than the mole groping "amid its veritable muck." When Bishop Blougram makes the same decision--in favour of faith as opposed to scepticism--the motive he alleges is one which might well be ascribed to the second speaker of _Easter Day_. The choice is influenced, not by aspirations which refuse to be checked, but by considerations of prudence touching a possible future. Doubt may be wrong--there's judgment, life to come! With just that chance, I dare not [_i.e._ relinquish faith]. (ll. 477-478.) The attitude of the second speaker towards life generally recalls, indeed, not infrequently the professed opportunism of the Bishop. With Blougram also he fears the effects upon the stability of his faith of a critical investigation of its tenets. Hence, the reproach of Section XI, addressed to the first speaker, whose questionings threaten to disturb the earlier condition of "trusting ease." The reply of Section XII points out that, the eyes having been once opened, to close them wilfully, living in a determined reliance on hopes proved only too probably fallacious, is to adopt a pagan rather than a Christian conception of life. II. Section XIII constitutes the introduction to the second part of the poem in which is given the history of the revelation to which the narrator ascribes his realization of the momentous nature of the faith which he and his companion alike profess; and of the life which should be lived upon the lines of that faith. Vivid as the account of the Vision in _Christmas Eve_ is the description by the first speaker of the experiences of the night preceding the dawn of Easter Day, three years ago; when, into the midst of his reflections touching the possibility of a near approach of a Day of Judgment, there broke that tremendous conflagration marking the crisis when man shall awaken to realities from That insane dream we take For waking now, because it seems. (ll. 480-481.) And the portrayal of the Judgment which follows is, in character, just that which we should expect from the pen of the writer who held that "the development of a soul, little else is worth study." How far the conception is indeed Browning's own will be best considered in estimating the extent of the dramatic element--in Lecture VI. To trace the history of this particular soul awaiting judgment is our immediate object. In a position of personal isolation from his kind, face to face with his Creator, to that lonely soul "began the Judgment Day." The sentence from without was unnecessary to him who should pass judgment upon himself. The intuition burned away All darkness from [his] spirit too; (ll. 550-551.)