That way Over the mountain, which who stands upon Is apt to doubt if it be meant for road; While, if he views it from the waste itself, Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow, Not vague, mistakeable! what's a break or two Seen from the unbroken desert either side? (ll. 197-203.) The Bishop would go yet further, and suggest that the inevitable doubts and questionings of the earnest believer are in themselves but a means of strengthening faith: this being so, what should restrain him from entering the Church's fold? What if the breaks themselves should prove at last The most consummate of contrivances To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith? And so we stumble at truth's very test! (ll. 205-208.) Since consistent unbelief is at least as impossible as consistent faith, the conclusion follows that life must be either one of "faith diversified by doubt," or of "doubt diversified by faith." Well, he has chosen one, let Gigadibs enjoy the other--if he can. V. Which life is preferable, that which calls the chess-board white, the life of faith (in so far as faith is possible); or that which calls the chess-board black, the life of doubt? The predominating (though by no means absolute) influence of belief or of unbelief, determines the lines on which character and life alike shall develop. Now, the Bishop asserts that for him belief will bring, nay, has indeed brought, what he most desires in life--"power, peace, pleasantness, and length of days." If Gigadibs suggests that in his case unbelief will bring the satisfaction which belief affords his companion of the dinner-table, then the Bishop demurs. The faith of which he makes profession is calculated to meet all exigencies--faith is in short his "waking life." The scepticism of the journalist is, on the contrary, void of all practical utility. Should he wish to live consistently he must cut himself off from those everyday demands of life to which faith is an absolute requisite. He must "live to sleep." And here the Bishop emphasizes an obvious, though not commonly recognized fact--a powerful argument in favour of faith--in the abstract, at least. He who professes himself a sceptic in matters spiritual, is yet compelled to the exercise of faith in each act of practical life. Mutual confidence abolished between man and man, business transactions become impossible, and mercantile activity is brought to a standstill. Belief involved in matters such as these, must, would the sceptic prove consistent, be cast overboard with the other faiths of his childhood: and the active man of the world becomes "bed-ridden." Amongst the temporal advantages which the Bishop accounts as resulting from his profession, first rank is accorded "the world's estimation, which is half the fight," to gain which nothing less than a positive confession of unswerving faith is required. Hence circumstances have forced from him the assertions: