ologists?'

Robert shrugged his shoulders.

'It often seemed to me,' he said drearily, 'I might have got through,
but for the men whose books I used to read and respect most in old days.
The point of view is generally so extraordinarily limited. Westcott,
for instance, who means so much nowadays to the English religious world,
first isolates Christianity from all the other religious phenomena of
the world, and then argues upon its details. You might as well isolate
English jurisprudence, and discuss its details without any reference to
Teutonic custom or Roman law! You may be as logical or as learned as you
like within the limits chosen, but the whole result is false! You treat
Christian witness and Biblical literature as you would treat no other
witness, and no other literature in the world. And you cannot show cause
enough. For your reasons depend on the very witness under dispute. And
so you go on arguing in a circle, _ad infinitum_.'

But his voice dropped. The momentary eagerness died away as quickly as
it had risen, leaving nothing but depression behind it.

Mr. Grey meditated. At last he said, with a delicate change of tone,--

'And now--if I may ask it, Elsmere--how far has this destructive process
gone?'

'I can't tell you,' said Robert, turning away almost with a groan; 'I
only know that the things I loved once I love still, and that--that--if
I had the heart to think at all, I should see more of God in the world
than I ever saw before!'

The tutor's eye flashed. Robert had gone back to the window, and was
miserably looking out. After all, he had told only half his story.

'And so you feel you must give up your living?'

'What else is there for me to do?' cried Robert, turning upon him,
startled by the slow deliberate tone.

'Well, of course, you know that there are many men, men with whom both
you and I are acquainted, who hold very much what I imagine your
opinions now are, or will settle into, who are still in the Church of
England, doing admirable work there!'

'I know,' said Elsmere quickly--'I know; I cannot conceive it, nor could
you. Imagine standing up Sunday after Sunday to say the things you do
_not_ believe,--using words as a convention which those who hear you
receive as literal truth,--and trusting the maintenance of your position
either to your neighbour's forbearance or to your own powers of evasion!
With the ideas at present in my head, nothing would induce me to preach
another Ea