Archbishop Magee used to tell a good story of Father Healy and Mr. Gladstone. The latter asked him upon what principle the Roman Church offered soul indulgences, saying when he was in Rome he was offered an indulgence for fifty francs. Father Healy replied: ‘Well, Mr. Gladstone, I do not want to go into theology with you; but all I can say is, that if my Church offered you an indulgence for fifty francs, she let you off very cheap!’
A correspondent, a well-known London minister, who got crushed in the crowd at the opening of St. Martin’s Free Library, in 1891, by Mr. Gladstone, tells an anecdote of the ex-Premier’s kindness of heart, on the authority of a former vicar. When Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone regularly attended this church. A crossing-sweeper in the parish, who had been some time ill, when asked by the vicar if anybody had been to see him, said, ‘Yes, sir; Mr. Gladstone.’ ‘Which Mr. Gladstone?’ he was asked. ‘Why,’ was the answer, ‘Mr. Gladstone himself. He often speaks to me, and gives me something at my crossing. Not seeing me, he asked my mate, who was keeping it for me, why I was not there. He told him I was ill, and then he asked where I lived. So he came to see me, and talked and read to me.’
There was a characteristic big gathering, deserving to be recorded here, at the National Liberal Club, in celebration of Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone’s golden wedding. In all there were nearly 2,000 guests, and these included most of the Liberal leaders, and at least one distinguished Liberal Unionist (Sir John Lubbock), who, when perceived among the throng, received the welcome of a cordial cheer. The chief feature of the proceedings was the presentation of the handsome commemorative album—a remarkable work of art—to the ex-Premier in the reading-room. The scene here was a particularly brilliant one; and when Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone appeared among the throng, accompanied by several members of the family, there was an outburst of enthusiasm which was continued to an unwonted length. Mr. Gladstone’s reply to the address was not long; it was a feelingly-uttered expression of gratification. Only a few sentences were occupied with political allusions. They declared that Liberal principles were not of destruction, but of improvement.
These are a few of the sentences of thanks: ‘I am ashamed,’ said Mr. Gladstone, ‘of the kindness that has been shown me. (“No.”) When I speak of my wife, when I acknowledge that there is greater justice in the tributes that you have so kindly paid to her, I there enjoy a relative and a comparative freedom, and no words that I could use would ever suffice to express the debt that I owe her in relation to all the offices that she has discharged on my behalf, and on the behalf of those who are near and dearest to us, during the long and happy period of our conjugal union. (Cheers.) I hope it will not sound like exaggeration—it is really a phrase dictated by my desire to express what I feel—if I say that I feel myself to be, as it were, drowned in an ocean of kindness.’
The other day Canon Scott Holland, in a touching sermon, described Mr. Gladstone as ‘spending his life in benedictions to those whom he leaves behind in this world, and in thanksgiving to God, to whom he rehearses over and over again, day after day, Newman’s hymn of austere and splendid admiration.’ Here is the hymn:
‘Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise:
In all His words most wonderful;
Most sure in all His ways!‘O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.‘O wisest love! that flesh and blood
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against their foe,
Should strive and should prevail;‘And that a higher gift than grace
Should flesh and blood refine,
God’s Presence and His very Self,
And Essence all-divine.‘O generous love! that He who smote
In man for man the foe,
The double agony in man
For man should undergo;‘And in the garden secretly,
And on the cross on high,
Should teach His brethren and inspire
To suffer and to die.’
At other times Mr. Gladstone has been known to say that his favourite hymns were ‘Rock of Ages’ and the version of ‘Dies Iræ’ which Scott introduced into ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’:
‘That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinner’s stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?’
Mr. Gladstone, according to a writer in the Daily News, once remarked that he had made a careful study of all Toplady’s hymns, but had only found four other good lines in the whole of them. To those who have ever heard Mr. Gladstone recite these four lines, as he was often used to do, the recollection will come just now with pathetic poignancy:
‘Lord! it is not life to live,
If Thy Presence Thou deny,
Lord! if Thou Thy presence give,
’Tis no longer death—to die.’