om its golden mysteries forge keys To jingle
in the belt of pious pride."

Can anyone imagine the seven-devilled Mary Magdalene conversing in this
way?

Considered in the light of its title this poem is a mistake and a
monstrous failure. It is also labored and full of "fine writing." Not
only are the Gospel story and the teachings of Jesus played fast and
loose with, but the simplest things are narrated in grandiose language,
with a perfect glut of fanciful imagery, fetched in not to illustrate
but to adorn. Here and there, however, the language of Jesus is
paraphrased and damnably spoiled. What reader of the Gospes does not
remember the exquisite English in which our translators have rendered
the lament over Jerusalem? Sir Edwin parodies it as follows:--

How oft I would have gathered all thy children in As a hen clucks her
chickens to her wings.

Surely this is perfectly ridiculous. The collecting and sheltering are
put into the background by that dreadful "cluck," and the reader is
forced to imagine Jesus as a clucking hen. On the whole, the Gospel
writers were better artists than Sir Edwin Arnold.

To conclude. The poem contains plenty of "fine writing" and some good
lines. But as a whole it is "neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red
herring." As a picture of Jesus Christ it is a laborious absurdity; as
a marketable volume it may be successful; and as a sample of Sir
Edwin Arnold's powers and accomplishments it will perhaps impose on
half-educated sentimentalists.

SECULARISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

A Letter to the "_Suffolk Chronicle_," January 8, 1893.

Sir,--A friend has favored me with a copy of your last issue, containing
a long report of the Rev. W. E. Blomfield's sermon at Turret Green
Chapel, apparently in reply to my lecture on "Secularism superior to
Christianity." Mr. Blomfield declines to meet me in set debate, on the
ground that I am not "a _reverent_ Freethinker," which is indeed true;
but I observe that he does not really mind arguing with me, only he
prefers to do it where I cannot answer him.

Mr. Blomfield finds the pulpit a safe place for what can hardly be
called the courtesies of discussion. He refers to certain remarks
of mine (I presume) as "petty jokes and witticisms fit only for the
tap-room of a fourth-rate tavern." I will not dispute the description.
I defer to Mr. Blomfield's superior knowledge of taverns and tap-rooms.

I notice Mr. Blomfield's great parade of "reveren