Having chosen to believe, he cannot be too pronounced and decisive in his faith; he will never attempt to eliminate certain articles of the _credenda_, and so "decrassify" his faith, for to this process, if once begun, there is no end; having donned his uniform, he will wear it, laces and spangles and all.

True, he has at times his chill fits of doubt; but is not this the probation of faith?
Does not a life evince the ultimate reality that is within us?
Are not acts the evidence of a final choice, of a deepest conviction?
And has he not given his vote for the Christian religion?
With me faith means perpetual unbelief Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot, Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe.
When the time arrives for a beatific vision Blougram will be ready to adapt himself to the new state of things.

Is not the best pledge of his capacity for future adaptation to a new environment this--that being in the world he is worldly?
We must not lose the training of each successive stage of evolution by for ever projecting ourselves half way into the next.

So rolls on the argument to its triumphant conclusion-- Fool or knave?
Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave When there's a thousand diamond weights between?
Only at the last, were it not that we know that there is a firmer ground for Blougram than this on which he takes his stand in after-dinner controversy, we might be inclined to close the subject by adapting to its uses the title of a pamphlet connected with the Kingsley and Newman debate--"But was not Mr Gigadibs right after all ?" Worsted in sword-play he certainly was; but the soul may have its say, and the soul, armed with its instincts of truth, is a formidable challenger.
FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 63: Letters of R.B.and E.B.B., i.

388.] [Footnote 64: Mrs Orr's Handbook to Browning's Works, 266, note.