most implicable logic--formed the staple of the family conversation. The
children and their parents argued upon everything. They would debate as
to whether a window should be opened, and whether it was likely to be
fair or wet the next day. It was all perfectly good-humored, but curious
to a stranger, because of the evident care which all the disputants took
to advance no proposition, even as to the prospect of rain, rashly."

In such a home as this was William E. Gladstone in training as the great
Parliamentary debater and leader, and for the highest office under the
British crown. This reminds us of a story of Burke. The king one day,
unexpectedly entering the office of his minister, found the elder Burke
sitting at his desk, with his eyes fixed upon his young son, who was
standing on his father's desk in the attitude of speaking. "What are you
doing?" asked the astonished king. "I am making the greatest minister
England ever saw," was the reply. And so in fact, and yet all
unconsciously, was Sir John doing for his son, William.

William E. Gladstone "was born," says his biographer, G.W.E. Russell,
"at a critical moment in the fortunes of England and of Europe. Abroad
the greatest genius that the world has ever seen was wading through
slaughter to a universal throne, and no effectual resistance had as yet
been offered to a progress which menaced the liberty of Europe and the
existence of its States. At home, a crazy king and a profligate
heir-apparent presided over a social system in which all civil evils
were harmoniously combined. A despotic administration was supported by a
parliamentary representation as corrupt as illusory; a church, in which
spiritual religion was all but extinct, had sold herself as a bondslave
to the governing classes. Rank and wealth and territorial ascendency
were divorced from public duty, and even learning had become the
handmaid of tyranny. The sacred name of justice was prostituted to