are well pleased to see you in your old office
again; but no budget will heal the soreness that has been created--it is
not of the pocket but of the feelings.... I want you just to know where I
am and what I feel; but if I could talk to you, I could say what I have to
say with more precision, and with a greater delicacy of expression. I ask
you only to put the best construction on what I write."

If Forster could only have composed himself to the same considerate
spirit, there might have been a different tale to tell. Bright made his
election speech at Birmingham, and Forster was in trouble about it. "I
think," said the orator to Mr. Gladstone, "he ought rather to be thankful
for it; it will enable him to get out of difficulties if he will improve
the occasion. There is no question of changing the policy of the
government, but of making minor concessions.... I would willingly change
the policy of irritation into one of soothing and conciliation." Nothing
of great importance in the way even of temporary reconciliation was
effected by Mr. Bright's return. The ditch of the twenty-fifth clause
still yawned. The prime minister fell back into the position of August.
The whole situation of the ministry had become critical in every
direction. "Education must be regarded as still to a limited extent an
open question in the government."

When the general election came, the party was still disunited. Out of 425
liberal candidates in England, Scotland, and Wales, 300 were pledged to
the repeal of the 25th clause. Mr. Gladstone's last word was in a letter
to Bright (Jan. 27, 1874):--

The fact is, it seems to me, that the noncons. have not yet as a
body made up their minds whether they want unsectarian religion,
or whether they want simple secular teaching, so far as the
application of the rate is concerned. I have never been strong
against the latter of these two which seems to me impartial, and
not, if fairly worked, of necessity in any degree unfriendly to
religion. The former is in my opinion glaringly partial, and I
shall never be a party to it. But there is a good deal of leaning
to it in the liberal party. Any attempt to obtain definite pledges
now will give power to the enemies of both plans of proceeding. We
have no rational course as a party but one, which is to adjourn
for a while the solution of the grave parts of the education
problem; and this I know to be in sub