its property. The whole foundation
of society may go. Under circumstances so formidable, he dares not look
for the comparative calm and ease of a professional life. He must hold
himself free of attachment to any single post and function of a
technical nature. And so--to make the long story short--'My own desires
for future life are exactly coincident with yours, in so far as I am
acquainted with them; believing them to be a _profession_ of the law,
with a view substantially to studying the constitutional branch of it,
and a subsequent experiment, as time and circumstances might offer, on
what is termed public life.' 'It tortures me,' he had written to his
brother John (August 29th, 1830), 'to think of an inclination opposed to
that of my beloved father,' and this was evidently one of the
preponderant motives in his final decision.

In the same letter, while the fire of apostolic devotion was still
fervid within him, he had penned a couple of sentences that contain
words of deeper meaning than he could surely know:--'I am willing to
persuade myself that in spite of other longings which I often feel, my
heart is prepared to yield other hopes and other desires for this--of
being permitted to be the humblest of those who may be commissioned to
set before the eyes of man, still great even, in his ruins, the
magnificence and the glory of Christian truth. Especially as I feel that
my temperament is so excitable, that I should fear giving up my mind to
other subjects which have ever proved sufficiently alluring to me, and
which I fear would make my life a fever of unsatisfied longings and
expectations.' So men unconsciously often hint an oracle of their lives.
Perhaps these forebodings of a high-wrought hour may in other hues have
at many moments come back to Mr. Gladstone's mind, even in the full
sunshine of a triumphant career of duty, virtue, power, and renown.

MEDITATIONS

The entry in his diary, suggested by the return of his birthday (Dec.
29, 1831), closes with the words, 'This has been my debating society
year, now, I fancy, done with. Politics are fascinating to me; perhaps
too fascinating.' Higher thoughts than this press in upon him:--

Industry of a kind and for a time there has been, but the industry
of necessity, not of principle. I would fain believe that my
sentiments in religion have been somewhat enlarged and
untrammelled, but if this be true, my responsibi