innermost experiences are only outside of the man—­have to be met by the inner confidence of the spirit, resting in God and resisting every impulse to act according to that which appears to it instead of that which it believes.  Hence, Faith is thus allegorically represented:  but I had better give you Spenser’s description of her—­Here is the ’Fairy Queen’:—­

   ’She was arrayed all in lily white,
    And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,
    With wine and water filled up to the height,
    In which a serpent did himself enfold,
    That horror made to all that did behold;
    But she no whit did change her constant mood.’

This serpent stands for the dire perplexity of things about us, at which yet Faith will not blench, acting according to what she believes, and not what shows itself to her by impression and appearance.”

“I admit all that you say,” returned Mr Stoddart.  “But still the practical conclusion—­which I understand to be, that the inward garrison must be fortified—­is considerably incomplete unless we buttress it with the final how.  How is it to be fortified?  For,

   ’I have as much of this in art as you,
    But yet my nature could not bear it so.’

(You see I read Shakespeare as well as you, Mr Walton.) I daresay, from a certain inclination to take the opposite side, and a certain dislike to the dogmatism of the clergy—­I speak generally—­I may have appeared to you indifferent, but I assure you that I have laboured much to withdraw my mind from the influence of money, and ambition, and pleasure, and to turn it to the contemplation of spiritual things.  Yet on the first attack of a depressing illness I cease to be a gentleman, I am rude to ladies who do their best and kindest to serve me, and I talk to the friend who comes to cheer and comfort me as if he were an idle vagrant who wanted to sell me a worthless book with the recommendation of the pretence that he wrote it himself.  Now that I am in my right mind, I am ashamed of myself, ashamed that it should be possible for me to behave so, and humiliated yet besides that I have no ground of assurance that, should my illness return to-morrow, I should not behave in the same manner the day after.  I want to be always in my right mind.  When I am not, I know I am not, and yet yield to the appearance of being.”

“I understand perfectly what you mean, for I fancy I know a little more of illness than you do.  Shall I tell you where I think the fault of your self-training lies?”

“That is just what I want.  The things which it pleased me to contemplate when I was well, gave me no pleasure when I was ill.  Nothing seemed the same.”