and served to keep people awake. Where
was 'Ell? It was said to be a bottomless pit; if so, he should be all
right, because he could get out at the other end! Then, again, 'Ell was
said to be a very 'ot place. When the missionaries told the Greenlanders
that, everybody wanted to go to 'Ell; so they had to change their tune
and say it was very cold. Mr. Ramsey omitted to mention his authority
for this statement.

Into his pleasantries on the monotony of life in 'Eaven, I do not feel
inclined to follow this gentleman. The Atonement, he went on to remark,
if necessary at all, came 4000 years too late. It should have been--so
we were to believe on his ipse dixit--contemporaneous with the Fall.
This atonement we were to avail ourselves of by means of faith. Idiots
could not have faith, but were allowed to be saved. Consequently, argued
Mr. Ramsey, in conclusion, the best thing for all of us would have been
to have been born idiots, and, consistently enough, Christianity tried
to turn us all into idiots.

Such were some of the statements. I refrain from quoting the most
offensive, which were deliberately put forward at this al fresco
infidels' meeting; and with what result? Though a vast population kept
moving to and fro along that great highway there were never, I am sure,
more than a hundred people gathered at the shrine of Mr. Ramsey. They
laughed at his profanities, yes; but directly he dropped these, and grew
argumentative, they talked, and had to be vigorously reduced to order.
Gallio-like they cared for none of these things, and I am quite sure a
good staff of working clergy, men like Mr. Body or Mr. Steele of St.
Thomas's, who could talk to the people, would annihilate Mr. Ramsey's
prestige. As for Mr. Harrington, he meant well, and had splendid
lung-power, but his theology was too sectarian to suit a mixed body of
listeners embracing all shades of thought and no-thought.

Supposing Mr. Ramsey to have put forth all his power that morning--and I
have no reason to doubt that he did so--I deliberately say that I should
not hesitate to take my own boy down to hear him, because I feel that
even his immature mind would be able to realize how little there was to
be said against Christianity, if that were all.

CHAPTER XXXII.

AN "INDESCRIBABLE PHENOMENON."

When the bulk of the London Press elects to gush over anything or
anybody, there are at all events, prima facie grounds for believing that
there is someth