s, as well as in the Graduating Circle of
Progressive Gladiators, it was known that Mrs. Romulus maintained a
hideous doctrine subversive of that sacrament of the family which raises
the life of man above the life of the wolf and ape.

Yet of the views and endeavors of the great mass of these earnest people
we may speak only with honor and gratitude. Much good work done in that
distant year of grace remains with us to-day. Who is more practical than
the idealist? If I read history aright, it is only the white-heat of
fanaticism which brands a true word into the tough hide of society. A
supreme pursuit of one virtue by the few can alone neutralize a supreme
devotion by the many to the opposite vice. Let us rejoice that some men
and women are under the necessity of thinking no good thought which
they do not attempt to utilize at all hazards. Also, it is well not to
repine overmuch because many conscientious citizens cannot induce a
concentration of vision which directs all feeling, hissing-hot, into one
channel. They save us from the intolerable monotony of a whole world of
heroes, and leave you and me, good reader, in blessed freedom to demand
the theoretically right and ignore the practically expedient.

To the beginnings of this angry perturbation the Reverend Charles
Clifton had returned, after abandoning the Vannelle manuscript under
circumstances detailed in the last number of this magazine. To one in
his position of mind it was of the highest importance to come upon some
work that he was fitted to do. It was his unhappy destiny to be placed
just where such power as he had could accomplish nothing. Timid by
nature, a cautious lover of compromise, self-baffled in a brilliant
flutter for truth, what had he to do in a vulgar conflict of opinion, in
a common, healthy play of free thought and speech? Peering off into
immensity until he had become utterly adrift in theology, the minister
found himself too feeble to stand upon the moral basis of some practical
creed. His regular parish duties afforded but slender occupation; he had
the gift of speaking extemporaneously, or from such notes as might be
made upon the back of a letter half an hour before church; he was not
called upon to do more catechizing or visiting than was agreeable to his
mood. He accordingly yielded to an indolence of disposition which
detained his vanishing illusions, and indulged in such studies as served
to prolong the barren contemplation which had