, 1888-12-22
"RObeTt EIsmerc.''
Victoria Weekly ColoniS0

tctOFt6 " eefty C0tOnlSt)
'Robert ElSmeYe' has attracted a crea-
ter share Of public attention that any book
which has been published in England for
a long time. One reason of this was. per.
haps, because it was reviewed by Mr..
Gladstone. When so eminent Il man as
he considered it good enough and import.
tan enough to notice in 50 public a man.
ner many concluded that they ought to
read it. The book, too, has literary merit
OLA high class and W0uld have been wide
" read if Mr.. Gladstone had never writ
ten a word about it. The story is an
exceedingly interesting one and it is pow
erlully told. But, in our opinion, the
chief reason, why "Robert ElSmere" is 50
widely read and so much talked about is
that 1t is a book for the times. 1t deals
with what very many are thinking about,
and it expresses what thousands would
like to say. We live in an enquiring age.
People in all places and of every class are
asking for the reason OF this and that.
W hat ordinary people Il generation or two
ago heard and believed without question
as a matter OF course, many of THAI class
o hesitate to accept without some evil
dence of its truth. We find mcn-and
women too-not of the scholarly class bv
"Il HlN"'N, NutNtIDHIiS lHC ltuIu VI dllIlOSU
everything they have been taught in Sun.
day school and in church. One finds one
doctrine difficult Of belief, and another
cannot see the r~eaSonableneSS Of some
tenet which his church asks him to accept.
The ordinary proofs adduced and reasons
given do not satisfy them. Their religious
faith is shaken and they are in trouble
about their spiritual condition. In Robert
ElSmere' they find a man who is in the
same condition as themselves. He, like
them, has cOEverSed with ScepticS and is
at a loss for arguments and facts to meet
their objections. His inability 70 dissolve
the doubts that are suggested to him eau
SEES him much pain and suffering. They
are in the same condition. Like him, they
are most unwilling to lose the faith which
they imagine they once possessed, and
like him, they are most reluctant to plunge
into the darkness that they feel is before
them. The sorrow which their confession
of doubt or unbelief will give the friends
they esteem and the relations they love,
is one of the most painful elements of the
struggle in which they are engaged. They
see all this most wildly depicted in 'ERob-
ert Elsmere.P Their %Sympathies are awak-
ened. The grief of Elsemere's wife when
she discovers that her husband has depar-
ted from the faith of his fathers-the faith
which she believes to be unassailable and
which has throughout her whole conscious
existence been her hope and her c~onsoIa-
ton, is but a faithful picture of what they
know would be felt by those whom they
dearly love if they only knew that they
had become Unbelievers. This, we think,
rather than the pleasure that is felt when
rading a well-written story, is what can
SEES 'Robert ElSmere" to have such an
attraction for numbers of nominal Chris
tians in every community. They have, to
a greater or less extent, been under the
same Influence as Robert Elsmere and his
experience has been theirs. Very few
have the moral courage to do what Els
mere did, to make their doubts known and