‘I suppose it isn’t fair,’ the priest said, ’to judge a man through his interviewer; but if this interviewer doesn’t misrepresent Mr. Walter Poole, Mr. Walter Poole is what is commonly known as a very superior person.  He would appear from this paper,’ the priest said, ’to be a man between thirty and forty, not many years older than myself.’  The priest’s thoughts floated away back into the past, and, returning suddenly with a little start to the present, he continued reading the interview, learning from it that Mr. Walter Poole’s conversation was usually gentle, like a quiet river, and very often, like a quiet river, it rushed rapidly when Mr. Walter Poole became interested in his subject.

‘How very superior all this is,’ the priest said.  ’The river of thought in him,’ the interviewer continued, ’is deep or shallow, according to the need of the moment.  If, for instance, Mr. Walter Poole is asked if he be altogether sure that it is wise to disturb people in their belief in the traditions and symbols that have held sway for centuries, he will answer quickly that if truth lies behind the symbols and traditions, it will be in the interest of the symbols and traditions to inquire out the truth, for blind belief—­in other words, faith—­is hardly a merit, or if it be a merit it is a merit that cannot be denied to the savages who adore idols.  But the civilized man is interested in his history, and the Bible deserves scientific recognition, for it has a history certainly and is a history.  “We are justified, therefore,” Mr. Walter Poole pleaded, “in seeking out the facts, and the search is conducted as much in the interests of theology as of science; for though history owes nothing to theology, it cannot be denied that theology owes a great deal to history."’

’He must have thought himself very clever when he made that remark to the interviewer,’ the priest muttered; and he walked up and down his room, thinking of Nora Glynn living in this unchristian atmosphere.

He picked up the paper again and continued reading, for he would have to write to Nora about Father O’Grady’s visit and about the interview in Illustrated England.

The interviewer inquired if Mr. Walter Poole was returning to Palestine, and Mr. Walter Poole replied that there were many places that he would like to revisit, Galilee, for instance, a country that St. Paul never seemed to have visited, which, to say the least, was strange.  Whereupon a long talk began about Paul and Jesus, Mr. Walter Poole maintaining that Paul’s teaching was identical with that of Jesus, and that Peter was a clown despised by Paul and Jesus.

‘How very superior,’ Father Oliver muttered—­how very superior.’  He read that Mr. Walter Poole was convinced that the three Synoptic Gospels were written towards the close of the first century; and one of the reasons he gave for this attribution was as in Matthew, chapter xxvii., verse 7, ’And they took counsel, and bought with them (the thirty pieces of silver) the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.  Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day’—­a passage which showed that the Gospel could not have been written till fifty or sixty years after the death of Jesus.