politicians; Ministers came down from London to listen to the
debates; and a few years later the Duke of Newcastle gave
Gladstone a pocket borough on the strength of his speech at the
Union against the Reform Bill. To those three young men, indeed,
the whole world lay open. Were they not rich, well-connected, and
endowed with an infinite capacity for making speeches? The event
justified the highest expectations of their friends; for the
least distinguished of the three died a bishop. The only danger
lay in another direction. 'Watch, my dear Samuel,' wrote the
elder Wilberforce to his son, 'watch with jealousy whether you
find yourself unduly solicitous about acquitting yourself;
whether you are too much chagrined when you fail, or are puffed
up by your success. Undue solicitude about popular estimation is
a weakness against which all real Christians must guard with the
utmost jealous watchfulness. The more you can retain the
impression of your being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses of
the invisible world, to use the scripture phrase, the more you
will be armed against this besetting sin.' But suddenly it seemed
as if such a warning could, after all, have very little relevance
to Manning; for, on his leaving Oxford, the brimming cup was
dashed from his lips. He was already beginning to dream of
himself in the House of Commons, the solitary advocate of some
great cause whose triumph was to be eventually brought about by
his extraordinary efforts, when his father was declared a
bankrupt, and all his hopes of a political career came to an end
forever.

It was at this time that Manning became intimate with a pious
lady, the sister of one of his College friends, whom he used to
describe as his Spiritual Mother. He made her his confidante; and