nity,
was not generally known. The orthodox were apt to content themselves
with shuddering at the mention of his name; very few troubled themselves
to think or inquire how this man had been driven into atheism. Had they
done so they might, perhaps, have treated him more considerately, at any
rate they must have learned that the much-disliked prophet of atheism
was the most disinterested of men, one who had the courage of his
opinions, a man of fearless honesty.

Raeburn had lost his mother very early; his father, a well-to-do man,
had held for many years a small living in the west of Scotland. He was
rather a clever man, but one-sided and bigoted; cold-hearted, too, and
caring very little for his children. Of Luke, however, he was, in his
peculiar fashion, very proud, for at an early age the boy showed signs
of genius. The father was no great worker; though shrewd and clever,
he had no ambition, and was quietly content to live out his life in the
retired little parsonage where, with no parish to trouble him, and a
small and unexacting congregation on Sundays, he could do pretty much as
he pleased. But for his son he was ambitious. Ever since his sixteenth
year--when, at a public meeting the boy had, to the astonishment
of every one, suddenly sprung to his feet and contradicted a false
statement made by a great landowner as to the condition of the cottages
on his estate--the father had foreseen future triumphs for his son. For
the speech, though unpremeditated, was marvelously clever, and there was
a power in it not to be accounted for by a certain ring of indignation;
it was the speech of a future orator.

Then, too, Luke had by this time shown signs of religious zeal, a zeal
which his father, though far from attempting to copy, could not but
admire. His Sunday services over, he relapsed into the comfortable,
easy-going life of a country gentleman for the rest of the week; but
his son was indefatigable, and, though little more than a boy himself,
gathered round him the roughest lads of the village, and by his
eloquence, and a certain peculiar personal fascination which he retained
all his life, absolutely forced them to listen to him. The father
augured great things for him, and invariably prophesied that he would
"live to see him a bishop yet."

It was a settled thing that he should take Holy Orders, and for some
time Raeburn was only too happy to carry out his father's plans. In his
very first term at Cambridge, ho