and Saturday, and was therefore buried on Wednesday, just before sunset. And this is confirmed by the text which says that the disciples hastened to bury Christ on the day of crucifixion, because the next day was the day of preparation for one of the high Sabbaths, which the early church, which instituted the observance of the first day, confounded with the weekly Sabbath, not knowing that a high Sabbath could not fall on the weekly Sabbath. To this demonstration Ruskin, always deferent to the literal interpretation of the gospel, could not make a defense; the creed had so bound him to the letter that the least enlargement of the stricture broke it, and he rejected the whole tradition,--not only the Sunday Sabbath, but the authority of the ecclesiastical interpretation of the texts. He said, "If they have deceived me in this, they have probably deceived me in all," and he came to the conclusion of rejecting all. This I had not conceived as a possible consequence of the criticism of his creed, and it gave me great pain; for I was not a skeptic, as he, I have since learned, for a time became. It was useless to argue with him for the spirit of the gospel; he had always held to its infallibility and the exactitude of doctrine, and his indignation was too strong to be pacified. He returned somewhat, I have heard, to his old beliefs in later years, as old men will to the beliefs of their youth, and his Christianity was too sincere and profound for a matter of mistaken credence in mere formalities ever to affect its substance, and the years which followed showed that in no essential trait had the religious foundations of his character been moved. For myself, I was still a sincere believer in the substantial accuracy of the body of Christian doctrine, and the revolt of Ruskin from it gave me great pain. My own entire liberation from the burdens of futile beliefs had yet to come, and at that time he went further than I could go with him. But we never discussed theological matters any more.