Editing William Ewart Gladstone (section)

==Religion==
Gladstone's intensely religious mother was an evangelical of [[Scottish Episcopal Church|Scottish Episcopal]] origins,<ref>{{cite book |first=M. |last=Partridge |title=Gladstone |date=2003 |page=18}}</ref> and his father joined the [[Church of England]], having been a [[Church of Scotland|Presbyterian]] when he first settled in Liverpool. As a boy, William was baptised into the Church of England. He rejected a call to enter the ministry, and on this his conscience always tormented him. In compensation, he aligned his politics with the evangelical faith in which he fervently believed.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 2639101|title = Gladstone's Religion|journal = The Historical Journal|volume = 28|issue = 2|pages = 327–340|last1 = Ramm|first1 = Agatha|year = 1985|doi = 10.1017/S0018246X00003137| s2cid=159648512}}</ref> In 1838 Gladstone nearly ruined his career when he tried to force a religious mission upon the Conservative Party. His book ''The State in its Relations with the Church'' argued that England had neglected its great duty to the Church of England. He announced that since that church possessed a monopoly of religious truth, nonconformists and Roman Catholics ought to be excluded from all government positions. The historian [[Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay|Thomas Babington Macaulay]] and other critics ridiculed his arguments and refuted them. [[Robert Peel|Sir Robert Peel]], Gladstone's chief, was outraged because this would upset the delicate political issue of Catholic Emancipation and anger the Nonconformists. Since Peel greatly admired his protégé, he redirected his focus from theology to finance.<ref>{{cite book |first=H. C. G. |last=Matthew |title=Gladstone, 1809–1874 |date=1986 |pages=42, 62, 66}}</ref>

Gladstone altered his approach to religious problems, which always held first place in his mind. Before entering Parliament he had already substituted a [[high church]] Anglican attitude, with its dependence on authority and tradition, for the evangelical outlook of his boyhood, with its reliance upon the direct inspiration of the Bible. In middle life, he decided that the individual conscience would have to replace authority as the inner citadel of the Church. That view of the individual conscience affected his political outlook and changed him gradually from a Conservative into a Liberal.<ref>{{cite book |first=David |last=Bebbington |title=William Ewart Gladstone: Faith and Politics in Victorian Britain |date=1993}}</ref>