you be, for the extreme kindness with which you have heard me. I have
spoken, and I must speak in very strong terms of the acts done by my
opponents. I will never say that they did it from passion; I will never
say that they did it from a sordid love of office; I have no right to
use such words; I have no right to entertain such sentiments; I
repudiate and abjure them; I give them credit for patriotic motives--I
give them credit for those patriotic motives which are incessantly and
gratuitously denied to us. I believe we are all united in a fond
attachment to the great country to which we belong; to the great empire
which has committed to it a trust and function from Providence, as
special and remarkable as was ever entrusted to any portion of the
family of man. When I speak of that trust and that function I feel that
words fail. I can not tell you what I think of the nobleness of the
inheritance which has descended upon us, of the sacredness of the duty
of maintaining it. I will not condescend to make it a part of
controversial politics. It is a part of my being, of my flesh and blood,
of my heart and soul. For those ends I have labored through my youth and
manhood, and, more than that, till my hairs are gray. In that faith and
practise I have lived, and in that faith and practise I shall
die.--_Midlothian Speech:_ WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.


_A Study in Purity of Style_

13. Is this a reality? or is your Christianity a romance? is your
profession a dream? No, I am sure that your Christianity is not a
romance, and I am equally sure that your profession is not a dream. It
is because I believe this that I appeal to you with confidence, and that
I have hope and faith in the future. I believe that we shall see, and at
no very distant time, sound economic principles spreading much more