p. 16 | Gladstone and Church-State Union

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 23, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 33.

Gladstone and Church-State Union

Our readers will remember that William Ewart Gladstone began his career as a strenuous upholder of union between church and state. Macaulay's essay "Gladstone on Church and State" made famous this early belief. Mr. Gladstone, however, radically changed his attitude on this question. Even in 1846 he was actively engaged in trying to destroy the ecclesiastical nature of the British Government. Mr. Lathbury, the editor of a recent volume of Gladstone's letters, tells us that Gladstone would have completely taken religious instruction out of the hands of the common schools of England if his associates on the Cabinet of 1870 had permitted him.