But if the
divisions among Christians are remarkable, not less so is their unity in
the greatest doctrines that they hold. Well-nigh fifteen hundred years
have passed away since the great controversies concerning the Deity and
the person of the Redeemer were, after a long agony, determined. As
before that time, in a manner less defined but adequate for their day,
so, even since that time, amid all chance and change, more--aye, many
more--than ninety-nine in every hundred Christians have, with one
voice, confessed the Deity and incarnation of our Lord as the cardinal
and central truth of our religion. Surely there is some comfort here,
some sense of brotherhood; some glory due to the past, some hope for the
times that are to come."
Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister of England, during his several
administrations, has had a large Church patronage to dispense, in other
words, has been called upon, by virtue of his office, to till many
vacancies in the Established Church, but it has been truly testified
that there has probably never been so laboriously conscientious a
distributor of ecclesiastical crown patronage as Mr. Gladstone. In his
ecclesiastical appointments he never took politics into consideration.
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