Christian art. The life of generations has gone to fashion him -all our human experience has served to nourish him-gradually from age to age He has drunk in the blood of suffering and the milk of knowledge, till He stands supreme as we see him—not God, but man made God.

Does it matter so much, after all, whether we worship a person or an idea, since, as I suggest, the Idea has become a Person, with all the powers and privileges of divinity? Nay, who in this world is able, even with the help of philosophy, to distinguish what is from what seems the phenomenal from the real? So long as Our Lord exists as a moral phenomenon, so long in other words as we can apprehend him as an ideal of human life, Christ is not dead, and his resurrection is not a dream. He walks the world. He remembers Greece and Rome, as well as Galilee; He blesses the painter and the poet, as well as the preacher in the Temple. He rejects nothing; He reads the rocks and the stars, and He adds their gospel to his own; He cries to men of all creeds, as his prototype cried to his disciples of yore, "Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden,

and ye shall rest."

Pardon me, my Lord Bishop, the desultory thoughts noted down in this long letter. They perhaps give you some clue as to the sentiments with which I pursue the Christian mission. You will doubtless think me somewhat heterodox, but I have at least the courage of my opinions; and on some such heterodoxy as mine-though on one, I hope, much broader and wiser-it will soon be found necessary to reconstruct the Christian Church.

I am, my Lord Bishop, yours,

AMBROSE BRADLEY.

IV.

From the Bishop of Darkdale and Dells to the Rev. Ambrose Bradley, Vicar of Fensea.

MY DEAR SIR,-I cannot express to you with what feelings of sorrow and amazement I have read your terrible letter! I must see you personally at once. My only hope now is that your communication represents a passing aberration, rather than the normal condition of your mind. I shall be at Darkdale on Saturday next, the 2nd. Will you make it convenient to be in the town on that day, and to call upon me at about eleven in the forenoon?

I am,

DARKDALE and DELLS.

On the morning of the 2nd June, the Rev. Ambrose Bradley left Fensea by the early market train, and arrived at Darkdale just in time for his interview with the Bishop of his diocese.

Seen in broad daylight, as he quickly made his way through the narrow streets to the episcopal residence, Bradley looked pale and troubled, yet determined. He was plainly drest, in a dark cloth suit, with broad felt hat; and there was nothing in his attire, with the exception of his white clerical necktie, to show that he held a sacred office. His dress, indeed, was careless almost to slovenliness, and he carried a formidable walking-stick of common wood. With his erect and powerful frame and his closely-shaven cheeks, he resembled an athlete rather than a clergyman, for he had been one of the foremost rowers and swimmers of his time. He wore no gloves, and his hands, though small and well formed, were slightly reddened by the

sun.

Arrived at his destination, an old-fashioned residence, surrounded by a large garden, he rang the gate bell, and was shown by a footman into the house, where his card was taken by a solemn-looking person clerically attired. After waiting a few moments in the hall, he was ushered into a luxuriously furnished study, where he found the Bishop, with his nether limbs wrapt in rugs, seated close to a blazing fire.

Bishop was a little spare man of about sixty, with an aquiline nose, a slightly receding forehead, a mild blue eye, and very white hands. He was said to bear some facial likeness to Cardinal Newman, and he secretly prided himself upon the resemblance. He spoke slowly and with a certain precision, never hurrying himself in his utterance, and giving full force to the periods of what was generally considered a beautiful and silvery voice.

"Good morning, Mr. Bradley," he said, without noticing the other's extended hand. "You will excuse my rising? The rheumatism in my knees has been greatly increased by this wretched weather. Pray take a chair by the fire."

Bradley, however, found a seat as far from the fire as possible; for the weather was far from cold, and the room itself was like a vapour bath.

There was a pause. The Bishop, shading his face with one white hand, on which sparkled a valuable diamond ring, was furtivel· inspecting his visitor.

"You sent for me?" said Bradley, somewhat awkwardly.

"Yes--about that letter. I cannot tell you how distressed I wa when I received it; indeed, if I may express myself frankly, I neve was so shocked in my life. I had always thought you so different, so very different. But there! I trust you have come to tell me that the hope I expressed was right, and that it was under some teniporary aberration that you expressed sentiments so extraordinary, so peculiarly perverted, and-hem!-unchristian."

The clergyman's dark eye flashed, and his brow was knitted. "Surely not unchristian," he returned.

"Not merely that, sir, but positively atheistic!" cried the Bishop, wheeling round in his chair and looking his visitor full in the face. "Then I expressed myself miserably. I am not an atheist; God forbid!"

"But as far as I can gather from your expressions, you absolutely dare to question the sacred character of the Scriptures, and the Divine nature and miraculous life and death of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!"

"Not at all," replied Bradley quietly.

"Not at all!" echoed the Bishop.

"Permit me to explain. I expressed my humble opinion that there are many things in the Scriptures which are contradicted by modern evidence, so that the sacred writings must be accepted not as history but as poetry; and I said that, although the miraculous narrative of Christ's life and death might have to be rejected, the beautiful Ideal it had set before us was sufficient for all our needs. In other words, whether Our Lord was a Divine personage or not, He had become a Divine Influence-which, after all, is the same thing."

"It is not the same thing, sir!" exclaimed the Bishop, horrified. "It is very far from being the same thing. Why, any Unitarian would admit as much as you do!-and pardon me for reminding

you, you are not an Unitarian-you are a clergyman of the Church of England. You have subscribed the articles-you-God bless my soul! what is the world coming to, when a Christian minister uses language worthy of the atheist Bradlaugh?"

"You remind me that I subscribed the articles," said Bradley, still preserving his calmness. "I did so without thought, as so many do, when I was a very young man.”

"What are you now, sir? A young man, a very young man ; in the audacious spirit of youth and inexperience you touch on bjects which the wisest minds of the world have been content to proach with reverence, with awe and trembling. I see your position arly enough. The horrible infidelity which fills the air at the resent day has penetrated your mind, and with the pride of intellectual impiety-that very pride for which Satan was cast from heaven-you profane the mysteries of your religion. After what you have said, I am almost prepared to hear you tell me that you actually did write that article on Miracles, which your parishioners impute to you, in the Bi-monthly Review!"

"It is quite true. I did write that article."

"And you have contributed to other infidel publications; for instance, to the Charing Cross Chronicle, which is edited by an infidel and written for infidels ? "

"Excuse me; the Chronicle is not generally considered an infidel publication."

"Have you contributed to it-yes or no, sir?"

"Not on religious subjects; on literary topics only."

"But you have written for it; that is enough. All this being granted, I think I may safely gather whence you receive your inspirations. From that portion of the press which is attempting to destroy our most sacred institutions, and which is endeavouring, in one way or another, to undermine the whole foundations of the Christian Church."

Bradley rose to his feet and stood on the hearthrug, facing his superior, who looked up at him with ill-concealed horror and amazement. By this time he was not a little agitated; but he still preserved a certain outward composure, and his manner was full of the greatest humility and respect.

"The

"Will you permit me to explain ?" he said in a low voice. hope and dream of my life is to upraise the Church, not to destroy it."

"Humph to upraise a church, perhaps, but not the Church of Christ."

"The Church of Christ-a church wherein all men may worship, irrespective of points of dogma, which have been the curse of every religion, and of ours most of all. For such a communion only two articles of faith would be necessary—a belief in an all-loving and all-wise Creator, or First Unknown Cause, and a belief in a Divine Character, created and evolved we need not ask how, but bearing the name of the Founder of Christianity."

"And the Bible, sir, the Bible!" cried the Bishop impatiently. "What would you do with that?"

"I would use it in its proper place, as-literature."
"Literature!" said the Bishop with uplifted hands.

"You

would then class that Blessed Book, from which the world has drawn the milk of immortal life, in the same category as Homer's Iliad, the profane poems of Horace and Catullus, and-save the mark!Lord Byron's poems, and the miserable novels of the period?"

"You do not quite understand me!"

"Sir, I understand you only too well."

"I do not call all printed matter literature; but I hold that all literature of the higher kind is, like the Bible, divinely inspired. Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare were as assuredly sent by God as Moses and Elijah. Shall we call the Book of Job a divine piece of moral teaching, and deny that title to 'Hamlet' and 'King Lear'? Is not the Faust' of Goethe as spiritual a product as the Song of Solomon ? Ezekiel was a prophet; prophets also are Emerson and Carlyle. Spinoza has been called God intoxicated; and it is true. There might be some question as to the mission of Byron (though I myself believe there is none); but surely no thinking person can reject the pretensions of that divine poet and martyred man who wrote the 'Prometheus Unbound'!"

"Shelley!" ejaculated the other, as if a bomb had exploded under his feet. "Are you actually speaking of him, sir?the atheist Shelley!"

"He was no atheist. More than most men he believed in God--a god of love."

This was too much. Quite forgetting his rheumatism, the Bishop threw off his rugs and rose tremulously to his feet.

"Mr. Bradley," he said, "let there be an end to this. I have heard you patiently and respectfully, thinking perhaps you might have something to say in your own defence; but every word you utter is an outrage—yes, sir, an outrage. Such opinions as you have expressed here to-day, and the other day in your letter, might be conceivable in a boy fresh from college; but coming from one who