HAWARDEN CASTLE—HOME OF GLADSTONE
W. E. GLADSTONE.
We also visited the chapel near by where the statesman attended church and often read the service. His son-in-law, the present rector, showed us the memorial, since unveiled, which will draw multitudes to this historic edifice. It is a marble group by the sculptor Richmond and represents the great Commoner and his wife sleeping side by side, an angel guarding them with outstretched wings. It is fitting that they should thus rest at the end of life, for they had together borne life's burdens and together shared the many triumphs that crowned their efforts. While he was master of the ship of state, she was mistress of an ideal home; while he was seeking to ameliorate the condition of the whole people, she was conducting a private orphanage within a stone's throw of the castle, an institution still maintained in her memory. So happy was the long married life of this well-mated pair that at the approach of death he requested the family not to permit his interment in Westminster Abbey, except on condition that his wife be given a place beside him, and this unusual honor was paid them.
Although nations boast of material wealth and manufacturing plants, their most valuable assets are their men and women of merit, and their greatest factories are their institutions of learning, which convert priceless raw material into a finished product of inestimable worth. Gladstone, vigorous in body, strong in mind and elevated in moral purpose, was an ornament to the age in which he lived and will be an inspiration to succeeding generations.
WINDSOR CASTLE