Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/95

IX THE WAR AGALVST KUSSIA. C5 He reinaiiied at tlio liead of the Government; chap. and, the papers being witheld from Parliament, ^^^' the country was led to imagine that all which it was possible to do or suffer for the sake of peace would be done and suffered by a Cabinet of which Lord Aberdeen was the chief. ]jut there was another member of the Cabinet jii oiad^ ■Nvho was supposed to hold war in deep abhorrence. ^Ir Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and since he was by virtue of his office the ap- pointed guardian of the public purse, those pure and lofty principles which made him cling to peace wei'c reinforced by an official sense of the harm which war inflicts by its costliness. Now it happened that, if he was famous for the splen- dour of his eloquence, for his unaffected piety, and for his blameless life, he was celebrated far and wide for a more than common liveliness of con- science. He had once imagined it to be his duty to quit a Government, and to burst through strong ties of friendship and gratitude, by reason of a thin shade of difference on the subject of white or brown sugar. It was believed that, if he were to commit even a little sin, or to imagine an evil thought, he would instantly arraign himself be- fore the dread tribunal which awaited him in his own bosom; and that, his intellect being subtle and microscopic, and delighting in casuistry and exaggeration, he would be likely to give his soul a very harsh trial, and treat himself as a great criminal fur faults too minute to be visible to the naked eyes of laymen. His friends lived in dread VOL. II. K