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Charity does not mean giving money to charity, it means giving yourself.  It means service to others, constant service.  Whatever you want to do is replaced by doing what others need – as long as what others want harms and hurts no one or no thing.

In 1895, at the age of 85, Gladstone bequeathed £40,000 (equivalent to approximately £4.24 million today) and much of his library to found St Deiniol's Library in Hawarden, Wales. It had begun with just 5,000 items at his father's home Fasque, which were transferred to Hawarden for research in 1851.  Gladstone was a lifelong bibliophile; it has been suggested that in his lifetime, he read around 20,000 books, and eventually owned a library of over 32,000, practically all of which were bequeathed.

Gladstone devoted almost his entire life to serving others.  He had his last audience with Queen Victoria on 28 February 1894 and chaired his last Cabinet on 1 March—the last of 556 he had chaired.