ican Church, the most cultured and liberal of the Christian
communities. Evangelical dissent cannot at present be said to be
interesting, at any rate from the point of view we are considering
to-day. It is destitute of the historic associations of Anglicanism,
and has been, until very recently, identified with ideals little
suggestive of the intellectual or the beautiful. It can scarcely be
said to lend itself to effective dramatic or artistic treatment. I am
by no means forgetful of George Eliot, but every one will see at a
glance that the handling of the religious question by that incomparable
genius is entirely different from that of Mrs. Ward in the books we are
noticing. _Robert Elsmere_ stands for a system of theology and faith.
_Dinah Morris_ speaks for herself; out of the abundance of a pure and
beautiful heart her mouth speaks words of wondrous grace and truth.

Hence, having held up the mirror to the face of Anglicanism, our
authoress has turned her attention to that older Church, so rich in
memories of the past, with so unequalled a record in the service of
humanity, and able even to-day to command the allegiance, the nominal
allegiance at all events, of more than two hundred million beings. In
_Helbeck of Bannisdale_ we have the world and life of Roman Catholicism
displayed with a minuteness and a precision which I should have thought
scarcely possible to one not "of the household of the faith". It is,
indeed, an ideal world, a world that belongs to the past, for the
Helbecks have all but passed away. The _Time-Spirit_ has been too much
for them, and that beautiful old-world courtesy, that silent, shrinking
piety which was nurtured on memories of martyr-ancestors who were
broken on the rack for the ancient faith, and long years of isolation
and the proud contempt of the world, is now, as some Catholics
regretfully deplore, a thing of the past.

No one knows this better than Mrs. Ward, and she has, I conceive it,
purposely chosen a type such as Helbeck, almost an impossible survival
in our time, because she could not otherwise have made Catholicism
interesting.[1] Nor could she have succeeded in pressing home her own
rooted conviction of the hopelessness of any attempt at compromise
between the new spirit of reason and life and that of the faith of
saints and martyrs. The modern Catholic, who stultifies himself and
vilifies his faith by apologetic articles in this or that secular
review, in which h