, May 10th, 1906.
, Vol.
XXXIII, p. 65.—Ed.]
When that illustrious man
William Edward Gladstone lay in the crisis of his fate, which closed in his death May 18th, 1898, messages of sympathy from the foremost men of our Christian world were read to him, and he murmured at intervals, ‘Kindness, kindness, kindness!’
at length as prayers were ended he exclaimed, ‘Amen!’
There is sunshine in my soul to-day.
You have given me manifestations of sympathy akin to affection.
An old man taken in the act of doing right is your guest to-day.
I value beyond weights and measures the good opinion of our people, whether they be plain people, official people, or such as determine alone or in council public opinion, that mysterious and invisible power which no man can resist — more frequently right than any man can fathom or forecast.
Need I pause to define public opinion as the conception of the best and foremost thought of the time, the day, the hour.
It is not the cry of the multitude, ‘Crucify him!
Release to us Barabbas,’ but of the still small voice, ‘Be just and fear not.’
I quiver with emotion in the presence of this audience, cultured and adorned with every embellishment of beauty.
I reckon the
