touching upon deep and dangerous
subjects at Liverpool. Whether I went beyond my province many may
doubt. But of the extent of the mischief I do not doubt any more
than of its virulence. All that I hear from day to day convinces
me of the extension of this strange epidemic, for it is not,
considering how it comes, worthy of being called a rational or
scientific process. Be it however, what it may, we politicians are
children playing with toys in comparison to that great work of and
for manhood, which has to be done, and will yet be done, in
restoring belief.

Sir Robert Morier sent him from Munich Frohschammer's reply to Strauss.
"If I understand him aright," said Mr. Gladstone, "he is a Unitarian,
minus Miracle and Inspiration." The whole book seemed to him able, honest,
and diligent:--

But, he adds, I am one of those who think the Christianity of
Frohschammer (as I have described it) is like a tall tree
scientifically prepared for the saw by the preliminary process,
well known to wood-cutters, of clearing away with the axe all
projecting roots, which as long as they remained rendered the
final operation impossible. This first process leaves the tree
standing in a very trim condition, much more mathematical in form,
as it is more near a cylinder, than in its native state. The
business of the saw, when the horse and the man arrive, is soon
accomplished.

To his article on ritualism he prefixed as motto two short lines of
Pindar, about days that are to come being wisest witnesses.(327) In spite
of retreat, it was impossible that he should forget the vast
responsibility imposed upon him, both by his gifts and by the popular
ascendency into which they had brought him. His was not the retreat of
self-indulgence, and the days that were to come speedily brought him
duties that were to bear him far into regions of storm and conflict now
unforeseen. Meanwhile, with occasional visits to Westminster, he lived
even and industrious days at Hawarden, felling trees, working at Greek
mythology and ethnology, delighting in the woods and glades of the park,
above all delighting in the tranquillity of his "temple of peace." Besides
being the bookroom of a student, this was still a far-shining beacon in
the popular eye. If sages, scholars, heroes, saints, with time's serene
and hallowed gravity looked upon him from their shelves, yet loud echoes
sounde