Blaine was with us in London and I told Mr. Gladstone he had
expressed to me his wonder and pain at seeing him in his old age hat
in hand, cold day as it was, at a garden party doing homage to titled
nobodies. Union of Church and State was touched upon, and also my
"Look Ahead," which foretells the reunion of our race owing to the
inability of the British Islands to expand. I had held that the
disestablishment of the English Church was inevitable, because among
other reasons it was an anomaly. No other part of the race had it. All
religions were fostered, none favored, in every other English-speaking
state. Mr. Gladstone asked:
"How long do you give our Established Church to live?"
My reply was I could not fix a date; he had had more experience than I
in disestablishing churches. He nodded and smiled.
When I had enlarged upon a certain relative decrease of population in
Britain that must come as compared with other countries of larger
area, he asked:
"What future do you forecast for her?"
I referred to Greece among ancient nations and said that it was,
perhaps, not accident that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton,
Burns, Scott, Stevenson, Bacon, Cromwell, Wallace, Bruce, Hume, Watt,
Spencer, Darwin, and other celebrities had arisen here.
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