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 ME. GLADSTONE. 
 
 WITH APPENDIX, 
 
 CONTAINING THE 
 
 ACCUMULATED EVIDENCE 
 
 FIFTY-FIVE YEARS. 
 
 A RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 
 
 WITH 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 AND 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 / 
 
 Amici, Amid, sed Magis Arnica Veritas. 
 
 JEnsctttieti, m respect anti lobe, to tf)e 
 CLERGY AND PEOPLE 
 OF THE AECHDEACONEY OF TAUNTON, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEOEGE ANTHONY DENTSON, 
 
 Vicar of East Brent, Archdeacon of Taunton. 
 
 LONDON : 
 WILLIAM RIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 1886.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 G. NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, HART STREET, 
 
 COVENT OARDEN.
 
 1885. 
 
 Eo tbti2 JKember of Hjc C|^urc]^ of JEnQlmtj. 
 
 WE GO FORTH, 
 
 NOT IN STKENGTH OR RIGHTEOUSNESS OP OUR OWN, 
 
 BUT 
 
 IN THE STRPJNGTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE LORD GOD. 
 
 TO 
 
 FIGHT THE BATTLE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 THE LEADER OF "THE GREAT LIBERAL PARTY;" 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 " THE CHURCH IN CONNECTION WITH THE STATE," 
 1841. 
 
 BECAUSE THERE IS NONE OTHER 
 
 THAT FIGHTETH FOR US, 
 
 BUT ONLY THOU, 
 
 O GOD. 
 
 East Brent, 
 
 December 11, ISSo-
 
 _ UIUC . i
 
 MR. GLADSTONE, 
 
 A RETBOSPECT AND PROSPECT. 
 
 I DESIRE, first, to repeat here once more my great 
 regret for liaving, at an Election Meeting in 
 Somerset, November 5th, allowed myself to use 
 words in connection with Mr. Gladstone's name 
 which were, in themselves, and in their connection, 
 unfit, unseemly, and improper to be used, however 
 they may be explained and accounted for. 
 
 I took the first public opportunity at my com- 
 mand, the meeting for Defence of "Church and 
 State," held at Taunton, in the afternoon of 
 November 12th, the Bishop in the Chair, to 
 express this regret in words written down; and 
 would have repeated those words at the meeting 
 held the same evening in the same place, but was 
 refused a hearins;. 
 
 Ha™g said this, I return to my work of thirty- 
 four years — that is, to my unvarying pubHc 
 opposition to Mr. Gladstone as Member of Parlia- 
 ment, and, most of all, as first Minister of the 
 Crown. 
 
 1
 
 I have known Mr. Gladstone some fifty-five 
 years. Being four years older than he is, I was 
 not of his standing at Christ Church ; but I knew 
 him slightly then, and have had communication 
 mth him from time to time, more or less, before 
 and since 1845. 
 
 I began to lose confidence in him as a politician 
 in 1847, when it was with greatest difficulty that 
 I was persuaded to vote for him at Oxford by my 
 dear old friend Bishop Bagot. 
 
 In 1851 I lost all confidence in him. 
 
 In 1853 I did what I could to turn him out of 
 Oxford ; and, if my brethren clergy and laity had 
 trusted me then, as I am thankful to believe they 
 trust me now, should have turned him out. 
 
 In 1866, I did turn him out. Everybody knows 
 well, who knows anything of the history of that 
 election, that it was my action in London early in 
 1865 which issued, by natural consequence, in 
 turning him out in 1866.* 
 
 Nothing has occurred since to lessen for one 
 moment my distrust of Mr. Gladstone in respect of 
 " Church and State." Distrust of him in this the 
 chief particular of " English Policy," in the true 
 sense of these words, as Member of Parliament, 
 and, most of all, as first Minister of the Crown : 
 but very much to keep it intact, alive, intent, and 
 active. 
 
 On the other hand, I desire to say that I have 
 ^ " Notes of my Life." Third edition, pp, 334-8,
 
 3 
 
 never doubted, and do not doubt, even now, that 
 Mr. Gladstone who has, throughout liis career, by 
 the power of an intellect which has no intuitions to 
 guide it;* and is, therefore, free, in every separate 
 case, to admit arguments on both sides, as, a yriori^ 
 of equal value ; and who has from his boyhood, 
 delighted in nothing so much as in arraying upon 
 every manner of topic — small or great, p?*os and cons 
 — I say, I have never doubted that he has persuaded 
 himself, in every instance, that he was only doing 
 what it was his duty to do, in spite of arriving 
 thereby — and this at very brief intervals of time — 
 at positions and issues the most contradictory and 
 mutually repugnant. 
 
 My quarrel, then, with him is not, and never 
 has been, a personal quarrel in any sense. My 
 contention is not against the man at all, who has 
 so many claims to b e honoured and loved, but 
 against a habit of mind which makes him so 
 entirely impossible to be depended upon as First 
 Minister of the Crown, Minister of State, Member 
 of Parliament— exponent and defender of the 
 Constitution in " Church and State." 
 
 I have long been in possession of a most re- 
 markable catena of evidence bearing directly upon 
 the constitution of the mind of Mr. Gladstone, 
 clenched by his own admission to my dear friend 
 Christopher Wordsworth, late Bishop of Lincoln, 
 which I publish in Appendix. 
 
 * See his own admission upon this point. (Appendix.) p. 38, 
 and note npon it, B. 
 
 1 *
 
 I have shown it to many men, members of both 
 Houses of Parliament, and others. Their remark 
 upon it has always been that it has helped them to 
 apprehend clearly and distinctly the character of 
 the man, which before had puzzled them not a 
 little. 
 
 Members of Parliament, more particularly of the 
 House of Commons, who live day and night in 
 the presence and in the fear of majority and mino- 
 rity, are sorely tempted to subject right or wrong 
 in every manner of question to the test of majority 
 or minority law, especially if they be Ministers of 
 State: above all other, the First Minister is so 
 tempted. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone is a memorable example of the 
 extent to which this disease — and it is a very bad 
 disease — may be upon the brain. 
 
 When he began his public life, some forty-five 
 years ago, he never so much as dreamt of saying, 
 or suggesting even, which is more in his line, that 
 it was " an open question " whether or no it would 
 be a sufficient warrant for taking in hand what is 
 vulgarly called " dis-Establishment" and " dis- En- 
 dowment" — two things not separable the one from 
 the other — that a majority of the people of England 
 should demand them at the hands of the "Govern- 
 ing Power." 
 
 But the long habit of governing, and his belief 
 that he is the only man who can govern England* 
 * See Appendix of Evidence, p. 39.
 
 has been too much for him even upon such a 
 question as this, which, in the nature of the thing, 
 is not subject to majority and minority law; and 
 which, therefore, may not at any time be brought 
 in England within the category of " practical 
 politics." 
 
 I should have said "in Ireland" too ; only 
 that the thing is alread}' done, leaving its precedent 
 for the civil marriage of " dis-Establishment " cum 
 " dis-Endowment " with the State here in England 
 too; and yet more for the "robbery of God" in 
 tithes and offerings, which is inherent in every 
 application of Church property to secular uses. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, in common with other " Liberals," 
 and lately he has got into very bad company — the 
 worst, indeed, I think, that he could find — has 
 fallen, all his logic and rhetoric notwithstanding, 
 into the fallacy of confounding things in their 
 nature and properties things distinct. For example, 
 there is the apjjlication of the majority law by right 
 reason, and there is an application of the same law 
 by wrong, force, tyranny, robbery. 
 
 It would appear that at the close of his public 
 life he has arrived at the ^^I'eposterous fallacy of 
 making these two into one, with view to the trick- 
 ing; out and colourino- of the last. And when a 
 man of his high and commanding position, power 
 of speech, and peculiar talent of mystifying other 
 men, takes a thing of this kind in hand, he suc- 
 ceeds to an extent which leaves only a very poor
 
 opinion of the reasoning faculty, depth, and clear- 
 ness of knowledge of men and things in those who, 
 in the jargon of the day, and after the fashion of 
 the close of Century XIX, are called " Educated 
 People," " People of Culture." 
 
 Mr. Grladstone, by his failing to observe and 
 insist upon the distinction between application of 
 majority law by right reason, and of the same 
 law by Avrong, force, tyranny, robbery, has been 
 justly claimed by the force party. 
 
 He makes a feeble, and, if the subject-matter 
 were not so grave, a laughable, attempt to escape 
 from the grasp of the force party. He says, " There 
 is a good deal to be said on your side ; and if you 
 can show a majority, it is very cogent. But, if you 
 please, just at present, it is not convenient for the 
 purposes and cohesion of ' the great Liberal partj^ ' 
 to make a point of it, as part of our Manifesto," 
 
 It will be seen from the Appendix* that Mr. 
 Gladstone's habit of subjecting every manner of 
 question to the array of "/7ros " and " cons " began 
 with his early boyhood, and has prevailed all along. 
 How this came to be so will also be seen there 
 from his own admission. No doubt the fact shows 
 a principal misfortune in the history of any man's 
 life ; and ho A^ever its consequences may not declare 
 themselves in boyhood or early manhood, as is 
 very true in Mr. Gladstone's case, they are quite 
 certain to declare themselves in later years ; more 
 * Appendix, p. 37.
 
 particularly are they sure to do this in the case of 
 a man like him who has lived for and to "govern 
 England." 
 
 A Christian statesman may have, in his own 
 person, and as representing others, to suffer heavily 
 under the application of majority law by the force 
 which confounds things sacred, and so outside the 
 province of human arbitrament, with things within 
 it. But to give way to force which you cannot 
 overcome, is one thing, and to be an initiating, or 
 in any measure or manner a consenting party to it, 
 is another thing. 
 
 It is surely not for nothing that S. Paul, writing 
 to Timothy, his " own son in the faith," says of 
 the power of early training and consequent intui- 
 tion, " When I call to remembrance the unfeigned 
 faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grand- 
 mother Lois, and thy mother Eunice, and I am 
 persuaded that in thee also."* 
 
 The influences of place, power ;. most of all, party, 
 are corrupting influences. 
 
 It is a very melancholy history of a great life. 
 With all his high character, transcendent ability, 
 largest application of it to subjects of every class, 
 Mr. Gladstone has done more to lower and injure 
 political morality than any man of his time. 
 Amici, Amici ; 
 Sed magis Arnica 
 Veritas. 
 
 * 1 Timothy i. 2 . 2 Tinaothy i. 5.
 
 8 
 
 There is another matter — the manner of the 
 late extension of the Franchise — which cannot 
 be passed over. 
 
 " The great Liberal party " being in great 
 straits — weakened very seriously in Parliament by 
 gross and unpardonable mismanagement of chief 
 interests of England, especially in Northern and 
 Southern Africa, by the heartless and unblushing 
 sacrifice of Gordon, by blundering playing into the 
 hands of Eussia on confines of our Indian Em- 
 pire ; by an unprecedentedly reckless expenditure ; 
 above all, by schism in the Cabinet, coming of the 
 importation of Messrs. Chamberlain and Dilke — 
 the great Liberal party, with " the Nonconformist 
 its backbone,' cast about how to reinforce their 
 numbers in the House of Commons, and to deal 
 severely with the House of Lords. 
 
 Extension of the Franchise to a class of men 
 notoriously not possessed of the knowledge quali- 
 fying to exercise it as it requires to be exercised ; 
 and, in their natural want of sufficient information, 
 open, especially in the country parishes, to bribery 
 and corruption of the most ridiculous and con- 
 temptible description — Chouses, lands, horses, cows, 
 sheep, pigs, all for nothing ; this was the over- 
 clever device of the framer of the late " Reform " 
 Act — the Via pnma Salutis. 
 
 Now, — to take the low ground- — let it be sup- 
 posed for a moment that these very questionable 
 means resorted to to gain votes or the " great
 
 9 
 
 Liberal party " meet with some " success" — every- 
 body knows, elector and non-elector, that the two 
 millions will have found out lono- before the next 
 Election all the trick of the new " Reform " Bill — 
 will be somewhat angry at getting nothing but 
 words ; will not be overpleased with the compliment 
 paid to theu' understanding; and if they trouble 
 themselves to exercise their franchise as-ain, will 
 not exercise it on the " Liberal " side.* 
 
 I will add here something about politics gener- 
 ally. It is, comparatively, of no importance in 
 itself, but it may help to clear men's minds upon 
 present prospects. 
 
 1 am an old Tory. I never liked a Whig as a 
 Whig. I could not. I have had, and have kindest, 
 jiearest, and dearest personal friends, connections 
 among AVhigs ; but, as Whigs, I have never liked 
 them. 1 am not fond of a Conservative either, 
 as a Conservative. The Tory is the one true 
 Defender, Reformer and Promoter. 
 
 The Whigs have been playing so long with the 
 edoe tools of Mr. Gladstone and his Red Radical 
 friends that they have cut their fingers and maimed 
 their thumbs, and cannot nip anything tight. The 
 Conservatives have been playing ever since 1832 
 with the same tools, handed over to them by the 
 Whigs. The only difference is that the Conserva- 
 tive has blunted the tools a little, so that they 
 don't cut sharply, but clumsily and painfully — 
 
 * The new Parliament Avill go down in oniv liistoiy as 
 "The Cow and Acre Parliament." So also now the new 
 Government, February, 188G. — Note C. 
 
 2
 
 10 
 
 crush and bruise rather than cut. I have a great 
 many very dear Conservative friends, but, as Con- 
 servatives, I don't love them much. (Note E.) 
 
 Then there is the Red Radical — Birmingham 
 Caucus, represented by Messrs. Chamberlain and 
 Dilke — I need say no word about them. Never- 
 theless, I admit that, unwittingly, they have done 
 Churchmen very good service. They have 
 waked Churchmen up ; by no means an easy 
 thing to do; as I know very well by much 
 painful personal experience, extending over many 
 years. 
 
 For " Liberal Conservatives " and " Conserva- 
 tive Liberals," I have no conception what the 
 terms mean. 
 
 Lastty, there is "the Opportunist." Mr. Glad- 
 stone is the Prince of "Opportunists;" watching 
 and waiting for every opportunity of adding to the 
 strength of " the Great Liberal Party " in House 
 of Commons, whatever be the nature, character, 
 occasion of the opportunity. 
 
 If any number of Bradlaughs present themselves 
 to take the Oath, Mr. Gladstone, having written 
 over the door of the House of Commons, 
 
 " Civil and Irreligious Liberty," 
 
 is bound to be the first to open the door, to usher 
 and welcome in. 
 
 Are they not an important section of " the 
 Great Liberal Party"? 
 
 Mr. Gladstone again is not satisfied with paving 
 the way by present deprecation, for severance of 
 State from Church in anotlter Parliament.
 
 • 11 
 
 He fills up the inter \^al with sujh things as 
 " marriage with a deceased wife's sister," a thing 
 in itself, and in its necessary adjuncts and follow- 
 ings, the breaking up by Law of the Land of all 
 sanctity and purity of Marriage. 
 
 Mr. Grladstone, the nominal leader of " the great 
 Liberal Party," says to frightened Whigs for their 
 consolation, and to Red lladicals for their encourao-e- 
 ment — in Manifesto espousing both sides of the 
 question, more suo — " Hold hard — I'm not ready ! 
 Not 'just at present.' Your time will come — don't 
 be in such a hurry, or you will dislocate, and 
 break into little bits ' the great Liberal party ' 
 — of which, as I have told you before^ 'the Non- 
 conformist is the backbone.' Take your time. 
 It is ' an open question.' " Mr. Gladstone is the 
 Prince of Opportunists. Now, an " Opportunist " 
 means a man who is intent, above all other 
 tilings^ upon carrying out his " opportunity." 
 This is his mania ; he will sacrifice everything 
 else to compass it — whether the thing he wants 
 opportunity for be good or bad for his country. 
 This comes in, if at all, as the second and 
 inferior consideration. 
 
 He wants something for his party ; that is, for 
 " the great Liberal party " — for an " Opportunist " 
 is always a " Liberal," — and watches his oppor- 
 tunity. If this comes suddenly, it sweef)s him 
 along without allowing him a moment to pause and 
 
 consider v/hat it is he is about. For Opportunism 
 
 9 *
 
 12 • 
 
 possesses this inherent power of making its disciple 
 sacrifice everything to the joy of a coup cVetat. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's memorable action in the matter 
 of what is vulgarly called " Irish dis- Establish- 
 ment " is an instance in point. In 1865 he wrote : 
 " it was a subject he need not go into because it was 
 " not within the range of practical politics." When 
 liord Mayo proposed in 1868 what was called 
 '■ levelling up," Mr. Gladstone, two years and six 
 months after what he wrote in 1865, saw his 
 opportunity and proposed and carried "levelling 
 down." It may very well be that a like 
 revolutionary assault is near at hand, however 
 disclaimed, for the Church of England; so soon, 
 that is, as the "opportunity" comes, if Mr. Gladstone 
 returns to power. 
 
 The late Lord Derby — once a Whig- -said, when 
 he proposed his Reform Bill, '' We have dished the 
 Whigs." He anticipated a little — claimed all too 
 soon. He has left it to Mr. Gladstone to dish up 
 \\\Q Whigs — that is, to leave them the choice of 
 becoming "Opportunists" with himself, as described 
 above, or of joining loyally hand-in-hand with those 
 whose business it is, under God, to save the old 
 Constitution in " Church and State." And so with 
 these contingencies before me, I thank Messrs. 
 Chamberlain and Dilke, and have some kindly feeling 
 towards the Birmingham Caucus, for wakmg up 
 Churchmen to "contend earnestly" for " Church 
 and State." But I cannot thank the man who,
 
 13 
 
 assuring me that he cares much for me and mine, 
 is only biding his time, and watching and waiting 
 for his " opportunity " to destroy me more easily 
 than he can do "just at present." 
 
 It is proposed on the part of the Birmingham 
 Caucus, represented by Messrs Chamberlain and 
 Dilke, some few years ago imported into the 
 Cabinet by Mr. Gladstone, to sever finally and 
 absolutely — not bit by bit only, as has been done 
 in so many principal instances since 1832 — but 
 finall}' and absolutely en masse — once for all, 
 the State of England from the Church of Eng- 
 land — that is, to make the Church of England cease 
 and determine ; and to leave the Church in Eng- 
 land disinherited and robbed by man, to begin 
 anew after a life of some one thousand five hundred 
 years; and, so far as the English nation is concerned, 
 to take its only recognized status and position 
 among the Sects. 
 
 N^ow, the Church Catholic, The Church of the 
 Incarnation, The Church of the Cross, The Church 
 of the Resurrection, The Church of the Ascension, 
 The Church of Pentecost, The Church of the 
 Orders, The Creeds, The Sacraments, is the One 
 place of " The Truth ;" the One place of " Salvation" 
 in Life, in Death, in Judgment, vouchsafed of God 
 to the World in and by His Holy Word, for Jesus 
 Christ's sake. 
 
 To the Bishops, Clerg}-, People of England, " The 
 Church of England," and none other, is " The
 
 14 
 
 Church Catholic." To live in, by, for " The 
 Church of England " is the highest happiness of 
 the Englishman, woman, child. 
 
 Wherefore, to discredit, dishonour, rob " The 
 Church of England" is the worst national sin 
 that the Governing Power of England can commit ; 
 and therein and thereby invite the People of 
 England to commit in its train. Further, it is 
 the surest way to the persuading the People of 
 England to " tempt God "* in and by doubting 
 Him and His Truth ; and step by step to become 
 an Infidel People. It does this by taking away 
 from before their eyes, from before the heart and 
 mind of their daily life, The Authority Divine ; 
 and by bringing into its place the deadly fruit 
 of the '' Pride of Life,"f the countless inventions 
 and contradictions of men ; inventing a human 
 salvation^ and devising in almost every conceivable 
 shape a new Providence. 
 
 For Mr. Chamberlain and the Birmingham 
 Caucus, and for Mr. Gladstone's connection with 
 both, 1 have then this to say — 
 
 Is there not a cause, more than a cause, for 
 distrust, aye for condemnation of the " practical 
 Politics," which, for the sake of Mr. Chamberlain 
 (\dth his following, have invited J into the inner 
 
 * Thou slialt not tempt TheLoED thy God. — Dent. vi. 16. j 
 St. Luke iv. 12. 
 
 t 1 St. John ii. 16. + 2 St. John, 10.
 
 15 . 
 
 Councils of The Crown, The Unitarian Non-Con- 
 formist, The denier of The Eternal Sox? The 
 man who says — " I am rich and increased with 
 "goods and have need of nothing, and knoweth 
 " not that he is miserable and poor and blind 
 " and naked." — Revelation iii. 17. 
 
 On the other hand, is there not a cause, more 
 than a cause, for rejoicing and thankfulness that, 
 although it be not for the sake of The Church 
 of England, nor for the sake of Members of The 
 Church of England, yet that it is for Religion's 
 sake, in the foresight of the sure deep and lasting 
 injury to Religion in Europe, and in many other 
 parts of the World, that very eminent men in The 
 Church of Rome, both in and out of England 
 should have lifted up their voice before The World 
 to denounce all and every attempt to sever 
 The State of England from the Church of 
 Eno'land? 
 
 Unwittingly, indeed, and in the moral blindness 
 which always accompanies un-Belief in The Incar- 
 nation, Mr. Chamberlain has done us Church People 
 of the Church of England very good service. 
 
 If Parliament violates, and therein lowers "the 
 Church,"the One appointed witness to the One Truth 
 of God, to a thing of man's invention, in the e}'es of 
 the people, it does all that can be done by man to 
 make the people say with Pilate, " What is Truth?" 
 In other words, to make the people of England first 
 a doubting, then a disbelieving, finally an apostate 
 people.
 
 16 
 
 I lifive endeavoured to put this matter upon its 
 first principles. It is not a matter which ought to 
 be argued upon subordinate ground or upon inferior 
 issue. The subjoined Resolutions convey my 
 meaning : — 
 
 Resolutions. 
 
 1 . That to sever the State of Ens-land from the 
 Church of England camiot be done without sin; 
 inasmuch as it is to reject by the National voice 
 the first and greatest gift of God to the people of 
 England. 
 
 2. That the removal of the Bishops from the 
 House of Lords is an integral part of such sever- 
 ance, being the destruction of one of the four 
 elements of the Constitution in Church and State 
 — (1) The Crown, the Defender of the Faith; 
 (2) The Lords Spiritual; (3) The Lords Tem- 
 poral; (4) The Commons. That such removal is 
 therefore not within the province of Constitutional 
 Legislation. 
 
 3. That to apply any portion of the present or 
 future endowment of the Church of England to 
 secular use is to " rob God." 
 
 Of all attempts to rob by Act of Parliament — I 
 do not say a fortiori by a Parliament of all reli- 
 gions and of none, for the constitution of Parlia- 
 ment makes no real diiFerence in the thing done — 
 there is no attempt so bad in all its aspects, in 
 itself, and in every one of its effects and issues.
 
 17 
 
 public and private, as the attempt to rob the people 
 of England of 
 
 The Church 
 
 of 
 England. 
 I do not say ol 
 
 The Church 
 ill 
 England. 
 For this is a thing not within the power of any 
 number of Parliaments, whether they be Parlia- 
 ments of (so-called) Churchmen, or Parliaments 
 like the present, of men of all religions and of none. 
 On the other hand. Parhament can rob the people 
 of England of 
 
 The Church 
 
 of 
 England. 
 And in so doing commit the greatest sin in the 
 power of Parliament to commit. For whether 
 " Church of England " or " Church in England," 
 both are Gifts of God to this PeojDle, and to sin 
 against one is to sin against the other; the only 
 difference being that in the one case the sin can 
 take effect, and in the other it cannot. 
 First, then, a few words touching 
 The Church 
 111 
 England. 
 That is, tlie Church planted here before England 
 
 3
 
 18 
 
 was a People; the Church which has seen the State 
 of England grow up around her ; the Church the 
 vital principle of all the after-life of England. 
 
 If the Church in England be dated onty from 
 S. Augustine, 597 a.d. (which is to make a very 
 large admission indeed, but may be made here for 
 convenience sake), the Parliament of England 
 dates from a.d. 1295. " The Church" both 
 "m England" and " o/ England" is 700 years 
 before the Parliaments of England. The Church 
 of England, upon the data here allowed, is close 
 upon 1300 years old; the Parliaments of England 
 close upon 600 years old. 
 
 Now, The World says Parliament can do every- 
 thing. 
 
 " Let the dead bury their dead." ^- 22." 
 
 There is at least one thing the Parlia- 
 ment of England cannot do, and that is to rob the 
 people of England of the Church 
 
 in 
 England. 
 For to remove a " Church" is a thing belonging to 
 Visitation of God only — Visitation of God upon the 
 faithlessness of the baptized : faithlessness accumu- 
 lated in its several kinds for shorter or longer time, 
 and finally culminating at that point which calls 
 down, first, the warnings, then the threatenings, 
 then the wrath of God, scattering His Church, 
 wheresoever planted, to the four winds of Heaven. 
 
 Chapters II and III of "The Revelation" set
 
 19 
 
 forth examj^les both of Churches faithful in suf- 
 fering manifold, and of Churches guilty of unfaith- 
 fulness ; with warning and threatening to these of 
 the final Consummation of the Wrath of God. 
 The Church in England can never die so long as 
 it be not finall}' found of God to be unfaithful. 
 
 Let me note here that the word " Church " 
 means the Body of the Baptized, possessing by Gift 
 of God, the Orders, the Creeds, the Sacraments, as 
 derived by It from Command and Institution of 
 Christ as recorded in Hoh' Scripture under the 
 promised guidance of the Spirit of Truth, the 
 Comforter. This Church in the Providence of 
 God has become " The Church of England." 
 " The Church of England " is, to the People of 
 England, " The Church Catholic." 
 
 There is one other note to be added here. 
 
 I put it by way of question and answer. 
 
 Q. — What is Holy Scripture? 
 
 A. — It is the Canonical Books of the Old and 
 the New Testaments. Article VI. 
 
 (J.— What is " Canonical?" 
 
 A. — " Canonical" from Kavcov Canon-Rule. 
 
 In respect of Holy Scripture, " Canonical " is 
 that which being "commonly received" — Article 
 YI — in the Church under guidance of God the 
 Holy Ghost, is finally, under the same guidance, 
 ruled and sealed for the Church Catholic and for
 
 20 
 
 the whole world, in His own good time, by Council 
 of the Church Catholic. 
 
 The Canon or Rule of Holy Scripture was first 
 so ruled by the Council of Laodicea, Cent. lY . 
 
 The Canons of this Council were afterwards 
 received into the Code of the Canons of the Church 
 Universal. 
 
 " The Revelation" is not found in the catalogue 
 of Canonical books in Canon of Council of Laodicea. 
 
 The account of this omission is variously stated. 
 
 But it is not disputed that the Book of The 
 Revelation, as we have it, has been "commonly 
 received " in the Church as of Authority Divine 
 both before and after the Council. 
 
 Further, that for us, for every one of us. Bishops, 
 Clergy, People of tlie Church of England, it is, 
 in common with all the other books of the 'New 
 Testament, humbly and thankfully accepted as 
 Canonical, and made part of the use of the Church 
 of England. 
 
 The conclusion is one from which there is no 
 escape. 
 
 That conclusion is, that the Church is the one 
 channel and instrument by and through which, in 
 the Providence of God, it has been given to all 
 men to know of a certainty what is Holy Scripture 
 and what is not. 
 
 Xow I believe that this great fact of the Christian 
 dispensation is one very commonly, so to speak,
 
 21 
 
 unhnowa to those who are not of the Church ; or, 
 at least, not plainly placed before them. I believe 
 further that it is not commonly insisted upon by 
 Churchmen themselves among the chief grounds 
 for " Authority of the Church in controversies of 
 Faith." Article XX. For that which has been 
 made in the Providence of God witness and keeper 
 of Holy Writ is also interpreter of Holy Writ. 
 
 It may therefore be good to call close attention 
 to the account of how it is that we all, Church 
 people and not Church people alike, know of a 
 certainty^ not of human origin but of Divine, that 
 " The Bible " is " The Bible," i.e., The Book of God. 
 
 Men of "all denominations" are continually 
 appealing to the Bible as against the Church. 
 Well, it ought at least to make them pause and 
 consider a little that it is " The Church " only 
 which has, under God, given them the Bible to 
 appeal to ; and especially at such times as these 
 times of ours, when they arc tempted to cry 
 " Down with the Church" : " Down with il, even 
 to the ground." 
 
 I turn now to the Church 
 
 </ 
 
 England. 
 How did the Church in England become the 
 Church of England ? The answer is one and one 
 only — By Gift of God. 
 
 The seed sown here very early in the liistorj^ of
 
 22 
 
 the Church of Christ grew and became a great 
 Tree, so that men, governors and people " come 
 and lodge under the branches of it" (St. Matt, 
 xiii. 32). 
 
 It is the Church of " the Constitutions of Claren- 
 don," providing for equal justice in spiritual and 
 civil causes. Henry II, a.d. 1164. 
 
 It is the Church of the Barons of England. 
 The Church of " Magna Charta," affirming the 
 true liberty of the Church of England as against 
 the Church of Rome, " Libera sit Ecdesia Angli- 
 cana^' King John, a.d. 1215. Observe it is 
 Ecdesia Anglicana — not Ecdesia Romana. 
 
 It is again the Church of the Barons of England, 
 Henry III, a.d. 1272, refusing to accommodate the 
 Common law of England to the Canon Law in 
 respect of children not born in wedlock. 
 
 " Nolumus Leges Anglice mutari.^' 
 
 "We will not have the laws of England touched." 
 Observe that the latest of these instances of 
 the jealous guardianship of the then Governing 
 Powers of England over the true position, interests 
 and liberties of the Church of England is 23 years 
 before the birth of Parliament. 
 
 Now the common language of our days speaks 
 of the Church as " established," " established by 
 law," " as by law established," and we hear the 
 Church spoken of as "the establishment." The 
 modern purpose in so speaking of It being to 
 create in the popular mind which, in proportion to
 
 23 
 
 its necessary ignorance, is regarded by " the great 
 Liberal party" as the most promising field in which 
 to work — the belief that it is a Church made by 
 man's law; and, therefore, justly liable to be dealt 
 with in all its life and substance by man's law. 
 
 It is a vulgar error ; but so common and so 
 employed for worst uses as to demand correcting 
 and exposmg. 
 
 " Dolus latet in generalibus." 
 
 There are then th'ee senses in which the words 
 " establishing," "established by law," "as by law 
 established," are applied to " the Church." 
 
 1. The sense of the adversaries of " the Church," 
 
 i.e.. the sense of creating by mans act. 
 
 2. The sense of establishing by man's faithful 
 
 recognition of what exists a 'priori by Gift 
 of God. 
 
 3. The sense of establishing by man's humble 
 
 acceptance of such existence as the gi'eatest 
 Gift of God to a People. 
 
 1. is absolutely, not only untrue, but impossible 
 — a peojDle cannot create a Church any more than 
 a man can, not being specially commissioned thereto 
 by God ; though it be not an uncommon error, one 
 with which the world is ever)'' day more and more 
 familiar, that a man can. 
 
 2. and 3. are true. The State of England could 
 not help, if it had wished it, recognizing the fact 
 of the prior existence of the Church of England. 
 Nor again could the State of England do other
 
 24 
 
 than accept the Church of England given of God, 
 and endowed by the private ahnsgivmg of His 
 People in Christ, for the Ministry and Service of 
 God, and the better care of His Poor, as the 
 National Church, by its Common and Statute Law. 
 
 And so we sweep away the cobwebs about "estab- 
 lishment," and never use, except for convenience 
 and under protest, the words " established," " dis- 
 Established." They find no proper place in this 
 matter, any more than "endowed," "dis-Endowed," 
 which imply about as big an untruth as can any- 
 where be found. Namely, that the Church of 
 England has been endowed by the Civil Power of 
 England, and that, therefore^ the Civil Power may 
 justly dis -Endow. 
 
 When I have to speak or write in this matter, 
 instead of using "dis-Establishment," I use " sever- 
 ing the State of England from the Church of 
 England;" and I call it — what it is — a sin; and 
 instead of dis- Endowing, I use " robbing God," 
 which are the oni}^ two words which describe the 
 truth of ih.^. case. See Resolutions cited above. 
 
 Of all signs of and grounds for fear of what is 
 coming ; has come in its beginnings, and in all 
 its ever-growing and accumulating power for evil 
 upon this People, there is no one to compare with 
 the " Board School." 
 
 It is the proclamation by the public voice — 
 Thar, secular instruction is a necessity for a
 
 25 
 
 Christian people, but that religious Education is 
 not. 
 
 The Board School tramples upon the special 
 plea of the religious conscience of the parent as 
 conveyed in and by the original Conscience Clause, 
 employed, down to 1870, as the lever whereby the 
 Church School was upheaved from its foundations, 
 and which had betrayed the Church School into a 
 position contrary to its inherent nature and office. 
 
 The plea, having thus done its insidious work, 
 was cast aside for a thing its precise contradictory. 
 
 The method and manner of this thing was the 
 making the secular education of the child compul- 
 sory upon the parent by way of fine^ all Ms religious 
 conscience nottcithstanding. 
 
 Thus the " religious Conscience " of the parent, 
 refusing to send his child to a school where religious 
 teaching is set aside, is converted from its former 
 highly vaunted and patronized position into a 
 foohshness on the parent's part, to be visited by 
 compulsion in the shape of fine. 
 
 For the child, the Board School has provided a 
 
 place for the sure daily growth of neglect of prayer 
 
 to GrOD for Jesus' sake; with a Hke neglect of the 
 
 means of daily hearing of and instruction in the 
 
 Holy Scriptures. That is to say, a place for the 
 
 sure daily growth of Indifferentism, the parent of 
 
 InfideHty. The Creation of the Board School is the 
 
 despising and the selling of the " Birthright." (See 
 
 Note D.) It is a National Act which has " no place 
 
 of repentance." 
 
 4
 
 26 
 
 Now it would be wonderful, if fear did not cast 
 wonder out, to see the general content ; nay, the 
 approval ; nay, the satisfaction ; nay, the compla- 
 cency of Churchmen very generally. Bishops, priests, 
 people, with the Act for " Elementary Education," 
 A.D. 1870; with all its flimsy and fraudulent pre- 
 tence of justice to the Church by way of the " Time 
 table Conscience Clause," which robs the Parish 
 Priest of his office, and turns the Religious training 
 of the Children of the Church into one of the lessons 
 of the school, having, as they have, its own half- 
 hour, and no more. 
 
 Men's eyes are opening fast now ; aye, but under 
 what power? The power of a shilling rate. 
 
 For the contrast between Mr. Grladstone's private 
 judgment in 1852, and his public action in the same 
 year in respect of the same matter of public policy, 
 see the letter cited below.* 
 
 The same year he joined a Government committed 
 to " the rate huilt schools ^olicy^'' with its " sham 
 jjrovision for religious instruction.''^ 
 
 When, in 1870, this policy was finally established, 
 Mr. Gladstone was Prime Minister. 
 
 * "5, Carlton Gardens, Feb. 13, 1852. 
 " My dear Denison, — My own ' main objection ' (he is re- 
 ferring to the Manchester and Salford, so-called, ' Education ' 
 Bill, the type of all ' educational ' legislation since that time), 
 the one which, I think, would influence me on the second 
 reading, is the sham provision for religious instruction in the 
 rate-built schools. — I remain, sincerely yours, 
 
 " W. E. Gladstone. 
 " Ven. Archdeacon Denison."
 
 27 
 
 What remains to complete the policy of "the 
 great Liberal party ;" to seal with its seal the 
 *' presumptuous sin," the "great offence?" 
 
 Dis-Establish and dis- Endow "the Church of 
 England." 
 
 Fiat Ruina^ mat Coelum. Disinherit the 
 Church as you have disinherited the Church 
 School. Make the path of Indifferentism and 
 Infidelity plain before every face. 
 
 Have no care remaining for Ordination vow ; for 
 Ofiice, and Commission of the parish priest. Have 
 no care for the poor and the not poor alike of the 
 Church of Christ. 
 
 These are "practical politics" of "the great 
 Liberal party." 
 
 The " great Liberal party " are forgetting fast, 
 if they ever knew it, that, as the School is, so will 
 be the People. An irreligious School has the curse 
 upon it of bequeathing from generation to gene- 
 ration a more and more ii'religious People. 
 
 For some years past " the great Liberal party " 
 have shown many signs that their main purpose is 
 to do away with the Church of England. 
 
 The purpose is now definitely avowed, and made 
 an election cry. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone is nominally the leader ; is really 
 a follower only in the wake of the true leader* of 
 " the great Liberal party." 
 
 * Mr. Chamberlain.
 
 28 
 
 I have never been able to think of Mr. Gladstone 
 as a statesman. A statesman does not live from 
 hand to mouth. Mr. Gladstone has lived from 
 hand to mouth all along. A statesman is not an 
 " Opportunist." Mr. Gladstone is the Prince of 
 " Opportunists." A Christian statesman does not 
 range all questions of whatever character under the 
 category of " practical politics." Mr. Gladstone 
 does. This is, I believe, inseparable from the 
 constitution and habit of his mind. His power of 
 speaking no man can dispute any more than the 
 marvellous range of his knowledge. But there are 
 two kinds of this power — one good, the other not. 
 The first is that which explains lucidly and 
 beautifully, bases upon recognized principles, clears 
 step by step, and so leaves a definite impression on 
 the public mind and a guarantee of correspond- 
 ing action. The other is that which, I may say, 
 abuses itself, in abusing its own power ; that which 
 subtilizes, refines, mystifies, clouds, and leaves the 
 hearer with the unpleasant feeling that he has 
 heard something very fine ^ but why fine he cannot 
 tell. 
 
 It is curious to note how in his downward 
 progress towards Democracy, Mr. Gladstone has 
 assumed that the test of the claim of a Church to 
 be preserved intact, untouched by " convenient " 
 Acts of Parliament, and not robbed by the State of 
 what the State has not given one farthing of, is 
 whether it is the Church of the majority of the 
 people. It is a very curious test for a Christian
 
 29 
 
 man to apply. It smells strongly of the Birming- 
 ham Caucus, Messrs. Chamberlain and Dilke. 
 
 But this is not all. The money and lands of 
 the Church so robbed by the State — what is called 
 " the surplus of it " — is applied to all manner of 
 secular uses; to relieve ratepayers, &c. 
 
 This is the Irish case. Will the People of 
 England not be warned even yet? Dishonour to 
 God, and robbery of tithes and offerings, are pre- 
 cedents as astounding as they are evil, especially 
 in a Churchman's hands. 
 
 There is about it all a " Cacoetkes Spolmndi,^' a 
 very strong Democratic dose. 
 
 It was wittily said by a member of House of 
 Commons not long ago — " As for time of House 
 of Commons, half of it is spent in listening to 
 Mr. Gladstone, and the other half in trying to find 
 out what he means, without succeeding in the 
 attempt." I don't, then, call Mr. Gladstone a 
 statesman, nor, with all his power of words and 
 word-painting, do I call him an orator. And even 
 if he be an orator, it is well cited from Grote, in 
 one of the ablest productions of tliis day, that 
 " Plato has ranked the rhetor in the same category 
 as the despot." * 
 
 England is fast finding Mr. Gladstone out. He 
 is not the power he was. That has been gone some 
 time. It is not easy to find words to say how 
 
 * "Mr. Gladstone, or Gorgias the Rhetor." Bradbury, 
 Agnew, & Co., Whitefriars.
 
 30 
 
 justly, but I say more, I believe him to be about 
 to cease to be a power at all.* 
 
 The English people, with all their self-confidence 
 taken into account, find it, after all, a necessity to 
 have something outside themselves upon which to 
 rest. This cannot be taken to be found, except 
 under the temporary delusion coming of fine 
 words, in a man who has nothing really to give 
 but words only, nothing to show but perpetual 
 contradictions and perpetual failures — sometimes, 
 alas, as in the terrible Gordon case, without 
 honour -wherewith to make at least some com- 
 pensation. 
 
 In sum, I am compelled to say that the experi- 
 ence of a long life, with very uncommon means of 
 forming a close and accurate judgment, does not 
 supply me with a more melancholy history than 
 that of Mr. Gladstone's public career. I say his 
 public career. Of his private career I have not 
 intimate knowledge : but he must be a despicable 
 public adversary who does not speak all his mind 
 in admiration and honour of that in which he 
 knows no flaw. 
 
 For myself, let me say this much. Born and 
 baptized in the Church of England, I have never 
 for one moment — even in time of severest distress 
 of mind by reason of dishonour and injury and 
 robbery done many times during the last fifty 
 years by the Civil Power to the Church of 
 
 * Issue of Election of 1886 : Tories and Conservatives, 316; 
 Liberal Unionists, 78 ; Gladstonites, 191 ; Parnellites, 85.
 
 31 
 
 England — known, nor been able to understand 
 the temptations to desert the Church of England. 
 Where I was born and baptized, by the mercy of 
 God, I hope to die. 
 
 My Belief has always been in substance what it 
 is now. It would be absurd to say that it has not 
 been enlarged and intensified — I am a " High 
 Churchman " Perhaps there is no man in England 
 a higher Churchman. But then it has been all 
 along, and is, the High Churchman ship of the 
 Church of England only. I have never had 
 yearnings for any other "High Churchmanship." 
 I have the Orders, the Creeds, the Sacraments. I 
 have the Bible to teach, the Prayer Book to guide 
 me. I am where the Providence of God has placed 
 me — what more do I want ? All I want is to 
 strive more to live up to the Rule given me. I 
 may not invent for myself another Rule, nor 
 devise another Providence. 
 
 I am said to be a "Ritualist," it is made a 
 reproach to me. I know what the reproach means. 
 It means I am a concealed and traitorous Roman 
 Catholic. 
 
 Now my " Rituahsm " is this — 
 
 1. I have had Matins and Evensong daily in my 
 church for more than forty years. 
 
 2. I have had Daily Celebration of the Blessed 
 Sacrament more than twelve years. 
 
 3. I stand at the Altar facing the East. 
 
 4. I celebrate always with Lights upon the Altar. 
 
 5. I kneel with the congregation at the words,
 
 32 
 
 " Who for us men and for our Salvation came 
 " down from Heaven, and was incarnate by The 
 " Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made 
 " man.'' 
 
 6. I wear the surplice and coloured stole, 
 marking days and seasons in the Church's order. 
 
 7. I bow to the Altar, and cross myself fre- 
 quently. 
 
 I am charged with having changed my 
 "opinions" — those poor things called " opinions " 
 — and therefore with being not worthy of credit. I 
 have heartily repented of such changes, and have 
 many times confessed this publicly, and have 
 returned to a better mind. There were three cases. 
 One was a change of "opinion" Civil. The other 
 two " of opinion " Ecclesiastical. I cannot be far 
 from the close of a long life, and cannot contemplate 
 any other change. My Belief and my desire to be 
 always faithful to the Church of England has 
 never changed. 
 
 In 1832, for six months, I was in favour of the 
 Reform of the House of Commons. At the end of 
 the six months I came to my senses. 
 
 In 1851, under the very grievous burden of the 
 Gorham Judgment — without meaning " dis-Estab- 
 lishment " at all, I wrote " why should the Bishops 
 continue to sit in the House of Lords ? " which 
 implies " dis-Establishment." I have come to my 
 senses again here, both generally and particularly. 
 
 Lastly, — 'and this is the worst — being deeply
 
 33 
 
 distressed by the many inroads made by the Civil 
 Power upon the position of " The Church of Eng- 
 land " since 1832, I did for some years, join myself 
 to those who are for what is vulgarly called " dis- 
 Establishment." I don't think much was said by 
 promoters of the movement about its twin-sister ^^^ 
 " dis-Endowment." I have, for a good many 
 years now, seen all my unwisdom here also, and, 
 as in other cases, have returned to my senses, 
 and confessed my fault. 
 
 When Oxford University, with its motto 
 " Dominus Illuminatio MeaJ"" paraded still, became 
 corporately a j)lace of irreligion, and not even 
 nominally a place of " Education of the Christian 
 man," but of secular instruction only, I took my 
 name off the books. 
 
 I keep in heart and mind the great words of 
 Bishop Ken, in his Will — 
 
 " As for my Eeligion, I die in the Holy Catholic 
 and Apostolical Faith professed by the whole 
 Church before the disunion of East and West : 
 more particularly, I die in the Communion of the 
 Church of England, as it stands distinguished from 
 all Papal and Puritan innovation, and as it adheres 
 to the Doctrine of the Cross."
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Habit of mind of Mr. Gladstone. Accumulated Evidence 
 thereupon of bb years, clenched by his own admission. 
 
 I LEFT Eton, Christmas, 1819, some four years, I 
 think, before Mr. Gladstone went to Eton. In January, 
 1824, my two brothers, Henry and Stephen Charles 
 Denison, went to Eton. Stephen, the younger of the 
 two, became a very near friend of Mr. Gladstone, and, as 
 will appear in the sequel of this paper, knew all about 
 him. 
 
 When in 1828 I went from Christ Church as Fellow of 
 Oriel, one of the nearest and dearest friends I have had 
 was Augustus Page Saunders, then Curate to the Bishop 
 of Oxford at Cuddesdon, and Mathematical Tutor at 
 Christ Church ; afterwards Head Master of Charter 
 House, and finally Dean of Peterborough. 
 
 Of all the men I have known very intimately, he was 
 the man of the largest intuitive power in respect of 
 apprehending character and habit of mind in other 
 men. 
 
 He was also a great scholar and mathematician, and 
 naturally attracted to himself very many, I think nearly 
 all, of those young men then passing through their life 
 at Christ Church to highest honours in the schools — and 
 all but two into high office in Church and State. Some 
 names I recall — John Chetwynd Talbot, the Braces 
 Walter Hamilton, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, C. 
 Canning, C. Wordsworth, Bishop of St. Andrews, my 
 iDrother Henry, W. E. Gladstone.
 
 35 
 
 I used to come frequently to Saunder's rooms from 
 Oriel in the evening. 
 
 One night in November, 1832, I was there talking 
 over his pupils. He hit them off one after the other 
 in a way, as proved by after years' experience, very 
 wonderful. 
 
 At last we came to Gladstone, who had just got his 
 double first class — a man of unblemished character, 
 great scholar, showing high promise of oratorical power, 
 said to be going into public life. Many eyes and minds 
 were fixed upon him. 
 
 I said to Saunders, " Now, old man, there is one left I 
 want to know something about, Gladstone ; and then I'll 
 go to bed, for I shall have had from you as much to 
 digest as will serve me for some time about all these 
 men.'' 
 
 He said " I'll tell you about Gladstone in a minute." 
 I said '^What is it, then ? " He said, " His conscience is 
 so tender he will never go straight." 
 
 I heard, and wondered. At first I could not take it 
 in. It is now fifty-three years ago. I learnt by degrees to 
 apprehend by manifold experiences all that the words 
 meant. 
 
 I kept applying the words, as time went on, to 
 Gladstone's public career for some thirty years. In the 
 course of those years I had a good deal of communication 
 with him upon various matters of deep interest. The 
 School Controversy, the Divorce Legislation, and, I 
 think, Church Rates, with other things of deep public 
 interest coming up from time to time. 
 
 I had found invariably that there was no bringing him 
 to decisions. His leaning then — at least for the early 
 part of the time — was the same way as my own. But my 
 mind was definitely made up upon each and every point. 
 He gave me the impression that he was always debating
 
 36 
 
 with himselfj and never concluding for maintaining^ but 
 for sacrificing^ in one shape or another. 
 
 In 1847 this presented itself to me so strongly that it 
 was with the utmost difficulty that I was persuaded by 
 my dear old friend^ Bishop Bagot^ to vote for him at 
 Oxford. In 1851 I found I could no longer place any 
 confidence in him. In 1853 I did what I could to turn 
 him out of Oxford. In 1866 I did turn him out. See p. 2 
 and note to it. 
 
 From. January, 1854, to February, 1858, my time and 
 energies were taken up by the prosecution against me 
 touching the "Eeal Presence.^^ In 1856, after the Bath 
 Judgment, Mr. Gladstone most kindly and forgivingly 
 asked me to come to Hawarden with my dear brother 
 Robert Phillimore, to consult about best manner of 
 defence. I was there some days, and at one time 
 thought that I would adopt the plan of defence suggested 
 to me : but, the same day that I left Hawarden, returned 
 to my own mind upon it. 
 
 Somewhere about 1860 I was talking with my neigh- 
 bour and friend Lake, now Dean of Durham, chairman 
 of Gladstone's Committee at Oxford, and rector of 
 Huntspill, not far from East Brent. 
 
 I had not mentioned Gladstone's name to him. I 
 never did, because naturally I felt sure we should not 
 agree. 
 
 All on a sudden he said, "I say, Denison, I think I 
 must give up Gladstone." 
 
 I said, " What ' Et Tu Brute ' — mind, I did not begin 
 this, but as you have begun it, may I ask why V 
 
 He said "J tJiitik his intellect can joersua,de his con- 
 science of anything" 
 
 " Dear me," I said to myself, " that is what Saunders 
 had prospectively in his mind when he said, ^Zf is con- 
 science is so tender, he will never go straight' He was
 
 speaking of the boy and liis yoaug mind before it got 
 into the struggle^ and conflicting influences of public life. 
 Lake is speaking of the public man so well known. So 
 changed from his early political and ecclesiastical belief. 
 So uncertain as I have found bim myself. How curious 
 it all is. I must know more about it." 
 
 So I sent Saunder's words and Lakers to my brother 
 Stephen. 
 
 He wrote back : 
 
 *' Very good stories and very true ; but not all tlie 
 Truth." 
 
 I asked, ''What is all the trutb ?"— He wrote— '^ He 
 (Gladstone) never had a conscience." 
 
 " Well," I replied, " My dear Stephen, this is strange 
 enough, you nearly quarrelled with me for trying to turn 
 out Gladstone, you subscribed largely to his fund; and 
 now you tell me he never had a conscience. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " Don't misapprehend me. I am say- 
 ing nothing against his moral character." 
 
 " Ah," said I, " When a man says of another, ' he 
 never had a conscience,' it is commonly thought that he 
 is saying something that way." 
 
 '"' No," he replied, '' I mean nothing of the kind ; what 
 I mean is that he never had so inuch as one intuition to 
 begin with. I have known him very well, nobody better ; 
 and I say that in every mattei', little or big, which his 
 mind rests upon, he is always marshalling the ^ros and the 
 cons and building up conclusions which he is just as likely 
 as not to pull down the next or the same day." 
 
 Not long after this, I was, coming down by G.W.R,, 
 with my dear friend the late Bishop of Lincoln, Chris- 
 topher Wordsworth. Something brought up Gladstone. 
 We were alone in the carriage, and I told him my three 
 stories. 
 
 " Ah/' he said, " this is very curious — you should write 
 it all down."
 
 38 
 
 " Yes/^ 1 said, " I have it all in my mind, but I will 
 write it all down." 
 
 He went on — ''What made me think it especially 
 curious is, that some few weeks ago I had a long talk 
 with Grladstone myself in London. 
 
 I told him how sadly he had disappointed us. That 
 we had looked to him to fight the battle of the Church 
 in the House of Commons, irrespective of power and 
 place, and he had not done it in any particular. I 
 enumerated several. 
 
 He listened very patiently, and made me two very 
 remarkable replies : — 
 
 1. ''My dear Bishop, What is the use of my talking 
 about these things to five hundred Brahmins in the 
 House of Commons V^ 
 
 2. " All the points you have specified and others liJce 
 them, are intuitions to you, and men like you, who have 
 sucked them in with their mother's milk. They are your 
 foundation, that upon which you build." 
 
 3. '' My case, let me say, is a different case. I was born 
 and bred in an uninfluenced habit of life; and in my case 
 every one of these things are the produce of the working 
 of my oivn mind, simply." 
 
 Here observe he clenched, by his own admission, what 
 has been said about his order and habit of mind in this 
 publication. 
 
 I am told that Bonamy Price, no mean judge of men, has 
 said of Gladstone — "you know he has not one intuition." 
 
 In a letter to me from Lord Beaconsfield when he 
 was Mr. Disraeli, he says — 
 
 " My dear Archdeacon, — A fanatic* is a dangerous man, 
 and when he is first Minister and leader of the House of 
 
 * Mr, Gladstone is "a fanatic" in respect of two things. 
 (1) In respect of " the Great Liberal Party," and himself the 
 Leader, once real, now nominal, of it. (2) In respect of his 
 being " the only man who can govern England."
 
 39 
 
 Cominous, mucli more dangerous. It is true o£ Gladstone 
 what Gerald Hamilton said of Burke, that his intellect is 
 so profound, and his imagination so prolific, that he 
 can, six times in every twenty-four hours, maintain that 
 opposite truths are the truth, and the only truth/' 
 
 Well, I wrote in reply. '' I don't know that I could 
 have put it as well as you have ; but it is the conclu- 
 sion at which I have arrived long ago from abundant 
 evidence.'* 
 
 One evidence remains. Some five years ago I was sitting 
 with a dear friend and his wife, a man highly honoured 
 among us down here. He said to me, " Denison, you 
 know more about Gladstone than anybody else." " Yes," 
 I said, '' I think I do." 
 
 "Well, tell me about him. He is a dear old friend 
 and I used to go after him once. Gave that up long 
 ago. But now I not only cannot go with him, but I 
 cannot understand him a bit." 
 
 I said, poaching upon dear old Saunders, " I'll tell 
 you all about Gladstone in a minute." 
 
 " Gladstone has i:)ersuaded himself thai he is the only 
 man that can govern England." 
 
 He started in his chair. " What makes you start so ?" 
 I said. " Why it is curious. It is very little time ago 
 that I put to Mrs. Gladstone the same question I have 
 put to you, and she said, " Oh, William, knows he is the 
 only man who can govern England.'^ 
 
 "Well," I said, "you may be sure I did not get my 
 inspiration from Mrs. Gladstone : but you see we are at 
 one upon the point. 
 
 " Save that," Mrs. Gladstone says, " William knows," 
 as becomes a wife. I only said " has persuaded himself," 
 as becomes a looker-on. 
 
 This concluding story gives the key unlocking the 
 casket containing the inner mind of the author of —
 
 40 
 
 "The Church in connection with the State/^ 2 vols. 
 870. Murray, 1841. 
 
 "I am the only man who can govern England." How 
 soon after 1841 that mind was made up I cannot say.. 
 But facts which have now to be stated appear to prove 
 that the time cannot be very long. 
 
 In 1847, I published my first pamphlet : "A Letter to 
 Mr. Gladstone upon the prospects before the Church of 
 England in respect of her Parish Schools," arising out 
 of the fact of the birth of the Committee of Council on 
 Education, carried in 1839 by 2 : in House of Commons, 
 725-273 j* in House of Lords, for, 118; against, 229; 
 majority against, llLf 
 
 It will, I think, be found that in that letter I fore- 
 shadowed in substance every principal step taken by the 
 Committee and by Parliament — for the two things are 
 by no means one and the same thing — down to 1870, 
 when the apex was placed upon " the State " column 
 reared against " the Church " by the device of " The 
 Time Table Conscience Clause " of Mr. Forster's Bill. 
 
 This clause has deceived many : on the other hand, it 
 has opened many eyes. 
 
 It does these things : 
 
 (a) It robs the Priest of the Parish of his Office in the 
 Parish School. 
 
 (&) It turns Education — a Religious thing throughout 
 in its only true nature and character — into an hour^s, I 
 think now it is a half-hour's, instruction, placing it on 
 precisely the same level — in practice a lower level — with 
 a lesson in arithmetic. 
 
 (c) It transcends the old " Conscience Clause " — more 
 than transcends, it violates and destroys that which had 
 
 * I believe, but cannot verify at this moment, that Mr. Glad- 
 stone voted here in the Minority. 
 
 t For all details upon this subject I beg to refer to " Notes of 
 my Life," Third Edition. Parker : Oxibrd and London. 1879.
 
 41 
 
 all along been relied upon as tlie main lever for upheaving 
 and overthrowing the Church School — the so-called 
 original Conscience Clause. For the Bill creates com- 
 pulsory schooling in all schools helped by State grant. 
 A parent not sending his child to the schools is to be 
 fined. The parent may say as much as he pleases that it 
 is against his religious conscience to send his child to a 
 school where the religion of the Church is not taught. 
 The answer is, " You must send, or be fined. ^^ It is a 
 stupendous mockery and most unblushing contradiction. 
 Bat there it is. The parent's religious conscience has 
 served its purpose, and is, as a worn-out tool, thrown 
 away. 
 
 Liberal Policy is really an unclean and ghastly thing, 
 even in the best hands that handle it. 
 
 This is a small digression — under my cirumstances it 
 will, perhaps, be pardoned. And, indeed, it has a direct 
 bearing upon my present subject, Mr. Gladstone's 
 character and actions ; for he was First Minister when the 
 Bill became law. 
 
 I return now to my catena. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone replied to my letter, saying that in the 
 main he agreed with me, but did not pledge himself for 
 details. 
 
 He went on to direct my special attention to the 
 danger of the ''Management Clauses" just coming into life. 
 
 He wrote subsequently to say that the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury had asked him to move a resolution at the 
 Annual Meeting, and that he had declined upon two 
 grounds. 1. That he was not satisfied with the attitude 
 of the Bishops in the school matter. 2. That he was 
 unwilling to be placed in a position as against me. 
 
 In 1852, when the schools of the Church had been 
 sacrificed at the joint hands of Pai'liamcnt, Committee of 
 Council, and " The National Society for promoting the
 
 42 
 
 Education of the Poor iu the Principles of the Church " 
 — Mr. Gladstone joined a Government comprising those 
 who had been from the first principal agents in this 
 nefarious transaction.* 
 
 Upon this I made my attempt to turn him out of 
 Oxford in 1853. 
 
 One day of the fifteen days' polling — the last fifteen 
 days polling in England — I was sitting in the Chair of 
 the Committee Room, when a letter was brought me 
 from Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 He wrote to say that my letter in The Times was doing 
 him harm without true cause, and that it was making 
 men suppose that I was quarrelling with him because he 
 had supported me in the School battle^, and had now 
 deserted me. 
 
 That I knew that this was not so, for that, though he 
 had sympathized with me, he had not co-operated with 
 me. 
 
 And he asked me to write a letter to his Committee for 
 publication to this eS"ect. 
 
 I replied the same hour, saying his account of his own 
 action was quite correct, and that I would so write. 
 
 But that I should have to add to my letter what he 
 ai^peared to have forgotten, viz., that it was his own 
 letter in 1847 which first flogged me up to fight the 
 school battle. 
 
 I sent my answer to his Committee. I remember that 
 they thought it wiser not to pubhsh it in the interests 
 of their own cause. 
 
 In 1851 I was principally concerned in bringing the 
 men together who issued a Protest in the " Gorham 
 case."t 
 
 They assembled many days in the Yestry of S. Paul's, 
 Knightsb ridge, by permission of Mr. Bennett, one of our 
 
 * See p. 26, Mr. Gladstone's letter to me, Feb. 13, 1852. 
 t Notes of My Life, pp. 198-9.
 
 43 
 
 number. Our meetings were afterwards transferred to 
 Mr. Gladstone's house in Cai-ltou Gardens. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was often present and concurred in the 
 Resolutions passed. 
 
 But he was the only one of us who did not append his 
 name to the Resolutions. 
 
 My last conversation with Mr. Gladstone was some 
 four or five years ago, I forget which, when I was 
 preparing for meetings in London, at Exeter Hall and 
 St. James's Hall, and in many parts of the country 
 for keeping the Prayer Book as it is. I asked him a 
 question. 
 
 '^ Can anybody do a more unwise, almost mad, thing 
 than the bringing of any Church matter before Parlia- 
 ment V 
 
 He said, " Nobody.'' 
 
 This is what I have for many years been trying to 
 insense my dear friends in the Lower House of Convocation 
 of Canterbury, but without success. 
 
 Now, Mr. Gladstone has contemplated since 1851 and 
 1854, to my certain knowledge, the matter, not of this 
 or that detail of Church interests, but, of '' dis-Establish- 
 ment" coming before Parliament, and I understand him 
 to say now that it is an '' open question." Does he mean 
 anything, or does he not mean anything ? We have at 
 least the right to know this from the Author of " The 
 Church in Connection with the State," 1841 — "the only 
 man who can govern England." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, either as First Minister of the Crown 
 or as Cabinet Minister, has become responsible for every 
 one of the inroads made upon the constitutional position 
 of the Church of England since 1832 ; among these Aboli- 
 tion of Church Eate, leaving it to Churchmen to maintain 
 Church and Churchyard, not for themselves only, but 
 for everybody else. Destruction of the Church school,
 
 44 
 
 leaving it without any real title to the name — Seculariza- 
 tion of Universities — Alienation of Endowments be- 
 queathed to help the poor scholar — with other like 
 things. There is hardly anything remaining but " dis- 
 Establishment." 
 
 We have then^ I say, at least, the right to know what 
 Mr. Gladstone has made up his mind to upon the whole 
 matter ; if it be possible for him to tell us. 
 
 If it is not possible, then all that is left us is to say, 
 with Christopher Wordsworth, late Bishop of Lincoln, 
 that as Mr. Gladstone has not, irrespective of place and 
 power, defended and maintained the Church of England 
 in years gone by, so he cannot be supposed to be ready 
 to defend, and maintain it now. Nay, that he has no 
 reason to be surprised if he be regarded as the ostensible 
 leader of the most dangerous adversaries of " Church 
 and State/'
 
 SUMMAEY. 
 
 Of all tliino^s that I have known in a Ions; life, 
 the history of Mr. Gladstone's career is the most 
 melancholy and greatest warning to every states- 
 man. 
 
 1. The man first, and for a time, in all the 
 power of unblemished character and mighty intel- 
 lect, Defender, Maintainer, Advocate, Improver of 
 the use of the Gift of God to the People of England, 
 the Gift of " Church and State." 
 
 2. The man dazzled with the vision of " Govern- 
 ing Power," turning away his eyes from his " first 
 love," and wandering away into paths of man's 
 " inventions." 
 
 3. The man content to surrender one after the 
 other principal elements of " Church and State " to 
 the popular cr}'. 
 
 4. The man become the Prince of the Oppor- 
 tunists. 
 
 5. The man first the Patron, then the follower,
 
 46 
 
 then the ao^ent of the " Red Radical." Pa vino; 
 the way in his company for the miserable deceits 
 of Irreligion, Socialism, Communism. 
 
 6. The man who has not hesitated to apply 
 Church Property to secular uses. 
 
 7. The man who votes for the " Deceased Wife's 
 Sister " Marriage BUI; a thing in itself, and in its 
 necessary adjuncts and folio wings, the breaking up, 
 by Law of the Land, of all sanctity and purity of 
 Marriage. 
 
 8. The man, who having written over the door 
 of the House of Commons 
 
 " Civil and Irreligious Liberty " 
 
 has bound himself to set open the door, that any 
 number of Bradlaughs, presenting themselves to take 
 the Oath^ may be ushered and welcomed in. For 
 are they not an element of the great Liberal 
 Party ? 
 
 9. The man who sacrificed Gordon to the dis- 
 putes and difficulties of a discordant Cabinet of 
 "the Great Liberal Party." 
 
 10. The man of no decisions except the one 
 decision to govern England by the help of the 
 great Liberal Party, however composed. 
 
 11. The man of many and mighty words but of 
 obscurest meaning. ^ 
 
 12. The man who has destroyed the substance, 
 and left the shadow of the " Church School."
 
 13. The man who has " set to his seal " upon 
 the "Board School." 
 
 14. Finally, — and it is the key which unlocks 
 the casket of a life, — the man, by his own confes- 
 sion, of " no intuitions." In their absence, the 
 persuader of himself from day to day in an ever 
 increasing ratio, by a process, hard to describe in 
 words but, in his case, not difficult to understand, 
 that the rule of State craft in every question, 
 Avhether its title to consideration be Divine or 
 human, is simply the rule of "practical politics." 
 
 15. The intellect his Kino-. The conditions and 
 circumstances of the day the guide to the conclu- 
 sion of the day, ever shifting as the " exigencies " 
 of the Governing Power may demand. Ending 
 always at a lower point in the history of England's 
 citizenship than that at which they stood the day, 
 aj'e the hour, before. 
 
 Is there any j^uhh'c action, save only the "Public 
 Worship Regulation Act," wrongful in itself, in- 
 jurious, in fact, or by tendencies, to the Divine 
 Gift and Constitutional Position of the Church of 
 England, which Mr. Gladstone, the author of 
 " The Church in Connection with the State, 1841," 
 has not supported as leader of " the Great Liberal 
 Party"? 
 
 Is there any recognition or " magnifjdng " of 
 that Position which has not suffered in his
 
 48 
 
 hands when weighed in the balance of " practical 
 politics " ? 
 
 For there is such a thing as '"'' condemnare 
 diminuendo.^'' We have an Anglicism upon this 
 practice which I forbear to cite. It is to be found 
 in the preface to Pope's " Satires." 
 
 I am told that Mr. Gladstone has lately written 
 something against reasoning by Syllogism. 
 
 How like the man who must have his pros and 
 cons upon every conceivable subject of human 
 thought ; Divine and human. 
 
 And, no doubt, reasoning by Syllogism is found 
 to be, in some cases, very inconvenient. 
 
 I^evertheless, for mj^self, having still abiding in 
 me respect and love for reasoning by Syllogism, I 
 will conclude with a Syllogism, taken from Mr. 
 Gladstone's public career and statements, e. g. 
 
 The first and greatest thing to care for in 
 English life is " the backbone of the Great Liberal 
 Party." 
 
 " The Nonconformist is the backbone of the Great 
 Liberal Party." 
 
 The first and greatest thing to care for in 
 English life is " the Nonconformist." 
 
 What has become, 1841-1886, of all Mr. Glad- 
 stone's " Ayes " in Parliament, and out of it,
 
 49 
 
 for the Church of England, in the last forty-five 
 years ? 
 
 " The Noes have it." • ■ 
 
 People of England, look at the two Firms in 
 the field and their stock in trade : — 
 
 I. "The Gkeat Liberal Party." — Messrs. 
 Chamberlain and Dilke, Gladstone and 
 Harcourt, Labouchere and Bradlaugh. 
 
 At home. — Secular instruction without Eeligion. 
 The fi'uit, general Irreligion. No Church and 
 Crown. *Robbing God. Unscrupulous trading 
 upon crass ignorance of new Electors. Socialism, 
 Communism, native and imported. Dismemberment 
 of Empire. 
 
 Abroad. — Hesitation, Indecision, Truckling, 
 Ignorance, Blundering, Reckless Waste of Public 
 Money, Alienation, Contempt. 
 
 At home and abroad. —"Decline and Fall." 
 
 II. " The Conservative Party." — Messrs. 
 Salisbury and Cabinet. 
 
 At home. — Care for the poor, who " shall never 
 cease out of the land" (Deut. xv. 11). Rehgious 
 teaching in Schools — z.e.. Christian Education. 
 Church and Crown. Constitution of old England 
 
 * Psalm Ixxvi. 4, 5.
 
 50 
 
 — /.e., " The Crown and the three Estates of the 
 Realm." Rendering to God the things of God. 
 All manner of legitimate improvement. 
 
 Abroad. — Dignity, Firmness, Knowledge, just 
 and well-measured Economy, Respect, Confidence. 
 
 At home and abroad. — A Saved Empire, National 
 Prosperity. 
 
 People of England, 
 
 look and choose 
 
 which you will deal with 
 
 of the two Firms. 
 
 EHEU! AMICI, AMICI: 
 
 SED MAGIS AMIGA 
 
 VERITAS. 
 
 East Brent, December Wtli, 1885.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 A. Evert day brings neai'er the prospect of another Elec- 
 tion, with greater issues than even Irish dis-Memberment. 
 The note of Irish dis-Memberment, with view of alluring 
 to the succour of " the Great Liberal Party^' the " Home 
 Rule^' vote, has already been sounded from Hawarden. 
 
 B (pp. 3, 36-8-9). When the prompting and guiding 
 Counsellor of a man is himself, there being present to 
 him no dominion of higher counsel than himself, and 
 without appeal ; then inevitably, and, in the case of the 
 Baptized, by way of retribution, there is not found there 
 the Mens Conscia Recti. In other words, there is no 
 Rule of Eight and Wrong without appeal for the mind to 
 be conscious of. 
 
 The man, thus left to himself and his own guiding — 
 a guiding never able in itself, by necessity of human 
 nature, to prevent his going astray, fills up the vacancy 
 in thought and action with the Mens Conscia opportuni- 
 tatis — that is, in the case of the ijolitician — I do not say 
 of the Statesman — with the sense of opportunity for 
 dealing a blow upon an opponent, and making a step 
 forward in some matter of worldly policy. 
 
 This tends irresistibly to accumulated exaltation of self, 
 and of Intellect ; as, after all, Christ's Gospel notwith- 
 standing, the rightful king of the Christian life.
 
 52 
 
 G. It would not be a clean and wholesome business to 
 trace tlie authorship of the " Cow and Acre bribery and 
 corruption " so largely employed^ and with considerable 
 success, by '^'^the Great Liberal Party" in the late 
 Election. 
 
 I know of nothing at once more wicked and more 
 ridiculous. 
 
 Let us suppose the process of this coup de terre to 
 have received its sanction by law, and its practical 
 accomplishment. 
 
 Why the iuk of the little transaction would hardly be 
 dry — and I suppose my brethren of the law would take 
 good care that there should be, at least, some ink — 
 before re-accumulation of land into fewer hands would 
 have begun — and, even supposing it not to have begun, 
 what is to become, under infinitesimal division of land, 
 what is to become of all improvements in the Science of 
 Agriculture, and its better adaptation to the necessities 
 of the English People, and the special circumstances of 
 their case in respect of population and area, and applica- 
 tion of means, hitherto not brought into general use, for 
 making cultivation of the land of England really remunera- 
 tive; and bearing its full part in providing for the 
 sustenance of the People of England ? 
 
 For, as in all other Trades, so in the Trade Agricul- 
 tural you require Capital. 
 
 But, under the conditions supposed, the Capital very 
 rarely exists ; and, so long as the subdivision remains, 
 will very rarely be found in connection with it. 
 
 I think it much to be regretted that " Conservatives '* 
 at the late elections not uncommonly should have taken 
 a leaf out of " the book of tricks," not to use here stronger 
 language, however just, published and circulated by the 
 adversary, and have said so much about sub-division of 
 land being in itself a good thing. 
 
 It got muddled up somehow with making transfer of
 
 53 
 
 land by sale easier and less expensive, and with ceasing 
 of power to entail. Things with which it has really 
 nothing to do. These may be wise things, the other is a 
 silliest thing. I do not feel at all sure myself even that 
 they may be wise things ! 
 
 1). For the parent, again, compulsory school teaching 
 crushes out parental responsibility. The parent, almost 
 universally in the case of the working-classes, handing 
 over the child to the schoolmaster to be taught no 
 religion. 
 
 For the school teacher, this his function in respect of 
 the child reacts upon himself; and if he began with 
 some soundness in the Faith, he can hardly end with any. 
 
 Vires acquirit eundo. 
 Facllis descensus. 
 
 If any man desires to learn what is the one only way 
 in which it behoves a Christian man to deal with the 
 matter and manner of " Education,^' he will do well to 
 procure and read the Resolutions of the Roman Catholic 
 Bishops in England, and the Letter of Pope Leo XIII. 
 thereupon. London, December, 1885. 
 
 E. (p. 10, par. 1.) There is the Conservative Political 
 only ; and there is the Conservative Religious and Poli- 
 tical : Religious, because the basis of his Conservatism is 
 the Church of England. 
 
 The Conservative, Political only, is a sound wholesome 
 citizen. More I cannot say for him. 
 
 Again, there is the Conservative Religious, but fearful ; 
 and there is the Conservative Religious, and not fearful. 
 
 The first knows, but does not do. The second knows 
 and does. 
 
 If we are compelled by the position to choose between 
 " the Great Liberal Party " and " the Conservative
 
 54 
 
 Parfcy/^ tlie choice is a very simple matter. But we 
 should all be more comfortable if the element of fear 
 was purged out of the Conservative Religious. 
 
 For ^' the Great Liberal Party," it has no perception — 
 being morally blind in this, as in a great many other 
 things — of what is meant by " the Service of God being 
 perfect Freedom."* 
 
 F. There is the Jesuit Ecclesiastical, and the Jesuit 
 Political. 
 
 The Jesuit Ecclesiastical is content to stop at nothing 
 for Ecclesiastical Power's sake. 
 
 The Jesuit Political is content to stop at nothing for 
 Political Power's sake. 
 
 ADDENDUM. 
 
 At the close of the earliest copies of "Mr. Gladstone" 
 I had inserted three well-known words from Horace to 
 denote the contrarious and over-powering absurdity of 
 Mr. Gladstone's posing as a " Churchman," but, for love 
 of that " Great Liberal Party " which has long become 
 his first love, acting and even speaking publicly as a 
 " Nonconformist." 
 
 But I saw that " the Liberal man " — who would not 
 only rob me and mine of " such things as we have," but 
 even, if he could^ of the sense of the ridiculous — might, 
 in his despair, try to make some poor capital of the 
 adaptation ; and I took the words out. 
 
 * 2nd Collect. Morning Prayer, 
 t Solvuntur risu Tabulce.
 
 55 
 
 CONDENSED SUMMAEY OF CHARGES AGAINST 
 MR. GLADSTONE. 
 
 I SUM up in a few words my indictment against Mr. 
 Gladstone. If there be any answer to it — which I do not 
 believe there is — let us have it ambagibus remotis, prce- 
 varicatione, circumlocutione. My indictment is, — That, 
 in the absence of anything in him to control, or even to 
 moderate, the despotism of intellect, and consequent 
 self-reliance upon every question, divine as human, 
 ecclesiastical as civil, he has become a slave to himself, 
 to his own position and lust for governing power j to the 
 universal application, and never-ending mystifications 
 and delusions from day to day of what he calls " practical 
 politics." 
 
 I delayed purposely publication of my pamphlet till 
 the Elections were over. The indictment it contains 
 wants deeper consideration than can be given in the 
 hurry and confusion of meetings and canvassings. I 
 submit it now to the calmer thoughts of some less 
 excitement. 
 
 January lith, 1886.
 
 56 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 A. 
 
 I received^ January 2nd, the additional evidence to the 
 peculiarity of Mr. Gladstone's mind in early childliood at 
 his only school before Eton, contained in the following 
 letter. It fills up very curiously the only space in the 
 record which I had not been able to fill up myself. 
 
 Dear Mr. Archdeacon, 
 
 I have just seen and read your " Gladstone," and 
 take the liberty of sending you the o'pinion of the Rev. W. 
 Rawson, late Vicar of Seaforth, under wliom Mr. Gladstone 
 received his only education before he went to Eton. 
 
 I had the pleasure of spending a few days at Seaforth 
 Vicarage in 1872, not long before Mr. Rawson's death ; and 
 this is what he told me of Gladstone. Speaking of 
 Gladstone, he said, " From the day lie entered my house until 
 the day he left, aye, and until this day, I have never been able 
 to tell whether he is sane or insane^ 
 
 Your statement of Gladstone having no intuitive perception 
 is also corroborated by another expression used by Mr. 
 Rawson, that " Gladstone could never originate an idea of his 
 own." " He always shone best in carrying out other people's 
 ideas." 
 
 And certainly the ideas he has attempted to carry out are 
 step by step on the descending scale. 
 
 The only question before one while he lives is, what next ? 
 and next ? 
 
 From such dangerous devai-gods, good Lord deliver us. 
 
 Thanks for your Pamphlet. 
 
 Faithfully yours,
 
 67 
 
 Since Mr. Gladstone came back to ofl&ce by a side 
 wind ; trimming-, as " an old Parliamentary hand," his 
 boat too craftily for his opponents '' in Church and State''; 
 too craftily for their plain and trusting honesty ; and 
 effecting a permanent coalition between the "Red 
 Liberal/' " the Socialist/' and ''the Communist;" I have 
 been searching history, ancient and modern, for a parallel. 
 
 I can only find one. 
 
 It is the frequent action of the Chorus in a Greek 
 Tragedy. A foul murder is proposed. In the Chorus case, 
 a human murder, commonly of a near relation. In Mr. 
 Gladstone's case, a murder Civil and Ecclesiastical. The 
 '' relation" here also not remote. Chorus begins by remon- 
 strating warmly, in finest and most touching language, 
 to most beautiful music. 
 
 But finding no response to remonstrance ; and that the 
 exercise of virtue is not "practical;" it goes over to the 
 murderer in virtue of its permanent position as chief 
 adviser ; encourages, aids and abets him in committing 
 the murder at the earliest practicable "opportunity;" 
 urges this upon him in the like finest and most pathetic 
 language ; to the same beautiful music ; as being the 
 " practical politics " of that particular day. 
 
 How exactly has Lord Palmerston's forecast of Mr. 
 Gladstone, which I know to have come from Lord 
 Palmerston's mouth, been now fulfilled, 
 
 " Did you meet that fellow as you came upstairs ?" 
 " I met Gladstone just outside your door." " That's the 
 fellow I mean. He'll destroy everything we have got left." 
 
 Lord Palmerston was the Tory Prime Minister of the
 
 58 
 
 then Liberals. He could not have been in power witbout 
 them, and tbey could not have been on " right hand" of 
 the Speaker^s Chair without him. There have been 
 other like " arrangements '^ of late years. Some call 
 them " compacts ; " or " conspiracies ;" or " treaties 
 offensive." 
 
 But the "arrangement" of .1886 throws them all into 
 the shade. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone has been claimed as of all Parties, one 
 after the other. " Everything by turas, and nothing 
 long." But he has never been anything but " Gladstone;" 
 always going downstairs, as he did from Lord Palmer- 
 ston's room, hoping to find something at the bottom ; 
 with his own all-governing hand always to guide it 
 farther down still. 
 
 G. A. D.
 
 59 
 
 To the Editor of The Guardian. 
 
 Sir, — I have written against Mr. Gladstone (p. 3, sixth 
 thousand) : — 
 
 '' My contention is, not against the man at all, who 
 has so many claims to be honoured and loved, but against 
 a habit of mind which makes him so entirely impossible 
 to be depended upon as First Minister of the Crown, 
 Minister of State, Member of Parliament, exponent and 
 defender of the Constitution in Church and State." 
 
 It is against Mr. Gladstone, in every one of these 
 aspects, that I have written, I have adduced the history 
 of his career, 1832-1886, and have authenticated the 
 character of his mind. 
 
 Now, no man, that I know of, has attempted, pubHcly 
 or privately, to answer what I have written. There have 
 been misrepresentations and misstatements of it ; and 
 clumsy and foohsh attempts at what is called " making 
 fun." 
 
 But, all its wide circulation and great number of 
 notices of it in public prints notwithstanding, there has 
 been nothing in the shape of an answer to the main 
 argument. Its facts are out of the reach of dispute. 
 
 I have written against Mr. Gladstone as having gone 
 down, step by step, till he has come to be the nominal 
 head, not only of the lower residue of the ''Liberal 
 party," but of the Horpe Ruler, the Socialist, the Com- 
 munist, the Red Radical, the unbeliever — Prime Minister 
 by help of all these, and not Prime Ministei', one and the 
 same man, at one at the same time ; not their Prime 
 Minister, but their sub-Minister ; not their leader, but
 
 60 
 
 their delegate. It is not Mr. Gladstone who leads 
 Democracy, it is Democracy that leads Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone was first an old Tory ; then a Peelite ; 
 then, not a Whig, but a coadjutor of Whigs and of what 
 goes commonly by the name of the " great Liberal party ;" 
 then, what he is now, if it be possible to state precisely 
 what that is. Whether there be still any other position, 
 more remote from his earlier antecedents, for him to fill, 
 I do not know. I suppose there may be such. If there 
 be he will fill it. It is an inherent part of his nature to 
 go always with the majority, whatever that may be, pro- 
 vided always that he lead it nominally when he cg-nnot 
 lead it really. 
 
 It is this that I have denounced, as demonstrated by 
 the history of his career, and of the character of his mind 
 as I have authenticated it. 
 
 In PS. to sixth thousand will be found some additional 
 and curious evidence. 
 
 GEOEaE Anthony Denison. 
 
 East Brent, March Ihth. 
 
 To the Editor of The Spectator. 
 
 Sir, — Mr. MacColl, in his letter to you, — Spectator, 
 March 13th — falls into the common error of the reckless 
 controversialist, — the disregard of authenticated public 
 statements and established facts. He cites my name 
 three times in connection with invented facts and pre- 
 dictions corresponding ; in no case with any approach 
 either to present or prospective truth. It is plainly a
 
 61 
 
 case of throwing mud in defence of his idol, and in the 
 hope that some of it may stick. What has moved him 
 so to write is plainly enough my '' Mr. Gladstone.^' He 
 would have done more fairly by himself and by me, if he 
 had digested my fifty-eight pages. I doubt his having 
 so much as read one of them from the evidence he had 
 himself supplied. 
 
 He speaks of me, first, as a man " honest in all other 
 respects, but so bliaded by prejudices that he would 
 welcome as a statesmanlike policy if offered by a 
 Tory Minister, what he sincerely regards with horror 
 when offered by Mr. Gladstone.*' He goes on next to 
 speak of " Conservatives of the type of Archdeacon 
 Denison." 
 
 Mr. MacColl muddles up Toryism and Conservatism. 
 I suppose he knows the difference, which is very great. 
 But he writes as if he did not know it. I refer him to 
 my pp. 9-10, 53-4. For being " blinded by prejudices,*' 
 this is only long-used-up rhetorical froth ; and has not a 
 single fact or presumption to rest upon. 
 
 Again, will Mr. MacColl produce any evidence of my 
 having been in favour of the Household Suffrage Bill of 
 1867 ? He cannot, because there is none to produce. 
 Indeed, I have always had a special quarrel with the 
 " Reform Bill" of 1867, because it embodies, I think, for 
 the first time in the history of Parliament, the principle 
 of delegacy, by creation of the " three-cornered " con- 
 stituencies in counties, calling it representation of the 
 minority ; whereas what it really was is delegation to 
 both majority and minority. It was an early bud of 
 democracy. Another manner of bud has now become 
 full-blown by the " Cow and Three-Acre Reform Bill " 
 of Mr. Gladstone, 1885. 
 
 5
 
 62 
 
 Under Parliamentary constitution, up to 1867 the 
 Knight of the Shire represented the shire — i.e., the entire 
 constituency — whether returned by one vote or one thou- 
 sand votes. There is an old story of Lord Melbourne, 
 bearing upon government by bare majority. He said to 
 his whip, ''How will it go to-night?" — "Not so well as 
 it might; I think we shall not have more than two \" — 
 " That's one more than we want," said Lord Melbourne. 
 
 Lastly, it is an assumption of a somewhat gross charac- 
 ter to say, thirdly, that, if " Home-rule should fail in Mr. 
 Gladstone's hands, and should then be carried by a Tory 
 Government," "Archdeacon Denison would rejoice to 
 lead the procession of converts." 
 
 Mr. MacCoU may have a considerable character to lose 
 as a party advocate ; but if he goes on after this fashion 
 he will not have much left, and it is not a thing so easy 
 to recover as it may have been to gain. " Practical 
 politics " must be in difficulties when an advocate so well 
 known as Mr. MacColl lets himself down to the use of 
 weapons like those employed in the first part of his 
 letter. If we must fight, as I suppose we must, let us 
 fight fair. — I am, Sir, &c., 
 
 George Anthony Denison. 
 
 Bast Brent, March ] bth.
 
 SOME QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 THE THING 
 
 VULGARLY CALLED 
 
 DIS-ESTABLISHlVLEISrT," 
 
 PROPERLY CALLED 
 
 DIS-I:N^I3[EIIITANCE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CROWN AND PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Question. — What would " dis-Establishment " 
 do? 
 
 Answer. — It would destroy " Church and 
 State." 
 
 Q. — What do you mean by " Church and 
 
 State"? 
 
 A. — I mean many of the greatest tilings of the 
 English Life, belonging for more than a thousand 
 years, by Gift and Grace of God, to the Govern- 
 ment and People of England. 
 
 Q. — Will you state some of these things? 
 
 A. — I mil. In every Parish there is Church
 
 64 
 
 and Churchyard; Parsonage House; Priest (with 
 maintenance provided without Charge to the 
 People) for the cure of Souls by teaching and 
 ministering the Religion of the Church of Cheist ; 
 and also for care of the bodily needs of the 
 Parishioners, so far as this is in his power. 
 
 Q. — Would " dis-Establishment " destroy all 
 this? 
 
 A. — It would destroy it all at one blow by Act 
 of Parliament. 
 
 Q. — Is Parliament able to give to the Govern- 
 ment and People of England anything in exchange 
 for what it destroys? 
 
 A. — Parliament is not able to give anything in 
 exchange. There is nothing for Parliament to 
 give. Parliament did not make ^' Church and 
 State." It grew up, by Gift and Grace of God, 
 and Almsgiving by man, hundreds of years before 
 there was any Parliament. It is proposed now 
 that Parliament, which did not, and could not, 
 make " Church and State," but came out of it, 
 should destroy what it never made, nor could have 
 made; and for which it has nothing to give in 
 exchange. 
 
 Q. — But might not Parliament put some other 
 Form of Religion, or, as some have proposed, 
 every form of religion, one with another, calling 
 itself Christian, into the place of the Religion of
 
 65 
 
 the Church of England, and into possession of its 
 Endowments ? 
 
 A. — You can hardly be serious in asking such a 
 question. It is impossible to be done; ridiculous 
 to entertain. 
 
 Q. — Will you now state another of the '^ many 
 greatest things of the English Life " of which you 
 spoke in your second answer ? 
 
 A. — I will. It is a primary thing. Under 
 " Church and State " the Sovereign of the British 
 Empire, the Head of all its Government, must be 
 a Communicant of the Church of England. Under 
 " dis- Establishment, "the Sovereign need not be so 
 much as a Christian at all. 
 
 Q. — Am I right then in saying that it appears 
 distinctly from all your answers that, " Church and 
 State " being destroyed, and it being impossible to 
 put anything in its place, what " dis-Establishment" 
 would do for the Crown and People of England 
 would be to abolish "all National Eeligion " 
 in England; and leave poor and not poor to shift 
 for themselves? 
 
 A. — Undoubtedly 3'ou are right. It does so 
 distinctly appear. 
 
 Q. — One thing more. People talk of " dis- 
 Establishment " and " dis- Endowment " as if they 
 were distinct things. Is this the truth? 
 
 A. — No ; it is not the truth. The two cannot
 
 66 
 
 be separated, even in thought, the one from the 
 other; and, as matter of fact, never have been. 
 Indeed, every act of " dis-Establishment " is an act 
 of " dis- Endowment," and every act of dis-Endow- 
 ment an act of dis-Establishment. 
 
 G. A. DENISON.