havoc with the intellect that men cease to attach any living meaning to words, and come to deal habitually in those unrealized phrases which we call cant. But whatever may have been his excuses to his conscience, he was saying a very noxious thing to the simple, gallant souls who heard him. Many of them must have been well aware that they had no faith that would have satisfied the Bishop of London, and that whatever religious ideas lurked in their minds were of very little use to them in struggling with the temptations of a sailor's life. Where was the sense in telling them that the ordinary motives which make for good conduct--prudence, self-respect, loyalty, etc., etc.--are of no avail, and that they must inevitably be bad men if they had not "found religion"? If such talk does no positive harm, it is only because men have learnt to discount the patter of theology. Yet here we find Mr. Wells, after vigorously disclaiming any participation in the Bishop's beliefs, falling into the common form of episcopal patter, and telling me, for example--a benighted but quite well-intentioned heathen--that I can do no good in my generation unless I believe in a God whom he and a number of Eastern sages, Parthians, Medes, Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia, have recently "synthetized" out of their inner consciousnesses! It is not Mr. Wells's fault if I do not abandon the steep and thorny track of austerity which I have hitherto pursued, invest all my spare cash either in whiskey or in whiskey shares, and go for my philosophy in future to the inspiring author of _Musings without Method_ in "Blackwood."