the world
and to take Upon himself the clerical office. The special need of
devotion to that office, he argues, must be plain to any one who 'casts
his eye over the moral wilderness of the world, who contemplates the
pursuits, desires, designs, and principles of the beings that move so
busily in it to and fro, without an object beyond the finding food for
it, mental or bodily, for the present moment.' This letter the reader
will find in full elsewhere.[53] The missionary impulse, the yearning
for some apostolic destination, the glow of self-devotion to a supreme
external will, is a well-known element in the youth of ardent natures of
either sex. In a thousand forms, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil,
such a mood has played its part in history. In this case, as in many
another, the impulse in its first shape did not endure, but in essence
it never faded.

His father replied as a wise man was sure to do, almost with sympathy,
with entire patience, and with thorough common sense. The son dutifully
accepts the admonition that it is too early to decide so grave an issue,
and that the immediate matter is the approaching performance in the
examination schools. 'I highly approve,' his father had written (Nov.
8th, 1830), 'your proposal to leave undetermined the profession you are
to follow, until you return from the continent and complete your
education in all respects. You will then have seen more of the world and
have greater confidence in the choice you may make; for it will then
rest wholly with yourself, having our advice whenever you may wish for
it.' The critical issue was now finally settled. At almost equal length,
and in parts of this second letter no less vague and obscure than the
first, but with more concentrated power, Mr. Gladstone tells his father
(Jan. 17th, 1832) how the excitement has subsided, but still he sees at
hand a great crisis in the history of mankind. New principles, he says,
prevail in morals, politics, education. Enlightened self-interest is
made the substitute for the old bonds of unreasoned attachment, and
under the plausible maxim that knowledge is power, one kind of ignorance
is made to take the place of another kind. Christianity teaches that the
head is to be exalted through the heart, but Benthamism maintains that
the heart is to be amended through the head. The conflict proceeding in
parliament foreshadows a contest for the existence of the church
establishment, to be assailed through