Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1898. THE DEAD CHAMPION OF CHRISTENDOM.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2106, 24 May 1898, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News TUESDAY, MAY 2 4, 1898. THE DEAD CHAMPION OF CHRISTENDOM.

In turning over the numerous obituary notices of the illustrious English-states-man who recently passed from the : world which so long recognised in him the first living Englishman, one thing impressed us deeply, and that was the purity and fervour of his religious .belief. In an age, not of infidelity, for atheism is a thing.df the past; but, in : which all established forms of religion are being subjected to-searching criticism ; in which many of the old beliefs are being silently, but reverently, laid aside, and broader and- brighter views on the subject of man’s brief sojourn here on earth prevail; while many of the greatboG and most influential exponents of modern, thought have openly declined to believe in historical Christianity, the- deceased statesman, scholar and orator,, stood firm amid the ceaseless murmurs of doubt that swept like waves around the base of the splendid intellectual isolation he occupied—the mightiest pillar pf the English Church. Never does his faith seem to have, wavered. A quarter of a century ago a young man daring to question the orthodox, belief was severely frowned *oh. in the. schools. Avowed infidelity coupled with open : disregard, for the conventionalities was deemed preferable to any attompt to attract attention by professing to share i fhe doubts of such thinkers as Charles Darwin for instance. The attitude of those in authority over young men in those days is well illustrated in tho story told of the famous Master of .Balliol —Dr'Jo we tt —when a mentally fpliny but physically athletic urider- . graduate with a well-feigned affectation of concern told him that he did - not believe in the existence of a God. Nonsense,’ replied the chubby little : professor, * and look here Mr So-and- ' iso, if you-don’t find a God by this time ;to-morrow I’ll have you rusticated.’ : Gladstone, - so far as we have read, i never passod through- the to some men. ; agonising; period when doubt first ; assails the mind. Gentleness. and ; modesty were ever his characteristics ; from the time when he went to Eton ‘ where he was said to have been the most beautiful boy in the school; but' • he must early have felt that intelloctu- • ally he- towered above his associates, and his keen penetrating mind must have delighted in critical examination .of the dogmatic, and arguments- of the’ various schools of the theologians. Tho very greatness and breadth of his mind saved him from degenerating into the mere adherent.. Through the mazes of ingenious, but quibbling reasonings, which, at one time in his. long and laborious life had such an attraction for him reasonings* built up on the simplicity and sweet reasonableness of Christ’s teachings, in unhealthy seclusion by mentally distorted ascetics and dreamers of dreams—through al! i their complexities and obscurities, his keen eye ever ,traced the thread of ! golden truth that grain of • spirituality amid the mass of errors, [to which in a great degree these useless monuments of human devotion | and learning owe a hare recognition in these enlightened days.' We can very well believe that Mr Gladstone, duringHis long life, must have looked at the Great Question of our Belief in and Proper Attitude towards, the Divine Being from every point of view, in the cold light of pure reason. fe We may therefore- be allowed to conjecture . that the gi eatest question that affects mankind hits been subjected to a -prolonged and searching analysis by one of the loftiest intellects this world has : ever known, since the time of Socrates, And that while the greatest of the Greek philosophers, unaided,, arrived • at a belief in the existence of a single ; supreme Being, William Gladstone came to a like conclusion plus the Great Design attributed to that single supreme being in his relation, to the inhabitants of this one world among ' many . peopling the heavens, as revealed in . the inspired writings. , In these days in which so many leaders of thought frankly decline to ■ accept historical Christianity* surely it must have strengthened the hands of the Church, to have been able to enroll among its supporters thej’possessor of the most gigantic intellect of the< day. Gladstone was not a man of -genius—wayward and erratic as such are his understanding was as solid as it was profound. He had none of the faults and weaknesses of genius, -which is -a quality u poii’ which we can never count. He arrived at no conclusion by intuition ; but by a process,; of reasoning, which missed ho point an either side of'a question. What he did not understand he dhi not reject 6ff-Hahd as geniuses and" fools are tempted- to do * but pondered over giving due allpwance to the existence of ,s.uch,.a- faculty as faith',’ within reasonable limits. The mistake scientists niako as opposed, to siohß geniuses -of' .the ’George. Eliot type arrive at consists, it often seems to us, in .treating the question as if it were one of mathematics, and making no allowance for the. admittedly spiritual essence lurking in our grossly animal natures. Of Gladstone it can be said with a great degree of truth, that he wore the ‘white flower of.a

blamless life ’ not only for n period, but throughout his long eventful life. In the average man the animal with all its low instincts and depraved tastes predominates ; in Gladstone we have one of the rare and brilliant exceptions in which the baser qualities and tendencies were subdued and mortified by the commanding intellect and. lofty spirituality of the man. Now the possession of the-most brilliant scientific genius is quite consistent . with the existence in ®ne and the same ■person of a depraved and heartless disposition p while genius is too often ; associated witC laxity of 'principles. Consequently whon we coma to* comipare the conclusions of scientific menof pure or evil lives,: as the case may :be ; thb intuitions of gonuis who.se brilliancy dazzle us and the calm ; deliberate final belief as contained in ; that touching confession of faith which fluttered from Gladstone’s lips ’in almost his dying: breath when they , just formed' the Amen to his son, Stephen’s, recital of the Lord’s prayer, who of us can hesitate to say that in the dead' statesman Christendom and the Church of England lost a mighty paladin sans peur et sans reproche ? whose memory they will not willingly let die and whose loss; centuries; may ; not be able to replace.