affectation in you, which you are above, not to know that few young men
have the weight you have in the House of Commons, and are gaining
rapidly throughout the country. Now I do not wish to urge you to
consider this as a talent for the use of which you must render an
account, for so I know you do esteem it, but what I want to urge upon
you is that you should calmly look far before you; see the degree of
weight and influence to which you may fairly, if God spares your life
and powers, look forward in future years, and thus act _now_ with a view
to _then_. There is no height to which you may not fairly rise in this
country. If it pleases God to spare us violent convulsions and the loss
of our liberties, you may at a future day wield the whole government of
this land; and if this should be so, of what extreme moment will your
_past steps_ then be to the real usefulness of your high station....
Almost all our public men act from the merest expediency.... I would
have you view yourself as one who may become the head of all the better
feelings of this country, the maintainer of its Church and of its
liberties, and who must now be fitting himself for this high
vocation.... I think my father's life so beautifully shows that a deep
and increasing personal religion must be the root of that firm and
unwearied consistency in right, which I have ventured thus to press
upon you."

Mr. Gladstone began his Parliamentary life as a Tory. Later he developed
into a Liberal, a Radical, and yet there is not one who conscientiously
doubts his utter honesty. His life has been that of his
century--progressive, liberal, humanitarian in its trend.

[Illustration: Grattan]