n a public step. To say, moreover, that the controversy still
existed, was to go a longish way in public opinion towards deciding it.
The curious thing is that Mr. Gladstone had known Mill so well--his
singleminded love of truth, his humanity, his passion for justice--as to
call him by the excellent name of "the Saint of Rationalism." A saint of
any sort is surely uncommon enough in our fallen world, to claim an equity
that is not refused to sinners. Yet fifteen years later he wrote a letter
doing Mill more justice. "Of all the motives, stings, and stimulants," he
wrote, "that reach men through their egoism in parliament, no part could
move or even touch him. His conduct and his language were in this respect
a sermon. Again, though he was a philosopher he was not, I think, a man of
crotchets. He had the good sense and practical tact of politics, together
with the high independent thought of a recluse."(334)

A learned Unitarian (Beard) sends him a volume of Hibbert lectures. "All
systems," Mr. Gladstone writes in acknowledging it, "have their _slang_,
but what I find in almost every page of your book is that you have none."
He complains, however, of finding Augustine put into a leash with Luther
and Calvin. "Augustine's doctrine of human nature is substantially that of
Bishop Butler; and he converted me about forty-five years ago to Butler's
doctrine." Of far earlier date than this (1839) is an interesting letter
from Montalembert:--

_London, July 4, 1839._--It seems to me that amidst many
_dissentimens_, and although you pass generally in this country
for an enemy to my faith and my church, there is a link between
us; since admitting every superiority of talent and influence on
your side, we stand on the same ground in public life--that of the
inalienable rights of spiritual power. I have, therefore, received
your book with gratitude, and read it with the sincerest interest.
I now take the liberty of offering you a portion of the work I
have published, not on matter of actual controversy, but on an
unknown and delightful subject of religious history. If you ever
find leisure enough to throw a glance on the _History of St.
Elizabeth_, and more particularly on the _Introduction_, which is
a rapid _resume_ of the thirteenth century, you will perhaps gain
some slight information on what the Rev. Hugh McNeile so
appropriately called "the filth and falsehood of t