16 JULY 1904, Page 16

POETRY.

THE ROMANCE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

[" The Bible in most parts, is a cheerful hook it is our piping theologies, tracts, sermons that are dull and dowie."—Bossaf Louts SfEVENSUN, Letters, I., 399.] 0 PALE-FACED Theologian whose soft hands

And ink-stained fingers never gripped the oar Or swung the hammer; weary with your books, How can your slumbering senses comprehend The breadth and virile purpose of the men Who bore their joyous tale through quickened lands To the great heart of Rome : the shipwreck'd Paul, Wandering Ulysses-like to far-off isles And barbarous peoples; or those peasant kings, Who ever 'mid voluptuous cities wore No mediaeval halo, but the air Of some free fisher battling with the wind That blows across the Galilean hills ?

ELLIOTT E. MILLS. ELLIOTT E. MILLS.