372 GEOEGE JOHN EOMANES 1804 



read to himself in his own careful and student- 

 like fashion. He also wrote some notes of advice 

 to his boys. 



At this time he began to make notes for a work 

 which he intended to be a supplement or an answer 

 to the ' Candid Examination of Theism.' As he went 

 on, his notes grew — so it seemed to one who read 

 them — increasingly nearer Faith, but of them the 

 world can now judge. 



He said one day, while scribbling down notes, 'If 

 anything happens to me before I can work them up 

 into a book, give them to Gore. He will understand.' 



Nothing can be more erroneous than to suppose 

 that the change in point of view was sudden, or due 

 to any fear of death, or that it caused mental suffer- 

 ing to the author of ' Thoughts on Eeligion,' or that 

 he was influenced by anyone, priest or layman. 



There will always be unconscious influence, and it 

 probably was not altogether in vain that two or three 

 of Mr. Eomanes' greatest and most intimate friends 

 were Christian as well as intellectual men. But of 

 influence and argument and persuasion, as most 

 people imagine them, there was nothing. Discus- 

 sions many, during the past years, but to these he 

 owed little. 



A dear friend once wrote of him : ' I think of him 

 as one of the cross-bearers of the world, and perhaps 

 among those who are chosen to bear the heaviest .... 

 one of those through whose suffering the real progress 

 of humanity is worked out. And perhaps there is 

 no greater, stranger, suffering than the suffering of 

 doubt. No cross is harder to bear than that which 

 he is bearing, nor, I think, is he bearing it blindly or 

 in the dark. I venture to think that he has really 

 much more of true faith than he at all suspects, and 



