hung very thick about him even to the end of his Cheltenham life, seem suddenly to drop off, and leave him, without a trace remaining on his mind, in the full use and delight of his new liberty.  We cannot say that we are more inclined to agree with him in his later stage than in his earlier.  And the rapid transformation of a most dogmatic and zealous Evangelical into an equally positive and enthusiastic “Broad Churchman” does not seem a natural or healthy process, and suggests impatience and self-confidence more than self-command and depth.  But we get, without doubt, to a real man—­a man whose words have a meaning, and stand for real things; whose language no longer echoes the pale dreary commonplaces of a school, but reveals thoughts which he has thought for himself, and the power of being able “to speak as he will.”  His mind seems to expand, almost at a bound, to all the manifold variety of interests of which the world is full.  His letters on his own doings, on the books and subjects of the day, on the remarks or the circumstances of his friends, his criticism, his satire, his controversial or friendly discussions, are full of energy, versatility, refinement, boldness, and strength; and his remarkable power of clear, picturesque, expressive diction, not unworthy of our foremost masters of English, appears all at once, as it were, full grown.  It is difficult to believe, as we read the later portions of his life, that we are reading about the same man who appeared, so short a time before, at the beginning, to promise at best to turn into a popular Evangelical preacher, above the average, perhaps, in taste and power, but not above the average in freedom from cramping and sour prejudices.

Mr. Robertson had hold of some great truths, and he applied them, both in his own thoughts and self-development and in his popular teaching, with great force.  He realised two things with a depth and intensity which give an awful life and power to all he said about religion.  He realised with singular and pervading keenness that which a greater man than he speaks of as the first and the great discovery of the awakened soul—­” the thought of two, and two only, supreme and luminously self-evident beings, himself and the Creator.”  “Alone with God,” expresses the feeling which calmed his own anxieties and animated his religious appeals to others.  And he realised with equal earnestness the great truth which is spoken of by Mr. Brooke, though in language which to us has an unpleasant sound, in the following extract: 

Yet, notwithstanding all this—­which men called while he lived, and now when he is dead will call, want of a clear and well-defined system of theology—­he had a fixed basis for his teaching.  It was the Divine-human Life of Christ.  It is the fourth principle mentioned in his letter, “that belief in the human character of Christ must be antecedent to belief in His divine origin.”  He felt that an historical Christianity was absolutely essential;