Of the Christian populations in Eastern Europe which had the misfortune to live under “the black hoof of the Turkish invader,” he was the chivalrous and indefatigable champion, from the days of the Bulgarian atrocities in 1875 to the Armenian massacres of twenty years later.  “If only,” he exclaimed, “the spirit of little Montenegro had animated the body of big Bulgaria,” very different would have been the fate of Freedom and Humanity in those distracted regions.  The fact that Ireland is so distinctly a nation—­not a mere province of Great Britain—­and the fact that she is economically poor, reinforced that effort to give her self-government which had originated in his late-acquired love of political freedom.

6.  THE IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT.

Of the “Concert of Europe” as it actually lived and worked (however plausible it might sound in theory) Gladstone had the poorest opinion, and, indeed, he declared that it was only another and a finer name for “the mutual distrust and hatred of the Powers.”  It had conspicuously failed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, and it had left Greece unaided in her struggle against Turkey.  Lord Morley has finely said of him that “he was for an iron fidelity to public engagements and a stern regard for public law, which is the legitimate defence for small communities against the great and powerful”; and yet again:  “He had a vision, high in the heavens, of the flash of an uplifted sword and the gleaming arm of the Avenging Angel.”

I have now reached the limits of the task assigned me by the Editor, and my concluding word must be more personal.

I do not attempt to anticipate history.  We cannot tell how much of those seventy years of strenuous labour will live, or how far Gladstone will prove to have read aright the signs of the times, the tendencies of human thought, and the political forces of the world.  But we, who were his followers and disciples, know perfectly well what we owe to him.  If ever we should be tempted to despond about the possibilities of human nature and human life, we shall think of him and take courage.  If ever our religious faith should be perplexed by the

    “Blank misgivings of a creature,
  Moving about in worlds not realized,”

the memory of his strong confidence will reassure us.  And if ever we are told by the flippancy of scepticism that “Religion is a disease,” then we can point to him who, down to the very verge of ninety years, displayed a fulness of vigorous and manly life beyond all that we had ever known.

II

HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND[*]

[Footnote *:  Written in 1907.]

The Hollands spring from Mobberley, in Cheshire, and more recently from the town of Knutsford, familiar to all lovers of English fiction as “Cranford.”  They have made their mark in several fields of intellectual effort.  Lord Knutsford, Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1887 to 1892, was a son of Sir Henry Holland, M.D. (1788-1873), who doctored half the celebrities of Europe; and one of Sir Henry’s first cousins was the incomparable Mrs. Gaskell.  Another first-cousin was George Henry Holland (1818-1891), of Dumbleton Hall, Evesham, who married in 1844 the Hon. Charlotte Dorothy Gifford, daughter of the first Lord Gifford.