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mediating, interceding, atoning beings; or represented God hating, revenging, punish ing, etc." This is a plain rejection of Christianity ; and, if Pitt at times called himself a Protestant, he equally called Frederick the Great " the bulwark of Protestantism." On his death-bed he bade his son read to him Homer s description of the death of Hector (Williams, ii, 331). Neither in Williams nor in Thackeray s standard History of William Pitt (2 vols., 1827) is there any question of church- ministration before his death. In fine, William Wilberforce, who was intimate with his son, plainly refers to the father when he says : " Lord C. died, I fear, without the smallest thought of God " (Correspondence of William Wilberforce, 1840, ii, 72). The text had just dealt with W. Pitt, junior. D. May 11, 1778.
PITT, William, statesman, son of the preceding. B. May 28, 1859. Ed. privately and Cambridge (Pembroke Hall). As Pitt was a delicate child, his father directed his education at home, and from the start destined him to be a political orator. He composed a tragedy at thirteen, and went up to Cambridge at fourteen. After graduating he took up law, and was called to the Bar in 1780. He practised only a short time, and entered Parliament in 1781. He at once made a deep impression on the House ; and he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer at the age of twenty-three, and Prime Minister in the following year. He was returned to power in 1784 and 1790, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer he did wonders for the country s disordered finances. Until the French Eevolution entered upon its violent phase Pitt had been on the side of the reformers, but he then harshly treated advanced political movements on the ground that they led to revolution. He conducted the war against France with consummate ability, and he resigned in 1800 mainly because the King refused to entertain Catholic Emancipation, which Pitt considered just.
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Like his father, he showed a fine example of integrity in a corrupt world. Though he was heavily in debt when he quitted office, and had very little private income, he refused a gift of 100,000 from the merchants of London and of 30,000 from the King. He was hardly less dis tinguished in private morals. " In an age of eager scandal his life was beyond reproach," says Lord Eosebery (Pitt, 1891, p. 266) ; and the common reports of his drunkenness are much exaggerated, though excess in drink was then universal. Satirists called him " the . Immaculate Boy." He resumed power in 1804, and literally wore himself out in his country s cause, dying in debt and without title. William Wilberforce, an earnest Christian, was a life-long friend of Pitt, and he plainly intimates that Pitt w r as a Eationalist. He says that Pitt " never gave himself time for due reflection on religion," and that Butler s Analogy " raised in his mind more doubts than it had answered " (Life of W. Wilber force, by his sons, 1838, i, 95). Lord Eosebery, Macaulay, and other biographers, quite improperly repeat the story of Pitt s death-bed conversion to Christianity which was given out by the Bishop of Lincoln, who attended him. The story itself implies that Pitt had lived entirely outside the Church, and had never prayed, but describes him as ending in a mood of Christian fervour and trust in " the merits of Christ." Lady Hester Stanhope, who was more intimate with him than any, and lived in his house until he died, bluntly says that the story is " all a lie," and adds that Pitt " never went to church in his life" (Memoirs, iii, 166-67). Wilberforce fully confirms this. In a letter written a few weeks after Pitt s death, he says that the story, which then began to appear in the press, was " impossible to be true," and that he has heard in confidence that Pitt at first refused to pray with the Bishop, that the Bishop then " prayed with him," and that nothing further happened (Corre spondence of W. Wilberforce, 1840, ii, 72). Lord Brougham tells us (Correspondence of 608
