se of Israel. A character somehow wanting in that
Power and Intellect which she worshipped.

But on a really deep study she saw how greatly she had been mistaken.
Extraordinarily mistaken, both as to the character and the teaching.
Christ was without doubt a grand ideal! To be as broad-hearted as he
was, as universally loving it would be no bad aim. And, as in daily life
Erica realized how hard was the practice of that love, she realized at
the same time the loftiness of the ideal, and the weakness of her own
powers.

"But, though I do begin to see why you take this man as your ideal," she
said, one day, to Charles Osmond, "I can not, of course, accept a great
deal that He is said to have taught. When He speaks of love to men, that
is understandable, one can try to obey; but when he speaks about God,
then, of course, I can only think that He was deluded. You may admire
Joan of Arc, and see the great beauty of her character, yet at the same
time believe that she was acting under a delusion; you may admire the
character of Gotama without considering Buddhism the true religion;
and so with Christ, I may reverence and admire His character, while
believing Him to have been mistaken."

Charles Osmond smiled. He knew from many trifling signs, unnoticed by
others, that Erica would have given a great deal to see her way to an
honest acceptance of that teaching of Christ which spoke of an unseen
but everywhere present Father of all, of the everlastingness of love,
of a reunion with those who are dead. She hardly allowed to herself
that she longed to believe it, she dreaded the least concession to that
natural craving; she distrusted her own truthfulness, feared above all
things that she might be deluded, might imagine that to be true which
was in reality false.

And happily, her prophet was too wise to attempt in any way to quicken
the work which was going on within her; he was one of those rare men
who can be, even in such a case, content to wait. He would as soon have
thought of digging up a seed to see whether he could not quicken its
slow development of root and stem as of interfering in any way with
Erica. He came and went, taught her Greek, and always, day after day,
week after week, month after month, however much pressed by his parish
work, however harassed by private troubles, he came to her with the
genial sympathy, the broad-hearted readiness to hear calmly all sides of
the question, which had struck her so much th