Late on a March night in the middle of his second year, Gladstone's rooms were invaded by a boisterous party of Christ Church 'bloods' who had clearly decided that Gladstone was priggish, pious and self-righteous. Unfortunately, his diary reaction was an orgy of holier-than-thou self-abnegation which had it been available to his assailants would have confirmed them in their worst suspicions:

"Here I have great reason to be thankful to that God whose mercies fail not...1) Because this incident must tend to the mortification of my pride, by God's grace...It is no disgrace to be beaten for Christ was buffeted and smitten...2) Because here I have to some small extent an opportunity of exercising the duty of forgiveness...And if this hostile and unkind conduct be a sample of their ways, I pray that the grace of God may reveal to them that the end thereof is death. Even this prayer is selfish. I prayed little for them before, when I knew that they were living in sin and had rejected Christ their Saviour...I ought to have prayed before as much as now..."

Roy Jenkins, Gladstone: a Biography