MR STEAD ON MR GLADSTONE

Temuka Leader, Issue 2372, 21 June 1892, Page 3

MR STEAD ON MR GLADSTONE

In a sketch in the Review of Reviews, the following passages occur; — Mr Gladstone’s paliamentary career extends over sixty years—the lifetime of two generations. He is the custodian of all the traditions, the hero of the experience of successive Administrations from a time dating back longer than most of his colleagues can remember. For nearly forty years he has had a leading part in making or unmaking Cabinets, he has served his Queen and his country in almost every capacity in office and opposition, and yet to-day his heart seems to be at the heart of a little child.

The great secret of Mr Gladstone’s hold upon the nation’s heart is the belief which has become a fixed conviction with the masses of the vol ers that he is animated by a supreme regard for the welfare of the common people, and an all-constraining conviction of his obligation to Cod. Mr Gladstone is far and away the most conspicuous Christian in the popular estimation now left amongst us. Formerly he would have divided the honors with Lord Shaftesbury, Mr Spurgeon, Mr Bright, and Cardinal Manning. Now he stands alone, nor is there a bishop or archbishop among them all who can so much as touch the hem of his garment so far as popular feeling goes. Mr Gladstone is far and away the greatest pillar and prop of English orthodoxy left to us. To the ordinary voter here and beyond the seas it is more important that Mr Gladstone is unshaken in his assent to what he regards as the eternal verities than that all the bishops in all the churches should unhesitatingly affirm their faith in the creed of Athanasius. He is a man whose intellect they respect, even if they do not understand. Mr Gladstone speaks with all the authority of a Pope who fully believes in his own infallibility. He possesses the first of all qualifications for inspiring faith in others—an implicit faith in his own cause. The intense consciousness of the absolute rectitude of his motives has its drawbacks, no doubt; it occasionally leads, for instance, to the implied assumption that all men who differ from him must, without doubt, pei’ish everlastingly, not because of any wrath or indignation on his part, but merely because to oppose the will of one so supremely right approximates to the nature of the unpardonable sin, and reveals an innate depravity which merits the everlasting burnings. When newspapers and politicians oppose him he is not vexed; he is only grieved that such good men should go so far astray, and sincerely hopes for the day when the light will dawn upon their souls and they will understand how great a mistake they have made in opposing the schemes which he has devised for the alleviation of the sufferings of his race.