this is not always a safe venture,--the next effort of the kind may
prove a failure. No man can be sure of himself or his ground without
previous and patient labor, except in reply to an antagonist and when
familiar with his subject. That was the power of Fox and Pitt. What gave
charm to the speeches of Peel and Gladstone in their prime was the new
matter they introduced before debate began; and this was the result of
laborious study. To attack such matter with wit and sarcasm is one
thing; to originate it is quite another. Anybody can criticise the most
beautiful picture or the grandest structure, but to paint the one or
erect the other,--_hic labor, hoc opus est_. One of the grandest
speeches ever made, for freshness and force, was Daniel Webster's reply
to Hayne; but the peroration was written and committed to memory, while
the substance of it had been in his thoughts for half a winter, and his
mind was familiar with the general subject. The great orator is
necessarily an artist as much as Pascal was in his _Pensees_; and his
fame will rest perhaps more on his art than on his matter,--since the
art is inimitable and peculiar, while the matter is subject to the
conditions of future, unknown, progressive knowledge. Probably the most
effective speech of modern times was the short address of Abraham
Lincoln at Gettysburg; but this was simply the expression of the
gathered forces of his whole political life.

In the month of July, 1837, Mr. Gladstone was married to Miss Catherine
Glyn, daughter of Sir Stephen Richard Glyn, of Hawarden Castle, in
Flintshire, Wales,--a marriage which proved eminently happy. Eight
children have been the result of this union, of whom but one has died;
all the others have "turned out well," as the saying is, though no one
has reached distinguished eminence. It would seem that Mr. Gladstone,
occupying for forty years so superb a social and public station, has not
been ambitious for the worldly advancement of his children, nor has he
been stained by nepotism in pushing on their fortunes. The eldest son
was a member of Parliament; the second became a clergyman; and the
eldest daughter married a clergyman in a prominent position as
headmaster of Wellington College.

It would be difficult to say when the welfare of the Church and the
triumph of theological truth have not received a great share of Mr.
Gladstone's thoughts and labors. At an early period of his parliamentary
career he wrote an elabor