y has been good part of an hour here, and now you can't give me five
minutes, sir."

"Why, sir," answered Charles, "I am sure you are come on an errand as
fruitless as hers; and I am sick of these religious discussions, and
want to be to myself, and to save you trouble."

"Sick of religions discussions," said the stranger to himself, as he
wrote down the words in his note-book. Charles did not deign to notice
his act or to explain his own expression; he stood prepared to renew his
action of motioning him to the door. His tormentor then said, "You may
like to know my name; it is Zerubbabel."

Vexed as Reding was, he felt that he had no right to visit the
tediousness of his former visitor upon his present; so he forced himself
to reply, "Zerubbabel; indeed; and is Zerubbabel your Christian name,
sir, or your surname?"

"It is both at once, Mr. Reding," answered Zerubbabel, "or rather, I
have no Christian name, and Zerubbabel is my one Jewish designation."

"You are come, then, to inquire whether I am likely to become a Jew."

"Stranger things have happened," answered his visitor; "for instance, I
myself was once a deacon in the Church of England."

"Then you are not a Jew?" said Charles.

"I am a Jew by choice," he said; "after much prayer and study of
Scripture, I have come to the conclusion that, as Judaism was the first
religion, so it's to be the last. Christianity I consider an episode in
the history of revelation."

"You are not likely to have many followers in such a belief," said
Charles; "we are all for progress now, not for retrograding."

"I differ from you, Mr. Reding," said Zerubbabel; "see what the
Establishment is doing; it has sent a Bishop to Jerusalem."

"That is rather with the view of making the Jews Christians than the
Christians Jews," said Reding.

Zerubbabel wrote down: "Thinks Bishop of Jerusalem is to convert the
Jews;" then, "I differ from you, sir; on the contrary, I fancy the
excellent Bishop has in view to revive the distinction between Jew and
Gentile, which is one step towards the supremacy of the former; for if
the Jews have a place at all in Christianity, as Jews, it must be the
first place."

Charles thought he had better let him have his talk out; so Zerubbabel
proceeded: "The good Bishop in question knows well that the Jew is the
elder brother of the Gentile, and it is his special mission to restore a
Jewish episcopate to the See of Jerusalem. The Jewish succession has