ABSTRACT
Mary Augusta Ward's Robert Elsmere was one of the very best-selling novels of the nineteenth-century. Robert Elsmere deals with the fairly common Victorian crisis of faith occasioned by the failing belief in the historical veracity of the Bible. In any event, the truth is that Robert Elsmere and "The New Reformation" were an important part of the penetration and popularization of German critical theology in England. William Gladstone understands the rhetorical purpose of Robert Elsmere to be to expel the preternatural element from Christianity, to destroy its dogmatic structure, yet to keep intact the moral and spiritual results. In addition to a theological reception in the periodicals, there were at least twenty sermons delivered specifically on Robert Elsmere between 1888 and 1890. Ward's treatment of biblical narrative in Robert Elsmere and the implications of that treatment are fundamentally different from Matthew Arnold.
