advancement and happiness of men. In all this he has been upright,
disinterested and conscientious in word and deed. He has proved himself
to be the world's champion of human rights. For these reasons he has
endeared himself to all men wherever civilization has advanced to
enlighten and to elevate in this wide world.

With the closing of the 19th century the world is approaching a crisis
in which every nation is involved. For a time the map of the world
might as well be rolled up. Great questions that have agitated one or
more nations have convulsed the whole earth because steam and
electricity have annihilated time and space. Questions that have sprung
up between England and Africa, France and Prussia, China and Japan,
Russia and China, Turkey and Armenia, Greece and Turkey, Spain and
America have proved international and have moved all nations. The daily
proceedings of Congress at Washington are discussed in Japan.

In these times of turning and overturning, of discontent and unrest, of
greed and war, when the needs of the nations most demand men of
world-wide renown, of great experience in government and diplomacy, and
of firm hold upon the confidence of the people; such men as, for
example, Gladstone, Salisbury, Bismark, Crispi and Li Hung Chang, who
have led the mighty advance of civilization, are passing away. Upon
younger men falls the heavy burden of the world, and the solution of the
mighty problems of this climax of the most momentous of all centuries.

However, the Record of these illustrious lives remains to us for
guidance and inspiration. History is the biography of great men. The
lamp of history is the beacon light of many lives. The biography of
William E. Gladstone is the history, not only of the English
Parliament, but of the progress of civilization in the earth for the