not. No one could be more opposed to Papal usurpation. His special sympathy was with anti-Papal and anti-Infallibilist Catholics, such as Döllinger and Lord Acton. His religious faith was simple and profound; so simple that he continued in this sceptical age to believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, and in the Mosaic account of the Creation. He retained unshaken faith in Providence and in the efficacy of prayer. This in his meditations constantly and clearly appears. At the same time, he grew tolerant of free inquiry as a conscientious quest of truth. Many Nonconformists, the leaders especially, notwithstanding his Anglicanism and his suspected leanings to Rome, were drawn to him on broad grounds of religious sympathy, and lent him their political support. Lord Salisbury called him “a great Christian.” He could not have been more truly described. He had thought of taking Holy Orders. From this he had been happily deterred, but he seems to have been fond of officiating in a semi-clerical way by reading the lessons in Hawarden Church.

Gladstone’s zeal in the service of his nation and humanity, his loyalty to right and hatred of tyranny and injustice, and his conscientious industry, were sustained by spiritual influences, and Christianity has a right to appeal to his character in support, not of its dogmas, but of its principles.

The first step in emancipation from bondage to the State Church theory was curious and characteristic. Peel, in whose Government Gladstone then was, proposed an increase of the grant to Maynooth. Gladstone paid a tribute to the principle of the “Church in its Relation to the State” by resigning his office. Then, on the ground that the other principle had prevailed, he voted for the grant and went back into the Government. It is thus possible to see how the idea of a certain tortuosity became connected with his career. Bitter enemies even accused him of duplicity. He had a habit, of which his biographer seems aware, of making his words open to a double construction, the consequence, perhaps, of consciousness that his mind was moving and that his position might be changed. He had also a dislike of owning change, and a habit of setting his retroactive imagination at work to prove that there was no inconsistency, which had a bad effect, especially in such a case as his sudden coalition with Parnell.

The value of the recruit was at once recognized and the door of office was presently opened to him by Peel, who was always on the look-out for youthful promise, and set himself, perhaps more than any other Prime Minister ever did, to train up a succession of statesmen for the country. Though himself the least eccentric of mankind, Peel showed in more than one case that he could overlook a touch of eccentricity where there was real merit and genuine work. Set, as Vice-President of the Board of Trade, to deal with a subject entirely new to him, Gladstone at once justified Peel’s confidence and discernment. Perhaps the office had been chosen for him as one in which his eccentricity had no play. He served Peel admirably well, and was perfectly true to his chief. But, from things that I have heard him say, I rather doubt whether he greatly loved Peel. Peel detested the Tractarians; the Tractarians hated Peel; and some of the Tractarians were nearest of all men to Gladstone’s heart.