Chambers's Journal.

Isabel Keith Campbell.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to unveil the image of one of the great figures of our country. It is right and fitting that it should stand here. A statue of Mr. Gladstone is congenial in any part of Scotland. But in this Scottish city, teeming with eager workers, endowed with a great University, a centre of industry, commerce, and thought, a statue of William Ewart Gladstone is at home. But you in Glasgow have more personal claims to a share in the inheritance of Mr. Gladstone's fame. I, at any rate, can recall one memory, the record of that marvellous day in December, 1879, nearly 23 years ago, when the indomitable old man delivered his Rectorial address to the students at noon, a long political speech in St. Andrews-hall in the evening, and a substantial discourse on receiving an address from the corporation at 10 o'clock at night. Some of you may have been present at all these gatherings, some only at the political meeting. If they were they may remember the little incidents of the meeting, the glasses which were hopelessly lost and then, of course, found on the orator's person, the desperate

• Address delivered by Lord Rosebery at the unveiling of a statue of William Ewart Gladstone, at Glasgow, October 18, 1902.

candle brought in stuck in a waterbottle to attempt sufficient light to read an extract. And what a meeting it was-teeming, delirious, absorbed. Do you have such meetings now? They seem to me pretty good, but the meetings of that time stand out before all others in my mind. This statue is erected not out of the national subscription, but by contributions from men of all creeds in Glasgow and in the West.

I must, then, in what I have to say leave out altogether the political aspect of Mr. Gladstone. In some cases such a rule would omit all that was interesting in a man. There are characters from which if you subtracted politics there would be nothing left. It was not so with Mr. Gladstone. To the great mass of his fellow-countrymen he was, of course, a statesman, wildly worshipped by some, wildly detested by others. But to those who were privileged to know him, his politics seemed but the least part of him. The predominant part to which all else was subordinated was his religion. The life which seemed to attract him most was the life of the library; the subject which grossed him most was the subject of the moment, whatever it might be, and that when he was out of office

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was very rarely politics. Indeed, I sometimes doubt whether his natural bent was towards politics at all. Had his course taken him that way, as it very nearly did, he would have been a great Churchman, greater perhaps than any that this island has known. He would have been a great professor if you could have found a University big enough to hold him. He would have been a great historian, a great bookman. He would have grappled with whole libraries, and wrestled with academies had the fates placed him in a cloister. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive the career, except perhaps the military, in which his energy and intellect and application would not have placed him on a summit. Politics, however, took him and claimed his life-service, but, jealous mistress as she is, could never thoroughly absorb him. Such powers as I have indicated seem to belong to a giant and a prodigy, and I can understand many turning away from the contemplation of such a character feeling that it is too far removed from them to interest them, and it is too unapproachable to help them-like reading of Hercules and Hector, mythical heroes, whose achievements the actual living mortal cannot hope to rival. Well, that is true enough. We have not received Intellectual faculties equal to Mr. Gladstone's, and we cannot hope to tie with him in the exercise, but, apart from them, his great force was character, and amid the vast multitude that I am addressing there is none who may not be helped by him.

The three signal qualities which made him what he was were courage, industry, and faith-dauntless courage, unfilagging industry, а faith which was part of his fibre-these were the levers with which he moved the world. I do not speak of his religious faith. That demands a worthier speaker and another occasion, but

no one who knew Mr. Gladstone could fail to see that it was the essence, the savor, the motive power of his life. Strange as it may seem, I cannot doubt that, while this attracted many to him, it alienated others others, not themselves irreligious, but who suspected the sincerity of so manifest a devotion, and who, reared in the moderate atmosphere of the time, disliked the intrusion of religious considerations into politics. These, however, though numerous enough, were the exceptions, and it cannot, I think, be questioned that Mr. Gladstone not merely raised the tone of public discussion, but quickened and renewed the religious feeling of the society in which he moved. But that is not the faith of which I am thinking to-day. What is present to me is the faith with which he espoused and pursued great causes. There, also, he had faith sufficient to move mountains, and did sometimes move mountains. He did not lightly resolve. He came to no hasty conclusion, but when he had convinced himself that a cause was right, it engrossed him, it inspired him with a certainty as deep-seated and as imperious as ever moved mortal man. To him, then, obstacles, objections, counsels of doubters and critics were as naught. He pressed on with the passion of a whirlwind, but also with the steady persistence of some puissant machine. He had, of course, like every statesman, often to traffic with expediency. He had always, I suppose, to accept something less than his ideal, but his unquenchable faith, not in himself, though that with experience must have waxed strong-not in himself, but in his cause-sustained him among the necessary shifts and transactions of the moment, and kept his head high in the heavens. Such faith, such moral conviction, is not given to all men, for all the treasures of his nature were

in ingots, and not in dust; but there is perhaps no man without some faith in some cause or some person. If so, let him take heart, in however small a minority he may be, by remembering how mighty a strength was Gladstone's power of faith.

His next great force lay in his industry. I do not know if the aspersions of "ca' canny" be founded, but, at any rate, there was no "ca' canny" about him. From his earliest schooldays, if tradition be true, to the bed of death he gave his full time and energy to work. No doubt his capacity for labor was unusual. He would sit up all night writing a pamphlet and work next day as usual. An eight-hours day would have been a holiday to him, for he preached and practised the gospel of work to its fullest extent. He did not indeed disdain pleasure. No one enjoyed physical exercise, or a good play, or a pleasant dinner more than he. He drank in deep draughts of the highest and the best that life had to offer, but even in pastime he was never idle. He did not know what it was to saunter. He debited himself with every minute of his time. He combined with the highest intellectual powers the faculty of utilizing them to the fullest extent by intense application. Moreover, his industry was prodigious in result, for he was an extraordinarily rapid worker. Dumont says of Mirabeau that till he met that extraordinary man he had no idea of how much could be compressed into a day. “Had I not lived with him," he says, "I should not know what can be accomplished in a day-all that can be compressed into an interval of 12 hours." A day was worth more to him than a week or a month to others. Many men can be busy for hours with a mighty small product but with Mr. Gladstone every minute was fruitful. That, no doubt, was largely due to his

marvellous powers of concentration. When he was staying at Dalmeny in 1879 he kindly consented to sit for his bust. The only difficulty was that there was no time for sittings, so the sculptor with his clay model was placed opposite Mr. Gladstone as he worked, and they spent the mornings together, Mr. Gladstone writing away and the clay figure of himself, less than a yard off, gradually assuming shape and form. Anything more distracting I cannot conceive, but it had no effect on the busy patient. And now let me make a short digression. I saw recently in the newspapers that there was some complaint of the manners of the rising generation in Glasgow. If that be so they are heedless of Mr. Gladstone's example. It might be thought that so impetuous a temper as his might be occasionally rough or abrupt. That was not so. His exquisite urbanity was one of his most conspicuous graces. I do not now only allude to that grave, old-world courtesy which gave so much distinction to his private life, for his sweetness of manner went far beyond demeanor. His spoken words, his letters even when one differed from him most acutely were all marked by this special note. He did not like people to disagree with him-few people do-but, so far as manner went, it was more pleasant to disagree with Mr. Gladstone than to be in agreement with some others.

Lastly, I come to his courage. That, perhaps, was his greatest quality, for when he gave his heart and reason to a cause he never counted the cost. Most men are physically brave and this nation is reputed to be especially brave, but Mr. Gladstone was brave among the brave. He had to the end the vitality of physical courage. When well on in his ninth decade, well on to 90, he was knocked over by a cab and before the by-standers could rally to his assistance he had

pursued the cab with a view to taking its number. He had, too, notoriously, political courage in a not less degree than Sir Robert Walpole. We read that George II., who was little given to enthusiasms, would often cry out with color flushing into his cheeks, and tears sometimes in his eyes, and with a vehement oath, "He (Walpole) is a brave fellow; he has more spirit than any man I ever knew." Mr. Gladstone did not yield to Walpole in political and Parliamentary courage. It was a quality which he closely observed in others, and on which he was fond of descanting, but he had the rarest and choicest courage of all-I mean moral courage. That was his supreme characteristic, and it was with him like the others from the first. A contemporary of his at Eton once told me of a scene at which my informant was present when some loose or indelicate toast was proposed and all present drank it but young Gladstone. In spite of the storm of objurgation and ridicule that raged around him he jammed his face, as it were, down in his hands on the table and would not budge. Every schoolboy knows-for we may here accurately use Macaulay's well-known expression -every schoolboy knows the courage that this implies, and even by the heedless generation of boyhood it was appreciated, for we find an Etonian writing to his parents to ask that he might go to Oxford rather than Cambridge on the sole ground that at Oxford he would have the priceless advantage of Gladstone's influence and example. Nor did his courage ever flag. He might be right, or he might be wrong-that is not the question here but when he was convinced that he was right not all the combined powers of Parliament or society or the multitude, could for an instant hinder his course, whether it ended in success or in failure. Success left him calm;

he had had so much of it. Nor did failures greatly depress him; the next morning found him once more facing the world with serene and undaunted brow. There was a man.

The nation has lost him, but preserves his character, his manhood, as a model on which she may form, if she be fortunate, coming generations of men. With his politics, with his theology, with his manifold grace and gifts of intellect, we are not concerned to-day, not even with his warm and passionate human sympathies. They are not dead with him, but let them rest with him, for we cannot in onę discourse view him in all his parts. To-day it is enough to have dealt for a moment on three of his great moral charcteristics, enough to have snatched from the fleeting hours a few moments of communion with the mighty dead. History has not yet allotted him his definite place, but no one would now deny that he bequeathed a pure standard of life, a record of lofty ambition for the public good as he understood it, a monument of life-long labor. Such lives speak for themselves. They need no statues. They face the future with the confidence of high purpose and endeavor.. The statues are not for them but for us-to bid us be conscious of our trust, mindful of our duty, scornful of opposition to principle and faith. They summon us to account for time and opportunity. They embody an inspiring tradition. They are milestones in the life of a nation. The effigy of Pompey was bathed in the blood of his great rival; let this statue have thenobler destiny of constantly calling to life worthy rivals of Gladstone's fameand character. Unveil then that statue. Let it stand to Glasgow in alk time coming for faith, fortitude, courage, Industry, qualities apart from intellect or power or wealth, which may fuspire all her citizens, however hum

ble, however weak. Let it remind the most unthinking passer-by of the dauntless character which it represents, of his long life of high and hon

The London Times.

est purpose. Let it leaven by an immortal tradition the population which lives and works and dies around this monument.

It is no doubt true that in some sense or other "we are all evolutionists now." As Lord Salisbury said at Oxford in 1894, Darwin "has, as a matter of fact, disposed of the doctrine of the immutability of the species." The theory of development by descent in the animal and vegetable kingdoms is universally received among men of science, and is at the present day as much a part of the popular view of nature as are the great generalizations of geology or the Copernican account of the solar system.

But with all this agreement as to the central fact of organic evolution, there is still much difference of opinion in regard to the methods of the process. Those who are absolutely at one as to the end are often at complete variance as to the means. On the one side we have a school of biolgists who assert that the scientific view of evolution practically begins with Darwin and Wallace, and that even Darwin himself injured his argument by preserving too many of the older notions and by refraining from carrying out his own principles to their legitimate conclusion. On the other side there are those who argue that Darwin's distinctive theory of natural selection is utterly inadequate

species, and who fall back upon views more or less resembling those held by Buffon, Lamarck, and St. Hilaire at least a century ago. A third party, while recognizing natural selection as a vera causa, declines to consider it as incompatible with the factors relied on by the earlier transformists, and appeals to the example of Darwin himself in justification of the attempt to reconcile the old with the new conception of organic evolution.

The conflict of opinion here briefly sketched has not unnaturally led to some confusion in the minds of those who for various reasons are unable to keep pace with the rapidly changing phases of scientific controversy. It is somewhat perplexing, for instance, to be told that Darwin's own system is discredited, while the general theory that he did so much to establish rests on a firmer foundation than ever. On the one hand it is alleged that his work in the cause of evolution is only likely to be permanent in so far as it follows the lines previously laid down by Lamarck; on the other hand the recognition by Darwin of the validity of the "Lamarckian factors" is looked upon as a deplorable defect in his scheme of transmutation. Either view seems damaging to Darwin's claim to the chief position among evolutionists,