Theologians From England

"In 1880, Midlothian leading the way, the nation nobly answered to the call of justice and [br]oadly recognised the brotherhood of man. It was the nation, not the classes."

"I am a Free Trader on moral no less than on economic grounds: for I think human greed and selfishness are interwoven with every thread of the Protective system."

"This means war!"

"I dislike the idea of its [vaccination] being compulsory. I don't like the notion of the State stepping in between parent and child when it is not absolutely necessary. The State is generally a very bad nurse."

"I am not so much afraid either of Democracy or of Science as of the love of money. This seems to me to be a growing evil. Also, there is a danger from the growth of that dreadful military spirit."

"[T]he idea that the colonies add to the strength of the mother country appears to me to be as dark a superstition as any that existed in the Middle Ages."

"To serve Armenia is to serve the Civilization."

"[The publication of The Jubilee of Free Trade is] an act of great gallantry for the Cobdenian faith is in all points at a heavy discount—Peace, Retrenchment, Free Trade and all the rest of it, to my great grief I must confess."

"[W]e do not prosecute the cause we have in hand upon the ground that they are our fellow Christians. This is no crusade against Mahomedanism. ... Nay, I will say it is no declaration of universal condemnation of the Mahomedans of the Turkish Empire. On the contrary...there have been good and generous Mahomedans, who have resisted these misdeeds to the uttermost of their power. ... Although it is true that those persons are Christians on whose behalf we move, I confidently affirm...that if, instead of being Christians, they were themselves Mahomedans, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians—call them what you like—they would have precisely the same claims upon our support, and the motives which brought us here today would be incumbent upon us with the same force and with the same sacredness that we recognize at the present moment. ... The ground on which we stand here is not British nor European, but it is human. Nothing narrower than humanity could pretend for a moment justly to represent it. (Cheers.)"

"Great Assassin."

"I am fundamentally a dead man: one fundamentally a Peel–Cobden man."

"I venture on assuring you that I regard the design formed by you and your friends with sincere interest, and in particular wish well to all the efforts you may make on behalf of individual freedom and independence as opposed to what is termed Collectivism."

"The hopelessness of the Turkish Government should make me witness with delight its being swept out of the countries which it tortures. Next to the Ottoman Government nothing can be more deplorable and blameworthy than jealousies between Greek and Slav and plans by the States already existing for appropriating other territory. Why not Macedonia for the Macedonians as well as Bulgaria for the Bulgarians and Serbia for the Serbians?"

"[T]he House of Lords...had inflicted a deadly mutilation on the Parish Councils Bill, they (having also refused our measure on employers' liability) had placed themselves in sharp conflict with public opinion on great subjects. ... I was at Biarritz when this happened in January or February 1894. I suggested dissolution to my colleagues in London. ... But...I was compelled to let the matter drop. ... Thus there was let slip an opportunity in my opinion nothing less than splendid for raising decisively an issue of vital importance to popular government: an opportunity which if rightly used would have given the Liberal party a decisive preponderance for the full term of one or probably two Parliaments, quite apart from the vast public advantages within reach. The great controversy between Lords and Commons, terrible in 1831–32, formidable in 1860–1, happily averted with the Queen's wise aid in 1884...would have reached a practical settlement: and the yet graver controversy...of seven hundred years with Ireland would have come nearer to a complete settlement by a measure of Home Rule."

"In 1834 the Government...did themselves high honour by the new Poor Law Act, which rescued the English peasantry from the total loss of their independence."

"So long as there is this book, there will be no peace in the world."

"Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead. I will measure exactly the sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals."

"We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace."

"Nothing, that is morally wrong, can be politically right."

"The best way to see London is from the top of a bus."

"[Money should] fructify in the pockets of the people."

"If there were no Tories, I am afraid he would invent them."

"I can say that, as a working man, I think no man has stronger claims upon my sympathy, support, and affection than Mr. Gladstone. When the election of 1880 came we had him placed at the helm of affairs. Although I was twitted by weak-kneed Liberals and Tories that he would never concede the franchise, my faith in his honesty, in his sense of justice to the people, and in his love for the people, was not in the slightest degree shaken by these jeers. I was perfectly certain that he would enfranchise my class. In taking off this covering to unveil to you the bust of this great statesman I can say, fearless of contradiction, that he lives in the affections of thousands of men, aye, tens of thousands, who dwell in our rural villages in humble cottages, and who, I believe, whenever a wise Providence shall call him aside from this scene of action, will mourn his loss with a great and profound depth of feeling. I do not believe that Mr. Gladstone or any other living being is free from mistakes; but of this I am certain, that whenever he has made a mistake and has found it out, he has been honourable, he has been manly enough to acknowledge it, and has done his best to rectify it."

"Mr. Gladstone once said to me: “If you ever have to form a Government, you must steel your nerves, and act the butcher”: a piece of very sound advice (as I learned from experience)."

"He has — and it is one of the springs of great power — a real faith in the higher parts of human nature; he believes, with all his heart and soul and strength, that there is such a thing as truth; he has the soul of a martyr with the intellect of an advocate."

"Mr. Gladstone's personal popularity was such as has not been seen since the time of Mr. Pitt, and such as may never be seen again. Certainly it will very rarely be seen. A bad speaker is said to have been asked how he got on as a candidate. “Oh,” he answered, “when I do not know what to say, I say ‘Gladstone,’ and then they are sure to cheer, and I have time to think.” In fact, that popularity acted as a guide both to constituencies and to members. The candidates only said they would vote with Mr. Gladstone, and the constituencies only chose those who said so. Even the minority could only be described as anti-Gladstone, just as the majority could only be described as pro-Gladstone."

"Mr. Gladstone [w]as the greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly which, so far, the world has seen."

"Many of those who figured prominently in the counsels of the Labour party in the twentieth century bore eloquent testimony to the "uplifting power" of Gladstone's "matchless voice and superb vitality", and confessed how "the thrill of his splendid oratory" bound them to the Liberal party in the old man's twilight years. Frederick Rogers, Arthur Henderson, Robert Smillie, and especially George Lansbury, all acknowledged the debt which they owed to Gladstone. "I can hear his voice and see him now," Lansbury wrote in the 1930s after he had retired from the leadership of the Labour party. These enduring emotions suggest that the presence of Gladstone at the head of the Liberal party constituted the principal obstacle to the emergence of a coherent and independent labour movement."

"Gladstone was the political god."

"He was the first major British statesman to consider seriously the implications of the parliamentary union between Great Britain and Ireland, and to realize that if Ireland were indeed an integral part of the United Kingdom, it must be governed on the same principles as the rest; and it was this realization that prepared him to accept the policy of home rule. His importance in the history of Anglo-Irish relations lies less in the measures that he actually carried, far-reaching though they were, than in the immense influence that his concern for Ireland had on British public opinion. It was he, more than anyone else, who made the state of Ireland an issue in British politics."

"Who's the Liberal leader? he Who for us has stood, Stood through triumph and defeat For the people's good; We, the people, have a mind, Well it shall be known, Gladstone, he shall lead us still, He, and he alone. We have votes and let them heed us; Gladstone, he alone shall lead us. Why? because our wrongs he feels And our rights would win; Why? because for us he fights Out of power and in. [...] Voters tell them, they who'll need us, Gladstone, he alone shall lead us."

"Always there was this huge concentration of force; purpose at white heat roared like a furnace in every action of his life. When once he had convinced himself on any subject, it ceased to be his opinion, and became a cosmic truth, which it was the duty of every right-minded person to uphold... he was convinced, and said so, that the will of the English people was set on giving Home Rule to Ireland, and that he was the appointed instrument to accomplish their will for them: God gave him his health and vitality for that. Thus his conscience was invariably clear of personal ambition: he was working not for his own idea but for some great cause external to him. Never, so Mrs. Gladstone told my mother, did the estrangement and execrations of those who had been his friends cause him to say "I wish I had never done it!" He might regret the bitterness he had aroused, but he never regretted those measures which had caused it."

"Among the peoples of that Continent [North America] your personality has become identified with the cause of freedom, and you are to them the embodiment of their highest ideal of the statesman."

"Who is there in the House of Commons who equals him in knowledge of all political questions? who equals him in earnestness? who equals him in eloquence? who equals him in courage and fidelity to his convictions? If these gentlemen who say they will not follow him have any one who is equal, let them show him. If they can point out any statesman who can add dignity and grandeur to the stature of Mr. Gladstone, let them produce him."

"The soul of the country was stirred to its very depths by the marvellous eloquence, the touching pathos, and the burning passion of the great Liberal leader's speeches. I shall not be guilty of exaggeration if I say that the Nonconformists of Great Britain to a man, ay, and a woman, had ranged themselves on his side. They looked upon him as the deliverer of nations, the inspired leader of peoples, as a giant of unsurpassed strength wrestling with and conquering the powers of injustice and oppression. His country was the world; mankind of every colour and creed were his brothers. Not once in many centuries does a nation possess a son who commands such universal and almost inexhaustible admiration as was lavished upon William Ewart Gladstone in those days. I have often felt that at this period many a man would have esteemed it an honour and counted it a happy martyrdom to die for the great Chieftain."

"[H]is [voice] was rich, sonorous and exquisitely modulated in its tones... with the grace and variety of his gesture and the flashing glance of his eye... it was only in watching him as he spoke that one received a due impression of the easy power he showed in dealing with any interruption that came from the audience, or in following up on the spur of the moment some line or argument suggested by expressions of assent or dissent. His readiness was amazing. Those of us who listened to him in Parliament used to think that the short speeches he made on the spur of the moment when some question arose suddenly in debate, revealed the swiftness of his mind and the combative force of his whole nature better than did the more elaborate discourses on which he had reflected beforehand. There was a fire, a passion, a concentrated energy of diction, in these extempore outbursts which roused his followers and cowed his opponents... Indignation there often is—burning indignation at injustice, falsehood or cruelty—but no personal acrimony, no note of malignity or vindictiveness."

"His arguments may be sometimes finedrawn or oversubtle. They are never petty or niggling. He is like an eagle soaring high in the air and seeing the far-off things as well as the near things, and seeing them all in truer relation to one another than the man standing on the ground can see them. In following his thoughts one feels in particular the power he possesses of testing views and proposals by permanent moral standards. To him the ethical values were always the real and final values, and moral principles the true searchlight to be turned on every question."

"He was the first leading Englishman to win for the sufferers in the cause of Italian freedom the sympathy of the Western nations. He was the statesman who brought to a close the differences with America which had arisen out of the Civil War, and made possible a better feeling between the nations than had ever existed before. Little credit was given to him at the time for either of these services, any more than for his action in the Eastern Question. But History will not forget them."

"Free trade, a commercial treaty with France, the abolition of the paper duties, the reduction of expenditure and taxation, the disestablishment of the Irish Church, the Education Act of 1870, the Ballot Act, the opening of the Universities to Nonconformists and of the Civil Service to competitive examination, Cardwell's Army reforms, the Alabama arbitration and neutrality in the Franco-Prussian War—it was an impressive record, but all well within the canon of accepted Liberal ideas."

"Throughout his life Gladstone felt a passionate sympathy for peoples struggling to achieve national independence. This provides the other foundation of his views on foreign policy. "The powers of self-government", this was his answer alike to the problems of the Balkans and those of Ireland. "Give those people freedom and the benefits of freedom", he said of Turkey's Christian subjects in 1880, "that is the way to make a barrier against despotism. Fortresses may be levelled to the ground; treaties may be trodden under foot—the true barrier against despotism is in the human heart and mind." From this sympathy it followed for Gladstone that all nations should enjoy equality of rights... From this in turn sprang his condemnation of imperialism which proclaimed supremacy, not equality, and in its eagerness for aggrandisement brushed aside the rights of other nations to bring them under alien rule."

"Your life has been grand – the noblest and best I have ever known. It has been an inspiration and a triumph; fruitful in untold benefits to millions of men and women. And indeed I feel that the fitting word is neither condolence nor congratulations, but gratitude; – devout thankfulness that such a man has been given to us, and that he knew so well how to direct and use his gifts to the highest service of humanity."

"His wonderful genius enabled him to make Finance popular; to be understanded of the People. He taught the Country to appreciate its importance. His work was based on the solid rock of a substantial annual Surplus, and on the less easily secured foundation of strict Economy. The Customs Tariff was completely and finally purged. The remaining duties on food were repealed. Commercial relations with other countries were extended. The last remaining Excise duties, other than those on Intoxicants, were abolished... Taxation was placed on a Revenue basis; and was concentrated on a few articles consumed by all classes. In a word, by simplifying taxation and by narrowing its basis, its foundation was strengthened; it was lightened to the Consumer and made less a of a burden on the Taxpayer; less restrictive to Trade and to Industry; cheaper and less vexatious of Collection; more recuperative, and more profitable to the Exchequer."

"[T]he prodigious intensity of his personality is even harder for our debased generation to comprehend. The stupendous physical and intellectual energy, the spiritual and sexual anguish, the high moral seriousness which determined the use of every God-given minutes of his time were astonishing to his contemporaries, but are almost literally inconceivable to us, raised as we are on cynicism and pap... Just thinking about Gladstone is for the modern reader deeply humbling."

"His speeches can still astonish by their social radicalism and sheer moral force."

"An almost spectral kind of phantasm of a man — nothing in him but forms and ceremonies and outside wrappings."

"I too am reading the 2nd volume [of Garvin's Joseph Chamberlain] ... I particularly admire the way Gladstone is treated. The wickedness of the old man, his cunning and treachery, and his determination to get his own way while he has time, are plain to see. I feel my old resentments burn up again as I read."

"[T]hey told me how Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right"

"I even managed to squeeze into the Distinguished Strangers’ Gallery when Mr. Gladstone wound up the second reading of the Home Rule Bill. Well do I remember the scene and some of its incidents. The Grand Old Man looked like a great white eagle at once fierce and splendid. His sentences rolled forth majestically and everyone hung upon his lips and gestures, eager to cheer or deride. He was at the climax of a tremendous passage about how the Liberal Party had always carried every cause it had espoused to victory. He made a slip. “And there is no cause,” he exclaimed (Home Rule), “for which the Liberal Party has suffered so much or descended so low.” How the Tories leapt and roared with delight! But Mr. Gladstone, shaking his right hand with fingers spread claw-like, quelled the tumult and resumed, “But we have risen again...”"

"He became the prophet as statesman: the Ayatollah of Victorian Christianity."

"Speech from Gladstone of singular lucidity and power on the Irish question. His manner most earnest. The trend of his mind majestic, penetrating, victorious and irresistible. He is a commander of men. Plain of speech and simple, clear and aggressive. The moral momentum immense. It was a contest. The hearer felt he was witnessing a fight for righteousness, for humanity, for God."