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Christian Socialists, recovering from the shocks and disasters of '48, re-gathered their shattered hosts, and reminded a mocking world that the People's Cause was not yet lost. There was Maurice with his mystical eloquence, and Kingsley with his fiery zeal, and Hughes and Vansittart and Ludlow with their economic knowledge and powerful pens. They were reinforced by William Edward Forster, a young Radical M.P., whose zeal for social service had already marked him out from the ruck of mechanical politicians; and from time to time Carlyle himself would vouchsafe a growl of leonine approval to enterprises which, whether wise or foolish, were at least not shams. In 1852 the Amalgamated Society of Engineers conducted in London and Lancashire a strike which had begun in some engineering works at Oldham. The Christian Socialists gave it their support, and Lord Goderich subscribed £500 to the maintenance of the strikers. But, although he lived in this highly idealistic society, surrounded by young men who saw visions and old men who dreamed dreams, Lord Goderich was neither visionary nor dreamer. He passed, under Lord Russell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, through a long series of practical and laborious offices. He became Secretary of State for India, and for War; and, when Lord President of the Council, attained perhaps the highest honour of his life in being appointed Chairman of the Joint Commission on American Affairs, which in 1871 saved us from the unimaginable calamity of war with the United States. Ten years later, as Viceroy of India, he made his permanent mark on the history of the British Empire; and from that day forward no Liberal Government would have been considered complete unless it could show the sanction of his honoured name. When, in February, 1886, Gladstone formed the Administration which was to establish Home Rule, Lord Ripon, who became First Lord of the Admiralty, explained his position to me with happy candour:
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I have always been in favour of the most advanced thing in the Liberal Programme. Just now the most advanced thing is Home Rule; so I'm a Home Ruler.
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The Eighty Club avoided that latent peril, and paid its honours, while they were still fresh and worth having, to the living representative of a Liberalism
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One could not help feeling that the audience which Lord Ripon faced when he was addressing the Club was Radical to the backbone. Radicals themselves, and eager to set the world right, they paid reverence to a Radical who, sixty years ago, was inspired by the same passion, and in all that long stretch of time has never failed the cause. The applause, hearty, genuine, emotional, was even more expressive than the oratory, for it was evoked by the presence of a man who, in his earliest youth, had burst the trammels of station and environment, and had sworn himself to the service of the poor, the ill-fed, and the unrepresented, in days when such devotion was far more difficult than now. It is probable that not a few of Lord Ripon's hearers, while they acclaimed his words and waved their salutations, may have added in the depths of their hearts some aspiration such as this:
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When I come to my eightieth year, may I be able to look back upon a career as consistent, as unselfish, and as beneficent.