kly New Testament lecture.

His first lecture, which he prepared with great care, was delivered to
thirty-seven men a fortnight later. It was on the political and social
state of Palestine and the East at the time of Christ's birth; and
Robert, who was as fervent a believer in 'large maps' as Lord Salisbury,
had prepared a goodly store of them for the occasion, together with a
number of drawings and photographs which formed part of the collection
he had been gradually making since his own visit to the Holy Land. There
was nothing he laid more stress on than, these helps to the eye and
imagination in dealing with the Bible. He was accustomed to maintain in
his arguments with Hugh Flaxman that the orthodox traditional teaching
of Christianity would become impossible as soon as it should be the
habit to make a free and modern use of history and geography and social
material in connection with the Gospels. Nothing tends so much, he would
say, to break down the irrational barrier which men have raised about
this particular tract of historical space, nothing helps so much to
let in the light and air of scientific thought upon it, and therefore
nothing prepares the way so effectively for a series of new conceptions.

By a kind of natural selection Richards became Elsmere's chief helper
and adjutant in the Sunday lectures,--with regard to all such matters as
beating up recruits, keeping guard over portfolios, handing round maps
and photographs, &c.--supplanting in this function the jealous and
sensitive Mackay, who, after his original opposition, had now arrived
at regarding Robert as his own particular property, and the lecturer's
quick smile of thanks for services rendered as his own especial right.
The bright, quicksilvery, irascible little workman, however, was
irresistible and had his way. He had taken a passion for Robert as for
a being of another order and another world. In the discussions
which generally followed the lecture he showed a receptiveness, an
intelligence, which were in reality a matter not of the mind but of
the heart. He loved, therefore he understood. At the Club he stood for
Elsmere with a quivering, spasmodic eloquence, as against Andrews, and
the Secularists. One thing only puzzled Robert. Among all the little
fellow's sallies and indiscretions, which were not infrequent, no
reference to his home life was ever included. Here he kept even Robert
absolutely at arm's length. Robert knew that he was marrie