full scope for all the gifts of management and administration
which he might possess; the devoted love of his family, and the
goodwill even of those who did not politically agree with him.
His health, delicate in childhood, had improved with years. "While
he never neglected his public duties, his natural, keen, healthy
love of nature, sport, fun, humour, company, broke out abundantly.
In these matters he was still a boy"--but a boy who, as it seemed,
had already crossed the threshold of a memorable manhood. Such was
Will Gladstone on his last birthday--the 12th of July, 1914. A
month later the "Great Tribulation" had burst upon the unthinking
world, and all dreams of happiness were shattered. Dreams of happiness,
yes; but not dreams of duty. Duty might assume a new, a terrible,
and an unlooked-for form; but its essential and spiritual part--the
conviction of what a man owes to God, to his fellow-men, and to
himself--became only more imperious when the call to arms was heard:
_Christus ad arma vocat_.

Will Gladstone loved peace, and hated war with his whole heart.
He was by conviction opposed to intervention in the quarrels of
other nations. "His health was still delicate; he possessed neither
the training nor instincts of a soldier; war and fighting were
repugnant to his whole moral and physical fibre." No one, in short,
could have been by nature less disposed for the duty which now
became urgent. "The invasion of Belgium shattered his hopes and
his ideals." He now realized the stern truth that England must
fight, and, if England must fight, he must bear his part in the
fighting. He had been made, when only twenty-six, Lord-Lieutenant
of Flintshire, and as such President of the Territorial Force
Association. It was his official duty to "make personal appeals
for the enlistment of young men. But how could he urge others to
join the Army while he, a young man not disqualified for military
service, remained at home in safety? It was his duty to lead, and
his best discharge of it lay in personal example." His decision
was quickly and quietly made. "He was the only son of his mother,
and what it meant to her he knew full well;" but there was no
hesitation, no repining, no looking back. He took a commission in
the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and on the 15th
of March, 1915, he started with a draft for France. On the 12th
of April he was killed. "It is not"--he had just written to his
mother--"the length of e