not a few political subjects. They filled him with dislike of the
legalization of marriage with a deceased wife's sister; they made
him a vehement opponent of the bill which established the English
Divorce Court in 1857, and a watchfully hostile critic of all
divorce legislation in America afterward. Some of his friends
traced to the same cause his low estimate of German literature and
even his political aversion to the German Empire. He could not
forget that Germany had been the fountain of rationalism, while
German Evangelical Protestantism was more schismatic and further
removed from the medieval church than it pleased him to deem the
Church of England to be. He had an exceedingly high sense of the
duty of purity of life and of the sanctity of domestic relations,
and his rigid ideas of decorum inspired so much awe that it used to
be said to a person who had told an anecdote with ever so slight a
tinge of impropriety, "How many thousands of pounds would you take
to tell that to Gladstone?" When living in the country, it was his
constant practice to attend daily morning service in the parish
church, and on Sunday to read in it the lessons for the day; nor did
he ever through his long career transgress his rule against Sunday
labor.

Religious feeling, coupled with a system of firm dogmatic beliefs,
was the mainspring of his whole career, a guiding light in
perplexities, a source of strength in adverse fortune, a consolation
in sorrow, a beacon of hope beyond the disappointments and
shortcomings of life. He did not make what is commonly called a
profession of religion, and talked little about it in general
society, though always ready to plunge into a magazine controversy
when Christianity was assailed. But those who knew him well knew
that he was always referring current questions to, and trying his