A clergyman, it seems to me, should be better able than other men to cast aside that which is merely accidental, either in his own character, or in the character of the age to which he belongs, and to apprehend that which is essential and eternal.  His acceptance of fixed creeds, which belong as much to one generation as another, and which have survived amid all changes and convulsions, should raise him especially above the temptation to exalt the fashion of his own time, or of any past one; above the affectation of the obsolete, above slavery to the present, and above that strange mixture of both which some display, who weep because the beautiful visions of the Past are departed, and admire themselves for being able to weep over them—­and dispense with them.  His reverence for the Bible should make him feel that we most realise our own personality when we most connect it with that of our fellow-men; that acts are not to be contemplated apart from the actor; that more of what is acceptable to the God of Truth may come forth in men striving with infinite confusion, and often uttering words like the east-wind, than in those who can discourse calmly and eloquently about a righteousness and mercy, which they know only by hearsay.  The belief which a minister of God has in the eternity of the distinction between right and wrong should especially dispose him to recognise that distinction apart from mere circumstance and opinion.  The confidence which he must have that the life of each man, and the life of this world, is a drama, in which a perfectly Good and True Being is unveiling His own purposes, and carrying on a conflict with evil, which must issue in complete victory, should make him eager to discover in every portion of history, in every biography, a divine ‘Morality’ and ’Mystery’—­a morality, though it deals with no abstract personages—­a mystery, though the subject of it be the doings of the most secular men.

The subject of this Play is certainly a dangerous one, it suggests questions which are deeply interesting at the present time.  It involves the whole character and spirit of the Middle Ages.  A person who had not an enthusiastic admiration for the character of Elizabeth would not be worthy to speak of her; it seems to me, that he would be still less worthy, if he did not admire far more fervently that ideal of the female character which God has established, and not man—­which she imperfectly realised—­which often exhibited itself in her in spite of her own more confused, though apparently more lofty, ideal; which may be manifested more simply, and therefore more perfectly, in the England of the nineteenth century, than in the Germany of the thirteenth.  To enter into the meaning of self-sacrifice—­to sympathise with any one who aims at it—­not to be misled by counterfeits of it—­not to be unjust to the truth which may be mixed with those counterfeits—­is a difficult task, but a necessary one for any one who takes this work in hand.  How far our author