:--

What is the cause of this unanimous feeling? Of course, he had
qualities that distinguished him from all other men; and you may
say that it was his transcendent intellect, his astonishing power
of attaching men to him, and the great influence he was able to
exert upon the thought and convictions of his contemporaries. But
these things, which explain the attachment, the adoration of those
whose ideas he represented, would not explain why it is that
sentiments almost as fervent are felt and expressed by those whose
ideas were not carried out by his policy. My Lords, I do not think
the reason is to be found in anything so far removed from the
common feelings of mankind as the abstruse and controversial
questions of the policy of the day. They had nothing to do with
it. Whether he was right, or whether he was wrong, in all the
measures, or in most of the measures which he proposed--those are
matters of which the discussion has passed by, and would certainly
be singularly inappropriate here; they are really remitted to the
judgment of future generations, who will securely judge from
experience what we can only decide by forecast. It was on account
of considerations more common to the masses of human beings, to
the general working of the human mind, than any controversial
questions of policy that men recognised in him a man
guided--whether under mistaken impressions or not, it matters
not--but guided in all the steps he took, in all the efforts that
he made, by a high moral ideal. What he sought were the
attainments of great ideals, and, whether they were based on sound
convictions or not, they could have issued from nothing but the
greatest and the purest moral aspirations; and he is honoured by
his countrymen, because through so many years, across so many
vicissitudes and conflicts, they had recognised this one
characteristic of his action, which has never ceased to be felt.
He will leave behind him, especially to those who have followed
with deep interest the history of the later years--I might almost
say the later months of his life--he will leave behind him the
memory of a great Christian statesman. Set up necessarily on
high--the sight of his character, his motives, and his intentions
would strike all the world. They will have left a deep and most
salutary influence