sanctity, instead of being the symbols of grace. But it is necessary to
risk something; and though the risk of what may be called a sort of
idolatry is great, the risk of not arousing the sense of personal
religion at all is greater still.

Hugh's ordination as a priest followed in 1895; and he then made a full
confession before a clergyman.

In 1896, in October, my father, who had paid a state visit to Ireland,
on his return went to stay with Mr. Gladstone at Hawarden, and died
there in church on a Sunday morning.

I can never forget the events of that terrible day. I received a
telegram at Eton which summoned me to Hawarden, but did not state
explicitly that my father was dead. I met Hugh at Euston, who told me
the fact, and I can recollect walking up and down the half-deserted
station with him, in a state of deep and bewildered grief. The days
which followed were so crowded with business and arrangements, that even
the sight of my father's body, lying robed and still, and palely
smiling, in the great library of the rectory failed to bring home to me
the sense that his fiery, eager, strenuous life was over. I remember
that Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone came to the church with us, and that Hugh
celebrated and gave us the Communion. But the day when we travelled
south with the coffin, the great pomp at Canterbury, which was attended
by our present King and the present King of Norway, when we laid him to
rest in a vault under the north-western tower, and the days of hurried
and crowded business at Addington are still faint and dream-like to me.

My mother and sister went out to Egypt for the winter; Hugh's health
broke down; he was threatened with rheumatic fever, and was ordered to