utterly defeated in modern
philosophy and theology than Dean Mansel's attempt to show that God's
love, justice, &c., are different in kind from ours. Mill and Maurice,
from totally alien points of view, have shown up the preposterous
nature of the notion.

"(3) A good deal of what you have thought is, I fancy, based on a
strange forgetfulness of your former experience. If you have known
Christ--(whom to know is eternal life)--and that you have known Him I
am certain--can you really say that a few intellectual difficulties,
nay, a few moral difficulties if you will, are able at once to
obliterate the testimony of that higher state of being?

"Why, the keynote of all my theology is that Christ is lovable because,
and _just_ because, He is the perfection of all that I know to be noble
and generous, and loving, and tender, and true. If an angel from heaven
brought me a gospel which contained doctrines that would not stand the
test of such perfect lovableness--doctrines hard, or cruel, or
unjust--I should reject him and his trumpery gospel with scorn, knowing
that neither could be Christ's. Know Christ and judge religions by Him;
don't judge Him by religions, and then complain because they find
yourself looking at Him through a blood-coloured glass."

"I am saturating myself with Maurice, who is the antidote given by God
to this age against all dreary doublings and temptings of the devil to
despair."

Many a one, in this age of controversy over all things once held
sacred, has found peace and new light on this line of thought, and has
succeeded in thus reconciling theological doctrines with the demands of
the conscience for love and justice in a world made by a just and
loving God. I could not do so. The awakening to what the world was, to
the facts of human misery, to the ruthless tramp of nature and of
events over the human heart, making no difference between innocent and
guilty--the shock had been too great for the equilibrium to be restored
by arguments that appealed to the emotions and left the intellect
unconvinced. Months of this long-drawn-out mental anguish wrought their
natural effects on physical health, and at last I broke down
completely, and lay for weeks helpless and prostrate, in raging and
unceasing head-pain, unable to sleep, unable to bear the light, lying
like a log on the bed, not unconscious, but indifferent to everything,
consciousness centred, as it were, in the ceaseless pain. The doctor
tried e