ing's most genial inventions--the great Bishop himself, and that if
Gigadibs were not present we could never have seen him at the particular
angle at which he presents himself in his condescending play with truths
and half-truths and quarter-truths, adapted to a smaller mind than his
own. The sixteenth century gave us a Montaigne, and the seventeenth
century a Pascal. Why should not the nineteenth century of mundane
comforts, of doubt troubled by faith, and faith troubled by doubt,
produce a new type--serious yet humorous--in an episcopal
Pascal-Montaigne?

Browning's moral sympathies, we may rest assured, do not go with one
who like Blougram finds satisfaction in things realised on earth; one
who declines--at least as he represents himself for the purposes of
argument--to press forward to things which he cannot attain but might
nobly follow after. But Browning's intellectual interest is great in
seeing all that a Blougram can say for himself; and as a destructive
piece of criticism directed against the position of a Gigadibs what he
says may really be effective. The Bishop frankly admits that the
unqualified believer, the enthusiast, is more fortunate than he; he,
Sylvester Blougram, is what he is, and all that he can do is to make the
most of the nature allotted to him. That there has been a divine
revelation he cannot absolutely believe; but neither can he absolutely
disbelieve. Unbelief is sterile; belief is fruitful, certainly for this
world, probably for the next, and he elects to believe. Having chosen to
believe, he cannot be too pronounced and decisive in his faith; he will
never attempt to eliminate certain articles of the _credenda_, and so
"decrassify" his faith, for to this process, if once begun, there is no
end; having donned his uniform, he will wear it, laces and spangles and
all. True, he has at times his chill fits of doubt; but is not this the
probation of faith? Does not a life evince the ultimate reality that is
within us? Are not acts the evidence of a final choice, of a deepest
conviction? And has he not given his vote for the Christian religion?

With me faith means perpetual unbelief
Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot,
Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe.

When the time arrives for a beatific vision Blougram will be ready to
adapt himself to the new state of things. Is not the best pledge of his
capacity for future adaptation to a new environment this--tha