r effectually of the future. It will open for us by
degrees. I shall be glad when the matter of money, after all a
secondary one, is disentangled, but chiefly because it seems to
put pressure upon you. I spoke to Stephen about these matters on
Saturday; he was kind, reasonable, and in all ways as satisfactory
as possible. There is one thing I should like you to understand
clearly as to my view of things, for it is an essential part of
that view. I am convinced that the welfare of mankind does not now
depend on the state or the world of politics; the real battle is
being fought in the world of thought, where a deadly attack is
made with great tenacity of purpose and over a wide field, upon
the greatest treasure of mankind, the belief in God and the gospel
of Christ.

In June Sir Stephen Glynne died,--"a dark, dark day." "My brother-in-law,"
wrote Mr. Gladstone at a later date, "was a man of singular refinement and
as remarkable modesty. His culture was high and his character one of deep
interest. His memory was on the whole decidedly the most remarkable known
to me of the generation and country. His life, however, was retired and
unobtrusive; but he sat in parliament, I think, for about fifteen years,
and was lord-lieutenant of his county."

I thank you much--Mr. Gladstone said to the Duke of Argyll--for your
kind note. Your sympathy and that of the duchess are ever ready.
But even you can hardly tell how it is on this occasion needed and
warranted. My wife has lost the last member of a family united by
bonds of the rarest tenderness, the last representative of his
line, the best of brothers, who had ever drawn closer to her as
the little rank was thinned. As for me, no one can know what our
personal relations were, without knowing the interior details of a
long family history, and efforts and struggles in common carried
on through a long series of years, which riveted into the closest
union our original affection. He was a very rare man, but we
grieve not for him; he sleeps the sleep of the just. The event is
a great one also to the outward frame of our life here.(310)

(M159) In the same letter he says it is most painful to him to be dragged
into ecclesiastical turmoil, as for example by the Scotch patronage bill,
which he considers precipitate, unwise, and daring, or the bill directed
against the endowed schools