His inexhaustible patience, his active attention and industry, his steadfast courage, his talent in debate and the work of parliament; his genius in espying, employing, creating political occasions, all made him, after prolonged conflict against impediments of every kind, one of the imposing figures of his time.
Morley describes the qualities that made a political leader stand out during his time, highlighting his perseverance and skills.
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All alike concerned themselves with its truth or falsehood, with what they counted to be its abstract fitness or unfitness.
If the idea was the direct gift of heaven, the policy was due to the sagacity and mother-wit of the great ecclesiastical statesmen.
What I wish to insist upon is, not that that system was good, but that the statesman who undertook to overthrow it, should have had something to put in its place.
Yet they had certainly no less value and truth than they ever had, and perhaps were more needed than ever in face of the present chaos of opinion.
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