l preach a respectable mythology as
anything else.'

'What do you mean by a mythology?' cried Robert, hotly.

'Simply ideas, or experiences, personified,' said Langham, puffing away.
'I take it they are the subject-matter of all theologies.'

'I don't understand you,' said Robert, flushing. 'To the Christian,
facts have been the medium by which ideas the world could not otherwise
have come at have been communicated to man. Christian theology is a
system of ideas indeed, but of ideas realized, made manifest in facts.'

Langham looked at him for a moment, undecided; then that suppressed
irritation we have already spoken of broke through. 'How do you know
they are facts?' he said, dryly.

The younger man took up the challenge with all his natural eagerness,
and the conversation resolved itself into a discussion of Christian
evidences. Or rather Robert held forth, and Langham kept him going by
an occasional remark which acted like the prick of a spur. The tutor's
psychological curiosity was soon satisfied. He declared to himself that
the intellect had precious little to do with Elsmere's Christianity. He
had got hold of all the stock apologetic arguments, and used them, his
companion admitted, with ability and ingenuity. But they were merely
the outworks of the citadel. The inmost fortress was held by something
wholly distinct from intellectual conviction--by moral passion, by love,
by feeling, by that mysticism, in short, which no healthy youth should
be without.

'He imagines he has satisfied his intellect,' was the inward comment
of one of the most melancholy of sceptics, 'and he has never so much as
exerted it. What a brute protest!'

And suddenly Langham threw up the sponge. He held out his hand to his
companion, a momentary gleam of tenderness in his black eyes, such as on
one or two critical occasions before had disarmed the impetuous Elsmere.

'No use to discuss it further. You have a strong case, of course, and
you have put it well. Only, when you are pegging away at reforming and
enlightening the world, don't trample too much on the people who have
more than enough to do to enlighten themselves.'

As to Mrs. Elsmere, in this now turn of her son's fortunes she realized
with humorous distinctness that for some years past Robert had been
educating her as well as himself. Her old rebellious sense of something
inherently absurd in the clerical status had been gradually slain in her
by her long contact through