as Mr. Gladstone, I believe, objects to tobacco, I was
quite willing to smoke for both. But I have had, once again, to
discover that the adage that whoso seeks peace will ensue it, is a
somewhat hasty generalisation. The renowned warrior with whom it is my
misfortune to be opposed in most things has dug up the axe and is on
the war-path once more. The weapon has been wielded with all the
dexterity which long practice has conferred on a past master in craft,
whether of wood or state. And I have reason to believe that the
simpler sort of the great tribe which he heads, imagine that my scalp
is already on its way to adorn their big chief's wigwam. I am glad
therefore to be able to relieve any anxieties which my friends may
entertain without delay. I assure them that my skull retains its
normal covering, and that though, naturally, I may have felt alarmed,
nothing serious has happened. My doughty adversary has merely
performed a war dance, and his blows have for the most part cut the
air. I regret to add, however, that by misadventure, and I am afraid I
must say carelessness, he has inflicted one or two severe contusions
on himself.

When the noise of approaching battle roused me from the dreams of
peace which occupy my retirement, I was glad to observe (since I must
fight) that the campaign was to be opened upon a new field. When the
contest raged over the Pentateuchal myth of the creation, Mr.
Gladstone's manifest want of acquaintance with the facts and
principles involved in the discussion, no less than with the best
literature on his own side of the subject, gave me the uncomfortable
feeling that I had my adversary at a disadvantage. The sun of science,
at my back, was in his eyes. But, on the present occasion, we are
happily on an equality. History and Biblical criticism are as much, or
as little, my vocation as they are that of Mr. Gladstone; the blinding
from too much light, or the blindness from too little, may be presumed
to be equally shared by both of us.

Mr. Gladstone takes up his new position in the country of the
Gadarenes. His strategic sense justly leads him to see that the
authority of the teachings of the synoptic Gospels, touching the
nature of the spiritual world, turns upon the acceptance, or the
rejection, of the Gadarene and other like stories. As we accept, or
repudiate, such histories as that of the possessed pigs, so shall we
accept, or reject, the witness of the synoptics to such miraculous
i