A Witness for the One Truth - Gladstone

When William Ewart Gladstone became an MP in the reformed parliament of 1833, a friend told him that he was called upon by providence to be ‘A Witness for the One Truth’.  He agreed, and the rest is history.  Michael Wheeler’s talk is based on his new book on the spiritual life of Gladstone, whose journey from evangelicalism to a generous high Anglican orthodoxy was underpinned by his faith in divine providence but threatened by a troubled conscience.  Michael first looks at life-changing events in Rome in 1832.  He then scrolls on to 1874, when the prime minister resigned and reinvented himself as a writer and essayist in defence of the Church of England as a bulwark against ‘unbelief’.  The ‘one Truth’ was no longer universally acknowledged. 

Speakers

Michael Wheeler

Michael Wheeler is a Visiting Professor of English Literature at the University of Southampton and a former Lay Canon of Winchester Cathedral.  He established the Ruskin centre at Lancaster and has served as Chairman of Gladstone’s Library.  He is best known for his books on faith and literature and his contributions to the Church Times over four decades.