PREFACE.

THE subjects discussed in the following pages are admitted to have excited the keenest interest, and are deserving of very careful and earnest attention. They are religious, and consequently, to a greater or less degree, affect all. No one can entirely withdraw himself from their consideration. In the newspapers, in ordinary conversation, and in all classes of society, they find a place. Around them controversy has, alas! fiercely raged-bitterness, anger, and want of charity have been engendered, prejudice has been backed up by ignorance, and passion fostered by misrepresentation.

To treat these subjects fairly is indeed a bold adventure; and yet, to do this, and to do it, for the most part, not irreverently, has been my main object. I say for the most part not irreverently, because I am conscious that the ebullitions of temper which I have represented one of the disputants as occasionally displaying may be considered as inconsistent with this desire; but notwithstanding the truth of the well known proverb, Qui s'excuse, s'accuse, I cannot but plead the exigencies of the case. There is no odium so terrible as the odium theologicum,

and few can have mixed much in the world without discovering how rabid many become when approaching religious topics admitting of controversy and difference of opinion-how these seem to lose all their ordinary courtesy, equanimity, and self-control-and how one such character is sure to appear whenever any disputation upon religious subjects arises. Therefore in endeavouring to, as it were, report these conferences, I felt that the representation of such an one could scarcely be omitted without sacrificing probability and truth.

In conclusion, I can only say that I lay no claim. to originality. Much that is advanced in the following pages has been better and more fully put before the public by writers well known in the arena of theological polemics-but not, so far as I am aware, in the same form-that of conversation; the advantage of which is that many may, perhaps, be induced to read a book of this unpretending character who would shrink from the perusal of an essay or treatise upon such an abstruse subject as, e.g., 'The Real Presence' and so if I succeed thus in setting some of these to think for themselves, and then lead them to study these questions thoroughly in books of a more dogmatic and learned kind, I shall be more than repaid for the task I have taken in hand, and may reasonably hope that my labour-such as it is has not been altogether in vain.

December, 1873.

F. W. K.

IN an old-fashioned straggling house, such as may constantly be seen on the outskirts of our large provincial towns, surrounded by shrubberies, well-cultivated gardens, and extensive paddock, lived Colonel De Lorne, who, besides being the Vicar's churchwarden, a considerable landowner, and county magistrate, was esteemed by the worthy folk of Hartham as their chief, and as general referee in all their disputes, parochial, municipal, and political.

Colonel De Lorne was, at this time, about five and forty years of age; of a genial and amiable disposition; of some literary and artistic pretensions; of refined tastes, and who, since his retirement from the Army, had devoted himself, not only to grappling with the difficult problems appertaining to the management of the county gaols, unions, infirmaries, and such like, but had taken a prominent, and not unsuccessful, part in carrying out many reforms, sani

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