He had a beautiful
home; sufficient, but not overwhelming, wealth; a property which
gave full scope for all the gifts of management and administration
which he might possess; the devoted love of his family, and the
goodwill even of those who did not politically agree with him.
His health, delicate in childhood, had improved with years. "While
he never neglected his public duties, his natural, keen, healthy
love of nature, sport, fun, humour, company, broke out abundantly.
In these matters he was still a boy"--but a boy who, as it seemed,
had already crossed the threshold of a memorable manhood. Such was
Will Gladstone on his last birthday--the 12th of July, 1914. A
month later the "Great Tribulation" had burst upon the unthinking
world, and all dreams of happiness were shattered. Dreams of happiness,
yes; but not dreams of duty. Duty might assume a new, a terrible,
and an unlooked-for form; but its essential and spiritual part--the
conviction of what a man owes to God, to his fellow-men, and to
himself--became only more imperious when the call to arms was heard:
_Christus ad arma vocat_.
Will Gladstone loved peace, and hated war with his whole heart.
He was by conviction opposed to intervention in the quarrels of
other nations.
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