e higher life, and towards the external warfare against ignorance
and depravity.

INTERNAL CONFLICT

In the autumn of 1843, Mr. Gladstone explains to his father the relative
positions of secular and church affairs in his mind, and this is only a
few months after what to most men is the absorbing moment of accession
to cabinet and its responsibilities. 'I contemplate secular affairs,' he
says, 'chiefly as a means of being useful in church affairs, though I
likewise think it right and prudent not to meddle in church matters for
any small reason. I am not making known anything new to you.... These
were the sentiments with which I entered public life, and although I do
not at all repent of [having entered it, and] am not disappointed in the
character of the employments it affords, certainly the experience of
them in no way and at no time has weakened my original impressions.' At
the end of 1843 he reached what looked like a final stage:--

Of public life, I certainly must say, every year shows me more and
more that the idea of Christian politics cannot be realised in the
state according to its present conditions of existence. For
purposes sufficient, I believe, but partial and finite, I am more
than content to be where I am. But the perfect freedom of the new
covenant can only, it seems to me, be breathed in other air; and
the day may come when God may grant to me the application of this
conviction to myself.

FOOTNOTES:

[98] Hanna's _Life of Chalmers_, iv. pp. 37-46.

[99] Ovid, _Met._ i. 5.--Chaos, before sea and land and all-covering
skies.

[100] _Excursion_, v.

[101] _Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott_, i. p. 150, where an adequate
portion of the correspondence is to be found.

[102] He wrote an extremely graphic account of their ascent of Mount
Etna, which has since found a place in Murray's handbook for Sicily.

[103] Of the first edition some 1500 or 1750 copies were sold.

[104] _Memoirs of J. R. Hope-Scott_, i. p. 172.

[105] Carlyle wrote to Emerson (Feb. 8, 1839): One of the strangest
things about these New England Orations (Emerson's) is a fact I have
heard, but not yet seen, that a certain W. Gladstone, an Oxford crack
scholar, tory M.P., and devout churchman of great talent and hope, has
contrived to insert a piece of you (_first_ Oration it must be) in a
work of his own on _Church and State_, which, makes some figure at
present