8o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nowhere but in the Roman Church could you find any real breakwater 

 against an incredulity which could survive even the aspirations of so 

 noble a nature as hers. And as I listened to this eloquent exposition 

 with one ear, the sound of Professor Tyndall's eloquent Irish voice, 

 descanting on the proposal for a " prayer-gauge," which had lately 

 been made in the " Contemporary Review," by testing the efficacy of 

 prayer on a selected hospital ward, captivated the other. Everything 

 alike spoke of the extraordinary fermentation of opinion in the society 

 around us. Moral and intellectual " yeast " was as hard at work mul- 

 tiplying its fungoid forms in the men who met at that table as even 

 in the period of the Renaissance itself. 



I was very much struck then, and frequently afterward, by the 

 marked difference between the expression of the Roman Catholic 

 members of our society and all the others. No men could be more 

 different among themselves than Dr. Ward and Father Dalgairns and 

 Archbishop Manuing, all of them converts to the Roman Church. 

 But, nevertheless, all had upon them that curious stamp of definite 

 spiritual authority which I have never noticed on any faces but those 

 of Roman Catholics, and of Roman Catholics who have passed through 

 a pretty long period of subjection to the authority they acknowledge. 

 In the Metaphysical Society itself there was every type of spiritual 

 and moral expression. The wistful and sanguine, I had almost said 

 hectic idealism, of James Hinton struck me much more than anything 

 he contrived to convey by his remarks. The noble and steadfast but 

 somewhat melancholy faith which seemed to be sculptured on Dr. 

 Martineau's massive brow, shaded off into wistfulness in the glance of 

 his eyes. Professor Huxley, who always had a definite standard for 

 every question which he regarded as discussable at all, yet made you 

 feel that his slender definite creed in no respect represented the crav- 

 ings of his large nature. Professor Tyndall's eloquent addresses fre- 

 quently culminated with some pathetic indication of the mystery which 

 to him surrounded the moral life. Mr. Fitzjames Stephen's gigantic 

 force, expended generally in some work of iconoclasm, always gave 

 me the impression that he was revenging himself on what he could 

 not believe, for the disappointment he had felt in not being able to 

 retain the beliefs of his youth. But in the countenances of our Roman 

 Catholic members there was no wistfulness rather an expression which 

 I might almost describe as a blending of grateful humility with invol- 

 untary satiety genuine humility, genuine thankfulness for the au- 

 thority on which they anchored themselves ; but something also of a 

 feeling of the redundance of that authority, and of the redundance of 

 those provisions for their spiritual life of which almost all our other 

 members seemed to feel that they had but a bare and scanty pasturage. 



Dr. Ward, who was to read the paper of the evening, struck me as 

 one of our most unique members. His mind was, to his own appre- 

 hension at least, all strong lights and dark shadows. Either he was 



