The Grand Old Man

The Grand Old Man

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Grand Old Man, by Richard B.
Cook Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check
the copyright laws for your country before downloading or
redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: The Grand Old Man
Author: Richard B. Cook
Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9900] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on November 4,
2003]

Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
GRAND OLD MAN ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner, Tom Allen, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE GRAND OLD MAN
OR THE
Life and Public Services
of
The Right Honorable William Ewart
GLADSTONE
Four Times
Prime Minister of England
BY
Richard B. Cook, D.D.

PREFACE
William E. Gladstone was cosmopolitan. The Premier of the British

Empire is ever a prominent personage, but he has stood above them all.
For more than half a century he has been the active advocate of liberty,
morality and religion, and of movements that had for their object the
prosperity, advancement and happiness of men. In all this he has been
upright, disinterested and conscientious in word and deed. He has
proved himself to be the world's champion of human rights. For these
reasons he has endeared himself to all men wherever civilization has
advanced to enlighten and to elevate in this wide world.
With the closing of the 19th century the world is approaching a crisis in
which every nation is involved. For a time the map of the world might
as well be rolled up. Great questions that have agitated one or more
nations have convulsed the whole earth because steam and electricity
have annihilated time and space. Questions that have sprung up
between England and Africa, France and Prussia, China and Japan,
Russia and China, Turkey and Armenia, Greece and Turkey, Spain and
America have proved international and have moved all nations. The
daily proceedings of Congress at Washington are discussed in Japan.
In these times of turning and overturning, of discontent and unrest, of
greed and war, when the needs of the nations most demand men of
world-wide renown, of great experience in government and diplomacy,
and of firm hold upon the confidence of the people; such men as, for
example, Gladstone, Salisbury, Bismark, Crispi and Li Hung Chang,
who have led the mighty advance of civilization, are passing away.
Upon younger men falls the heavy burden of the world, and the
solution of the mighty problems of this climax of the most momentous
of all centuries.
However, the Record of these illustrious lives remains to us for
guidance and inspiration. History is the biography of great men. The
lamp of history is the beacon light of many lives. The biography of
William E. Gladstone is the history, not only of the English Parliament,
but of the progress of civilization in the earth for the whole period of
his public life. With the life of Mr. Gladstone in his hand, the student of
history or the young statesman has a light to guide him and to help him
solve those intricate problems now perplexing the nations, and upon the

right solution of which depends Christian civilization--the liberties,
progress, prosperity and happiness of the human race.
Hence, the life and public services of the Grand Old Man cannot fail to
be of intense interest to all, particularly to the English, because he has
repeatedly occupied the highest position under the sovereign of
England, to the Irish whether Protestant or Catholic, north or south,
because of his advocacy of (Reforms) for Ireland; to the Scotch because
of his Scottish descent; to the German because he reminds them of their
own great chancellor, the Unifier of Germany, Prince Bismarck; and to
the American because he was ever the champion of freedom; and as
there has been erected in Westminster Abbey a tablet to the memory of
Lord Howe, so will the American people enshrine in their hearts,
among the greatest of