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THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING OF 
 TENNYSON'S ''IN MEMORIAMr 
 
By the same Author, 
 THE SPIRITUAL TEACHING 
 
 OF 
 
 THE HOLY GRAIL. 
 
 SIX LENTEN ADDRESSES. 
 
 Small Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 216. 
 
 "This is an unusual form in which to pre- 
 sent Lent teaching, and a very delightful one. 
 We are sure those who listened to these simple 
 and beautiful and spiritual addresses found 
 themselves not only edified so far as the life of 
 their souls was concerned, but also greatly 
 helped in their appreciation of what is perhaps 
 the most beautiftil portion of the Arthurian 
 legend." — Guardian. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. 
 
t'it ^pititmi ^eac^in^ 
 
 OF 
 
 Ztm^0on*B "3n (YKlewomm/' 
 
 SIX LENTEN ADDRESSES. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. MORLEY STEVENSON, M.A., 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF WARRINGTON TRAINING COLLEGE. 
 
 Eonlroii : 
 
 WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & Co., 
 
 3, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS. 
 
^2>40 ^3 30 
 
 1904. 
 

 TO 
 
 MY DEAR COUSIN 
 
 AND LIFE-LONG FRIEND, 
 
 ANNA COLE, 
 
 I DEDICATE 
 THIS LITTLE BOOK. 
 
 019 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The kind reception accorded to my addresses 
 on "The Holy Grail" emboldens me to 
 publish these addresses on " In Memoriam." 
 
 They were delivered in substance in the 
 Churches of St. Margaret's, Prince's Road, 
 Liverpool, in St. Mary's, Grassendale, and in 
 the Chapel of the Training College, War- 
 rington, in Lent, 1904, but they have been 
 revised, and some additions made. I have 
 consulted several books, and, I hope, have 
 acknowledged all the quotations I have 
 made. 
 
 It would, however, be ungrateful if I did 
 not specially mention the great help I have 
 received from Mr. Masterman's thoughtful 
 work, "Tennyson, as a Religious Teacher." 
 
 The subjects suggested by "In Memo- 
 riam " must always be of the deepest interest 
 
viii. PREFACE, 
 
 to all thoughtful people. It is with fear and 
 reverence that one ventures to write on 
 Death and the Future Life, or to approach 
 the problems of Sorrow and Suffering. 
 
 I can only hope that these thoughts in- 
 spired by our great poet may be of some 
 small use and comfort to those who are kind 
 enough to read them. 
 
 My grateful acknowledgments are due to 
 Messrs. Macmillan for their courteous per- 
 mission to quote so freely from various 
 poems of Tennyson. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. SORROW AND SUFFERING i 
 
 II. DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE ... 22 
 
 III. DOUBT AND FAITH 42 
 
 IV. GOD ... 62 
 
 V. GOD AND HIS PURPOSE 78 
 
 VI. THE CHRIST 87 
 
^^ In Memoriam/' 
 
 I.— borrow mb buffering. 
 
 "TN 1850," says the late Mr. Gladstone, 
 X " Tennyson gave to the world, under 
 the title of ' In Memoriam,' perhaps the 
 richest oblation ever offered by the affec- 
 tion of friendship at the tomb of the 
 departed." 
 
 " The poem raised him above all the 
 poets of his time, and the book was appre- 
 ciated, read and loved by the greater part 
 of the English-speaking world." 
 
 True as this judgment is, the value of 
 this poem does not consist only in the mar- 
 vellous exhibition of true friendship which 
 it portrays but in the deep thoughts of a 
 great thinker — a seer — on some of those 
 
2 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 subjects which are of the gravest import 
 to every thoughtful person. 
 
 The underlying theme is that old story 
 of sorrow, suffering and perplexity which 
 has been told and is being told in varying 
 degrees in every human life, gradually 
 working itself out, as it ought always to 
 do, into resignation, peace, trust, and a 
 sure and certain hope of and for the 
 future. 
 
 The poem was written in memory of 
 Tennyson's great friend, Arthur Hallam, 
 who died suddenly and unexpectedly at 
 the early age of twenty-two. 
 
 " His powers seemed so exceptional that 
 his father " — the great historian — " who 
 was of all literary men the most sober and 
 balanced in his judgments, imagined him 
 capable of the greatest things. It was 
 thought that a splendid future was before 
 him, and his loss seemed to his friends to 
 be a loss to all mankind." ^ 
 
 In stanzas 109 — 113 we may read the 
 
 1 Stopford Brooke. 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING, 3 
 
 poet's glowing description of his friend. 
 
 His was 
 
 "A life that all the Muses deck'd 
 
 With gifts of grace, that might express 
 All-comprehensive tenderness, 
 All-subtilizing intellect." 
 
 His was 
 
 " High nature amorous of the good, 
 But touch'd with no ascetic gloom." 
 
 Of him Tennyson says — 
 
 " Thy converse drew us with delight, 
 The men of rathe and riper years : 
 The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, 
 Forgot his weakness in thy sight. 
 
 On thee the loyal-hearted hung. 
 
 The proud was half disarm'd of pride. 
 Nor cared the serpent at thy side 
 
 To flicker with his double tongue. 
 
 The stern were mild when thou wert by, 
 The flippant put himself to school 
 And heard thee, and the brazen fool 
 
 Was soften'd and he knew not why." 
 
 The friendship between Tennyson and 
 Hallam was of an intensity rarely found 
 
4 SORROW AND SUFFERING, 
 
 in modern life. " All their thoughts, 
 dreams, and aspirations, for the present 
 and the future, were shared together. It 
 seemed an affection that might defy the 
 shocks of time and the finger of change. 
 Then something intervened ; the ' fair com- 
 panionship ' was broken ; and the man he 
 loved was suddenly hurried out of sight. 
 Death was striking visibly in a manner 
 which drove his whole being into revolt 
 and fierce protest ; not coming as a wel- 
 come friend at the close of the long day's 
 toil, to round off and complete a well- 
 spent life ; not as the reply to persistent 
 prayer for relief from the burden of exist- 
 ence ; but unasked for and unbidden, defy- 
 ing, mocking, as it were, the intensity of 
 the love between them, striking at the 
 * human-hearted man ' with all his genius 
 just unfolding, with unfathomed possibili- 
 ties, with limitless affections and am- 
 bitions and desires, stricken down without 
 warning, and swept into the darkness with- 
 out a cry. One moment the two spirits 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. 5 
 
 were growing together without a barrier 
 between them ; the next one had dis- 
 appeared for ever and no answer 
 remained." ^ 
 
 The loss of such a friend was a terrible 
 blow to Tennyson, and for a while, as we 
 learn from his biography, " blotted out all 
 joy from his life." Hallam's remains were 
 brought to England and buried at Cleve- 
 don in Somersetshire, the Church of which 
 place overlooks a wide expanse of water 
 where the Severn flows into the Bristol 
 Channel. 
 
 A well-known and exquisite little poem 
 tells us something of Tennyson's grief: — 
 
 " Break, break, break 
 
 On thy cold, gray stones, O Sea ! 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me. 
 
 O well for the fisherman's boy 
 
 That he shouts with his sister at play ! 
 
 O well for the sailor lad 
 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 
 
 1 Masterman. 
 
6 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 And the stately ships go on 
 To their haven under the hill, 
 
 But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand 
 And the sound of a voice that is still ! 
 
 Break, break, break, 
 
 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 
 Will never come back to me." 
 
 When we come to the study of "In 
 Memoriam " we must remember that it is 
 not so much a poem as a collection of 
 poems, written at different times, and yet 
 fitly linked together as forming a com- 
 plete work, through which may be traced 
 the poet's conviction that sorrow, suffer- 
 ing and doubt will find answer and 
 gain relief only through faith in a GOD 
 of Love. 
 
 It will not be profitable therefore to con- 
 sider the poem in the order in which its 
 stanzas are written, but rather to listen to 
 the lessons which it has to teach us on cer- 
 tain subjects, while at the same time we 
 keep in mind the gradual progress which 
 we ought to perceive, the pilgrimage of the 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. 7 
 
 soul from the depths of sorrow and doubt 
 into the light of faith and the security of 
 hope. 
 
 Indeed, the idea of the poem can hardly 
 be described better than in the words in 
 which the Psalmist depicts the life of those 
 who go down to the sea in ships : 
 
 " They are carried up to the heaven, and 
 down again to the deep ; their soul melteth 
 away because of the trouble : they reel to 
 and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, 
 and are at their wits' end. So when 
 they cry unto the Lord in their trouble. 
 He delivereth them out of their distress ; 
 for He maketh the storm to cease, so that 
 the waves thereof are still. Then are they 
 glad thereof, because they are at rest, and 
 so He bringeth them unto the haven where 
 they would be." ^ 
 
 Our subject to-day is Sorrow and Suffer- 
 ing. The poem opens with the portrayal 
 of the anguish caused by the loss of the 
 poet's friend. 
 
 1 Psalm cvii. 26-30. 
 
8 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 In the second stanza he sees in the yew 
 tree an image of stubborn sorrow. The 
 old Churchyard yew, which seems to keep 
 its sombre foliage unchanged for centuries, 
 and unmoved by all the changes of the 
 different seasons, is a fit emblem of that 
 sorrow and gloom which seem as if they 
 would wrap round him for evermore. 
 
 In the next stanza it appears to him as if 
 sorrow, " Priestess in the vaults of death," 
 had distorted all Nature, as if all things 
 had been created in vain. 
 
 " A hollow form with empty hands." 
 Even in his sleep (stanza 4) " Clouds of 
 nameless trouble cross his eyes." 
 
 The first deep plunge into a great sor- 
 row produces a state of grief which seems 
 overwhelming. We read of such sorrow 
 as that of Jacob at the loss of his favourite 
 son, when " all his sons and all his 
 daughters rose up to comfort him ; but he 
 refused to be comforted " ; or of David at 
 the death of Absalom ; we listen sympa- 
 thetically to the pathos of his words, 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. g 
 
 "Would God that I had died for thee, 
 O Absalom, my son, my son " ; or we wit- 
 ness great sorrow in others, we note the 
 traces of grief in their faces, the chastened 
 submission of their lives, and our hearts 
 are stirred with compassion ; or we go to 
 Church and join in the recitation of the 
 Psalter, and repeat glibly those marvellous 
 descriptions of anguish and sorrow. Yet 
 for us life is on the whole bright and 
 happy ; we do not realize what sorrow 
 really means. At last the blow falls, per- 
 haps unexpectedly, suddenly, and in a 
 moment we understand what grief really 
 is, and it almost seems as if life were no 
 longer worth the living, as if there could 
 be no more happiness in this world. The 
 sombre character of the yew must be ours 
 for ever : our life must be dark, gloomy 
 and cold. 
 
 Nor can the well-meant attempts at con- 
 solation offered in the commonplace stock 
 phrases of the world be of any avail to 
 comfort us. 
 
10 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 "One writes that 'Other friends remain,' 
 That ' Loss is common to the race ' — 
 And common is the commonplace 
 And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 
 
 ' That loss is common Avould not make 
 My own less bitter, rather more : 
 Too common ! Never morning wore 
 
 To evening, but some heart did break.' 
 
 O somewhere, meek unconscious dove, 
 That sittest ranging golden hair : 
 And glad to find thyself so fair, 
 
 Poor child, that waitest for thy love ! 
 
 For now her father's chimney glows 
 
 In expectation of a guest : 
 
 And thinking ' this will please him best,' 
 She takes a riband or a rose ; 
 
 For he will see them on to-night ; 
 
 And with the thought her colour burns ; 
 
 And, having left the glass, she turns 
 Once more to set a ringlet right : 
 
 And, even when she turn'd, the curse 
 Had fallen, and her future lord 
 Was drown'd in passing through the ford. 
 
 Or kill'd in falling from his horse. 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. ii 
 
 O what to her shall be the end? 
 
 And what to me remains of ^ood ? 
 
 To her, perpetual maidenhood, 
 And unto me no second friend." 
 
 (Stanza 6.) 
 
 This is the very depth of sorrow, which 
 no human consolation can assuage. 
 
 Let us then approach this mystery with 
 all humility and reverence, and seek for 
 some lines of thought which may help us 
 to see in what spirit we may best meet the 
 trial. 
 
 First, we must try to understand that 
 sorrow and suffering have a distinct work 
 to do for individuals in particular and for 
 the world in general ; that even our Saviour 
 Himself was made " perfect through suffer- 
 ing," thereby setting an example for His 
 people ; that suffering is the chastisement, 
 the loving discipline which the Father 
 knows to be necessary for the child. When 
 we once grasp this truth, then we see that 
 sorrow and suffering are not to plunge us 
 into sullen despair, but are to educate us 
 
12 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 in holiness and to form our character in 
 sanctity, that they are the chisel which is 
 to let the angel out from the rough block of 
 our life, and hammer out the image and 
 likeness of GOD, which has been overlaid 
 and disfigured by sin. 
 
 Secondly, we must learn to accept the 
 truth that " GOD is Love," and that GOD is 
 " our Father." This was Tennyson's solu- 
 tion of the problem, and his message to 
 the world. He was able to sum up his 
 great poem in the words, " Strong Son of 
 God, Immortal Love." 
 
 When once we accept this, then " through 
 all the mysteries of suffering and sin and 
 death we can follow the beam of light 
 which lit upon the world in the life and 
 the Cross of Jesus, to the truth of the 
 divine love beyond them. In the joy of 
 human love, of the sunshine and the sea, 
 and the streams and the birds, we can re- 
 joice in it ; but in the sadness and sorrow 
 of things we can trust it. We can endure 
 as still seeing the love which in them may 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. 13 
 
 be invisible. . . . Once convinced that GOD 
 is Love, a man can go straight ahead upon 
 his way. He is master of his falls, for 
 he knows that he can rise. He is master 
 even of the blows that seem to strike him, 
 for they cannot overthrow him. He bows 
 his head in submission ; but his spirit rises 
 as he says, * I believe in the love of GOD.' " ^ 
 The calm peace which had come to 
 Tennyson through his faith in GOD as a 
 GrOD of love may be well seen in 
 stanza 126 — 
 
 " Love is and was my Lord and King, 
 And in His presence I attend 
 To hear the tidings of my friend, 
 Which every hour his couriers bring. 
 
 Love is and was my King and Lord, 
 And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
 Within His court on earth, and sleep 
 
 Encompass'd by His faithful guard. 
 
 And hear at times a sentinel 
 
 W^ho moves about from place to place, 
 And whispers to the worlds of space, 
 
 In the deep night that all is well," 
 
 1 Bishop Lang. 
 
14 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 Thirdly, Time is a great healer. After 
 the first great shock of grief we realize 
 that with all the work which is waiting to 
 be done it is pure selfishness to shut our- 
 selves up and indulge in the luxury of 
 sorrow. Thus, if we are wise, we pass into 
 the daily round of duty ; we let ourselves 
 glide into the interests of life, above all 
 we take up GOD'S work as it is shown to 
 us, and throw ourselves earnestly into it. 
 Then does Time do her gentle work, and 
 we are surprised to feel the gradual but 
 sure healing of the wound. 
 
 This is most strikingly brought out in 
 " In Memoriam." For as we date the 
 different parts of the poem we can notice 
 the change from the sullen grief at its 
 beginning to the calm resignation and 
 assured hope at its close. 
 
 The opening stanzas express the depth 
 of sorrow, but with the exquisite 19th 
 stanza, referring to the remains of the poet's 
 departed friend being brought to England 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. 15 
 
 to his home on the Severn, we note that the 
 cloud begins to lift — 
 
 " The Danube to the Severn gave 
 
 The darken'd heart that beat no more ; 
 They laid him by the pleasant shore, 
 And in the hearing of the wave. 
 
 There twice a day the Severn fills : 
 The salt sea-water passes by, 
 And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
 
 And makes a silence in the hills. 
 
 The Wye is hush'd nor moved along. 
 And hush'd my deepest grief of all, 
 When fill'd with tears that cannot fall, 
 
 I brim with sorrow drowning song. 
 
 The tide flows down, the wave again 
 Is vocal in its wooded walls ; 
 My deeper anguish also falls. 
 
 And I can speak a little then." 
 
 Passing on again to the concluding 
 verse of the 27th stanza, we read — 
 
 '• I hold it true, whate'er befall : 
 I feel it, when I sorrow most : 
 'Tis better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
 One more quotation out of many that 
 
i6 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 could be quoted must serve to illustrate this 
 point. The ii6th stanza, near the close of 
 the poem, shows how his sorrow has been 
 soothed without lessening the love he 
 feels — 
 
 "Is it, then, regret for buried time 
 That keenlier in sweet April wakes, 
 And meets the year, and gives and takes 
 The colours of the crescent prime ? 
 
 Not all ; the songs, the stirring air, 
 The life re-orient out of dust, 
 Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust 
 
 In that which made the world so fair. 
 
 Not all regret ; the face will shine 
 Upon me, while I muse alone : 
 And that dear voice, I once have known. 
 
 Still speak to me of me and mine ; 
 
 Yet less of sorrow lives in me 
 
 For days of happy commune dead ; 
 Less yearning for the friendship fled, 
 
 Than some strong bond which is to be." 
 
 Thus, if we accept sorrow and suffering 
 as sent by GOD for a special and good pur- 
 pose, sent also by One Who is not only 
 All-powerful but also All-loving, we may 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. 17 
 
 then expect the gradual healing of the sor- 
 row wrought by time, and aided by the 
 unselfish going forth from oneself to the 
 duties which lie around us and to work for 
 others. 
 
 " I will not shut me from my kind, 
 And lest I stiffen into stone, 
 I will not eat my heart alone, 
 Nor feed with sighs a passing wind." 
 
 {Stanza 108.) 
 
 This, of course, is not the teaching of 
 the world. The world bids us drown sor- 
 row in pleasure, in licentiousness, in evil. 
 The world laughs to scorn any attempt to 
 wear the crown of thorns, and refuses to 
 see any good that can come from sorrow 
 and suffering ; but the crown of suffering 
 confers its own blessings, though these are 
 unintelligible to the world. This is beau- 
 tifully expressed in the 69th stanza — 
 
 " I wander'd from the noisy town, 
 
 I found a wood with thorny boughs : 
 I took the thorns to bind my brows 
 I wore them like a civic crown : 
 
 B 
 
i8 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 I met with scoffs, I met with scorns 
 From youth and babe and hoary hairs : 
 They call'd me in the public squares 
 
 The fool that wears a crown of thorns : 
 
 They call'd me fool, they call'd me child : 
 I found an angel of the night : 
 The voice was low, the look was bright : 
 
 He look'd upon my crown and smil'd. 
 
 He reach'd the glory of a hand, 
 
 That seem'd to touch it into leaf : 
 The voice was not the voice of grief, 
 
 The words were hard to understand." 
 
 What amount of sorrow and suffering 
 it may please GOD to send into our lives 
 is unknown to us. We only know that 
 " whom He loveth, He chasteneth," and 
 " He purgeth the branch that it may 
 bring forth more fruit " ; but come when 
 it may, and how it may, if we will patiently 
 wear our crown of thorns, the hand that 
 gave it in love will " touch it into leaf," 
 though the reason may be " hard to under- 
 stand." 
 
 But there is one species of sorrow that 
 no Christian should ever shrink from, and 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. 19 
 
 that is the penitential sorrow for sin. 
 
 How little we modern Christians realize 
 our sinfulness ! How unreal to us is the 
 penitential language of the saints! We 
 cannot, with St. Paul, call ourselves " the 
 chief of sinners," nor, to come to our own 
 times, can we use the language of such 
 an one as John Keble. In these days we 
 sin lightly and easily, thinking little of it, 
 and sorrowing little for it. 
 
 And yet " our growth depends on our con- 
 tinuance in penitence ; and the growth will 
 only go forward according to the measure 
 with which our growing penitence admits 
 of it. 
 
 " And still each admitted act of grace by 
 which we are succoured and uplifted 
 purges our blighted eyes, so that we can see 
 a little further into the mystery of Divine 
 Love, and as we see more of the Love we 
 see, too, a little more into our own outrage 
 upon it, our own ingratitude to it, our own 
 disregard of it, our own scandalous defeat 
 of it : and our shame is therefore deeper, 
 
20 SORROW AND SUFFERING. 
 
 and our plea for pardon more real, and 
 our power of repentance more vivid and 
 sincere. And this, again, drives us out in 
 recoil upon GOD, Who ever pardons and 
 absolves ; and we cry to Him with a louder 
 voice, and we weep more bitter tears, and 
 we cling" to Him the faster as we realize 
 our impotence, and we lie open, with less 
 obstruction than before, to the incoming of 
 His pity, and become capable of a larger 
 spiritual gift, which, again, lays more bare 
 our own spiritual infirmity. . . . 
 
 " This is the spiritual process, which in- 
 creases in intensity as the soul advances in 
 apprehension of GOD, so that we are to 
 spend our whole lives in putting an ever- 
 deepening significance into the confession 
 with which we begin, * Have mercy upon 
 us miserable sinners.' 
 
 " When we first said it we were but as 
 children, sobbing for some blind and in- 
 tangible misery. The gathering years 
 bring us the realities of experience, by 
 which we can give shape and substance to 
 
SORROW AND SUFFERING. 21 
 
 our sense of guilt ; and the confession 
 therefore grows more urgent, more articu- 
 late, more keen. And only by degrees, 
 under slow and bitter pressure, do we actu- 
 ally learn to enter, trembling and aston- 
 ished, into the mysterious depths of sorrow 
 which lie behind the language of these un- 
 known penitents, whose words may have 
 been on our lips from our childhood." ^ 
 
 Grant to me, Lord, pardon for my past 
 sins, grace to resist present temptations, and 
 watchfulness for the future. Let not my 
 days be ended before my sins are forgiven ; 
 but grant that before I die T may fully 
 attain to Thy mercy : and as Thou wilt 
 and as Thou knowest, have mercy upon me, 
 O Lord. 
 
 I Scott Holland. 
 
II.— ©eaf^ Ani> t^i fufure §t<xU, 
 
 WE pass now to learn what our poem 
 has to teach us about Death and 
 the Future. We shall be able to trace the 
 same process of growth in thought, as in 
 our last lecture. Death first presents itself 
 as an evil, an act of separation which fills 
 the cup of bitterness to the full. As the 
 poem goes on the poet learns that Death 
 is working for good until at its close he is 
 content to look forward to the future, 
 secure in the love of that friend whom he 
 believes he shall see once more. 
 
 It would be hardly possible to express 
 in more tender pathos the bitterness of the 
 separation caused by death than in the 
 22nd stanza — 
 
 " The path by which we twain did go 
 
 Which led by tracts that pleased us well, 
 Thro' four sweet years arose and fell. 
 From flower to flower and snow to snow : 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 23 
 
 And we with singing cheered the way, 
 And, crown'd with all the season lent, 
 From April on to April went, 
 
 And glad at heart from May to May : 
 
 But where the path we walk'd began 
 To slant the fifth autumnal slope. 
 As we descended following Hope 
 
 There sat the shadow fear'd of man : 
 
 Who broke our fair companionship. 
 And spread his mantle dark and cold. 
 And wrapt thee formless in the fold, 
 
 And dull'd the murmur on thy lip. 
 
 And bore thee where I could not see 
 Nor follow tho' I walk in haste, 
 And think, that somewhere in the waste 
 
 The Shadow sits and waits for me." 
 
 It is the thought of separation which is 
 the most bitter part of his trial. He tells 
 us in the 82nd stanza that he could ha.ve 
 forgiven Death anything else, such as 
 
 " Changes wrought on form and face," 
 
 but the separation of himself and his 
 friend he finds it hard to pardon. 
 
24 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE, 
 
 " P"or this alone on Death I wreak 
 
 The wrath that garners in my heart : 
 He put our lives so far apart 
 We cannot hear each other speak." 
 
 But although this terrible feeling of 
 separation adds so much to his grief he 
 has a firm belief in the future life and in 
 the existence of the dead in a state of 
 peace and consciousness. 
 
 Thus, in the 38th stanza, after the keep- 
 ing of the first Christmas Day since his 
 friend's death, and the gradual cessation 
 of game and song as the thought of the 
 departed made itself felt, he goes on — 
 
 " We ceased ; a gentler feeling crept 
 Upon us : surely rest is meet : 
 ' They rest,' we said, * their sleep is sweet,' 
 And silence followed and we wept. 
 
 Our voices took a higher range ; 
 
 Once more we sang : ' They do not die 
 Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 
 
 Nor change to us, although they change.'" 
 
 Tennyson felt very strongly that this 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 25 
 
 life is inexplicable unless there be a life 
 beyond the grave. If this were not so, then 
 he felt that this life is not worth the living, 
 and that death would be preferable. So, 
 in the first and last verses of the 34th stanza, 
 
 " My own dim life should teach me this, 
 That life shall live for evermore, 
 Else earth is darkness at the core, 
 And dust and ashes all that is ; " 
 
 If this be not so : 
 
 " 'Tvvere best at once to sink to peace. 
 
 Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
 To drop head foremost in the jaws 
 Of vacant darkness and to cease." 
 
 Nor can I forbear to quote the last two 
 stanzas of that fine poem, " Vastness " — 
 
 "What is it all, if we all of us end but in being 
 our own corpse coffins at last, 
 Swallowed in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd 
 in the deeps of a meaningless Past ? 
 
 What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or 
 a moment's anger of bees in their hive ? — 
 
26 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 Peace, let it be ! for I loved him, and love 
 him for ever : the dead are not dead but 
 alive." 
 
 Another step is reached when to the 
 thought of consciousness in the after life 
 is added the belief that the life of the 
 departed is no mere state of inaction but 
 one of energy and work in the great offices 
 of that blessed state. Thus, in the 40th 
 stanza, 
 
 " And doubtless unto thee is given 
 A life that bears immortal fruit 
 In such great offices as suit 
 The full-grown energies of heaven." 
 
 And in the 73rd, 
 
 " So many worlds, so much to do, 
 So little done, such things to be. 
 How know I what had need of thee, 
 For thou wert strong as thou wert true? " 
 
 So far, I suppose, we shall all feel that 
 Tennyson has carried us with him. In the 
 44th stanza he enters upon a question of the 
 kind in which his metaphysical mind de- 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 27 
 
 lighted, of a kind, however, which must 
 always be wrapped to some extent in un- 
 certainty, and can only be described as 
 speculative. He seeks to know how far 
 the departed can remember the persons and 
 things of this life. 
 
 He seems to think that the events of this 
 life would be largely blotted out by death 
 and the new existence of the next, and yet 
 he hopes that there may be gleams of 
 memory in which his friend may think of 
 him. 
 
 " How fares it with the happy dead ? 
 For here the man is more and more ; 
 But he {i.e., the dead) forgets the days 
 before 
 God shut the doorways of his head. 
 
 The days have vanish'd, tone and tint, 
 And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
 Gives out at times (he knows not whence). 
 
 A little flash, a mystic hint : 
 
 And in the long harmonious years 
 (If Death so taste Lethean springs,) 
 May some dim touch of earthly things 
 
 Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. 
 
28 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 If such a dreamy touch should fall, 
 O turn thee round, resolve the doubt ; 
 My guardian angel will speak out 
 
 In that high place and tell thee all." 
 
 However this may be, the poet is quite 
 clear that the future life is not an uncon- 
 scious sleep, nor a mere merging of each 
 soul in the general Soul, but the person- 
 ality will be preserved, and we shall know 
 each other. This is the theme of the 47th 
 stanza — 
 
 "That each, who seems a separate whole, 
 Should move his rounds, and fusing all 
 The skirts of self again, should fall 
 Remerging in the general Soul, 
 
 Is faith as vague as all unsweet : 
 Eternal form shall still divide 
 The eternal soul from all beside ; 
 
 And I shall know him when we meet : 
 
 And we shall sit at endless feast, 
 Enjoying each the other's good : 
 What vaster dream can hit the mood 
 
 Of Love on earth ? He seeks at least 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 29 
 
 Upon the last and sharpest height, 
 Before the spirits fade away, 
 Some landing place, to clasp and say,^^ 
 < Farewell ! We lose ourselves in light.' " 
 Another question which exercises the 
 poet is whether the dead have any know- 
 ledge of the actions of the living, and, if 
 so, whether they are conscious of our baser 
 side and of our unworthy deeds. If so, 
 will they love us less? Surely not. They 
 too have been tried and tempted ; they will 
 feel for us in our temptations, they will 
 love us and watch with the keenest interest 
 the race we run. 
 
 " Do we indeed desire the dead 
 
 Should still be near us at our side ? 
 Is there no baseness we would hide ? 
 No inner vileness that we dread ? 
 Shall he for whose applause I strove, 
 I had such reverence for his blame, 
 See with clear eye some hidden shame 
 And I be lessen'd in his love? 
 I wrong the grave with fears untrue : 
 Shall love be blamed for want of faith? 
 There must be wisdom with great Death : 
 The dead shall look me thro' and thro'. 
 
30 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 Be near us when we climb or fall : 
 Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
 With larger other eyes than ours, 
 
 To make allowance for us all." 
 
 {Stanza 51.) 
 
 There is no doubt that the death of one 
 dear to us, while still in his youth, adds 
 greatly to the keenness of the trial. We 
 are inclined to murmur that he was, as we 
 say, cut off in his prime. We perhaps 
 forget that with GOD there is no such 
 thing as Time, that, at a given moment, 
 the part which our dear one played in the 
 plan of this life has been played, and 
 there is other work for him to do elsewhere. 
 Then God's finger touches him, and he 
 sleeps to awaken to the activities and work 
 of Paradise. 
 
 In the 8 1st stanza Tennyson seems to 
 have caught and embodied this idea — 
 
 " Could I have said while he was here, 
 ' My love shall now no further range ; 
 There cannot come a mellower change, 
 For now is love mature in ear.' 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 31 
 
 Love, then, had hope of richer store : 
 What end is here to my complaint? 
 This haunting whisper makes me faint, 
 
 ' More years had made me love thee more.' 
 
 But Death returns an answer sweet : 
 ' My sudden frost was sudden gain, 
 And gave all ripeness to the grain, 
 
 It might have drawn from after-heat.' " 
 
 Finally, at the close of the poem, we find 
 the poet has reached a quiet assurance as 
 to the future life of the departed and the 
 bliss of their state. Thus, in the Ii8th 
 stanza, 
 
 "Contemplate all this work of Time, 
 The giant labouring in his youth ; 
 Nor dream of human love and truth, 
 As dying Nature's earth and lime ; 
 
 But trust that those we call the dead 
 Are breathers of an ampler day 
 For ever nobler ends." 
 
 It remains now to gather up with some 
 brief comments the lessons we have learned 
 on this subject from the poem. 
 
32 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 We saw that the author began with a 
 sense of dread and horror of death. Is 
 not this natural to us all ? Death is a ter- 
 rible thing-, made more awful by the sense 
 of the unknown which pervades it. There 
 is a well-known anecdote, quoted by the 
 late Dr. Liddon in one of his sermons, 
 which illustrates the awe with which we 
 must enter that unknown land. 
 
 " An Indian officer, who in his time had 
 seen a great deal of service, and had taken 
 part in more than one of those decisive 
 struggles by which the British authority 
 was finally established in the East Indies, 
 had returned to end his days in this coun- 
 try, and was talking with his friends about 
 the most striking experiences of his pro- 
 fessional career. They led him, by their 
 sympathy and their questions, to travel in 
 memory through a long series of years ; 
 and as he described skirmishes, battles, 
 sieges, personal encounters, hairbreadth 
 escapes, the outbreak of the mutiny, and 
 its suppression, reverses, victories — all the 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 33 
 
 swift alternations of anxiety and hojDe 
 which a man must know who is entrusted 
 with command, and is before the enemy — 
 tiieir interest in his story, as was natural, 
 became keener and more exacting. At last 
 he paused with the observation, ' I expect 
 to see something much more remarkable 
 than anything I have been describing.' As 
 he was some seventy years of age, and was 
 understood to have retired from active ser- 
 vice, his listeners failed to catch his mean- 
 ing. There was a pause ; and then he said 
 in an undertone, * I mean in the first five 
 minutes after death.' " 
 
 Yes, we may well look forward with a 
 reverential awe to the first five minutes 
 after death. 
 
 It IS, however, the general rule that the 
 actual passing from this life is a peaceful 
 process, a falling asleep. 
 
 " God's finger touch'd him and he slept " 
 is Tennyson's description, no less truthful 
 than beautiful. 
 
 But the thought that the future life is 
 
34 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 a state of consciousness, full of marvel- 
 lous activities and high operations, is one 
 of intense interest for us to dwell upon. 
 I do not forget that there have been some 
 who have maintained that the future state 
 was a period of unconscious sleep. It is 
 true that in Holy Scripture Death is often 
 spoken of under the figure of sleep. St. 
 Stephen, after the commendation of his 
 spirit to God, " fell asleep." ^ Our Blessed 
 Lord is "the firstfruitsof them that slept. "^ 
 But surely this is figurative language. Our 
 Lord went and " preached to the spirits 
 that were in prison." ^ Nor was it to a state 
 of unconscious slumber that He invited the 
 penitent thief ; nor, again, would such 
 words describe the feelings of St. Paul 
 when he spoke of " having a desire to 
 depart and to be with Christ." * 
 
 " The retention of consciousness in the 
 Intermediate State carries with it of neces- 
 sity the full possession of all other facul- 
 
 ^ Acts vii. 60, 2 I Cor. xv. 20. " i Peter iii. 19. 
 
 <Phil. i. 2^ 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 35 
 
 ties of the mind, for though in this life 
 they are exercised through the medium of 
 bodily organs, they are so far from being 
 dependent on these, that there is good 
 reason to believe that they will be largely 
 developed when freed from their restrain- 
 ing influence." ^ 
 
 Thus, for example, we may look for a 
 development of knowledge. " Now we see 
 through a glass darkly, but then face to 
 face ; now I know in part ; but then shall 
 I know even as also I am known." ^ How 
 much we shall have to learn, and how 
 glorious will be the dawn of light and 
 truth as the mists and shadows of this 
 world roll away before the beams of the 
 Sun of Righteousness ! But if the increase 
 of knowledge forms one of the great occu- 
 pations of the future life, surely the purifi- 
 cation of the soul and its growth in sancti- 
 fication will form the all-important work 
 of each individual. Is there any one of us 
 who can feel, that if it should be the 
 
 1 Luckock, " Intermediate State," chap. vi. 2 j Cor. xiii. 12. 
 
36 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 Divine Will that GOD's finger should 
 touch him at this moment that he is pre- 
 pared to pass into the immediate presence 
 of Him Who " dwelleth in the light which 
 no man can approach unto " ? ^ Do we not 
 feel that, though we may humbly and 
 firmly believe that we have received pardon 
 for our sins through the precious blood 
 of Jesus Christ, yet that preparation, puri- 
 fication, education, sanctification are sorely 
 needed before we dare to obtrude ourselves 
 into that awful Presence? 
 
 The common idea that Death has some 
 subtle power to change the spiritual nature 
 and transform the sinner into a saint is, by 
 a moment's reflection, seen to be false : for 
 Death is a physical process which touches 
 the body, but cannot affect the soul. 
 
 It is deeply to be regretted that a section 
 of the Church, by introducing the notion 
 that purification is accompanied by phy- 
 sical pain, has obscured the true idea of 
 
 1 1 Tim. vi. i6. 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 37 
 
 the process, and prejudiced the minds of 
 many against it. 
 
 The real, spiritual pain, which must be 
 felt even in the midst of peace and joy, 
 a pain which is engendered by the know- 
 ledge of the soul's unworthiness and the 
 thought of its past sinfulness, is beauti- 
 fully expressed in Newman's " Dream of 
 Gerontius " — 
 
 " It is the face of the Incarnate God 
 Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle 
 
 pain : 
 And yet the memory which it leaves will be 
 A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound." 
 
 " for, though 
 Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast 
 
 sinned. 
 As never didst thou feel ; and wilt desire 
 To slink away and hide thee from His sight : 
 And yet wilt have a longing, aye to dwell 
 Within the beauty of His countenance. 
 And these two pains, so counter and so 
 
 keen, — 
 The longing for Him, when thou see'st Him 
 
 not : 
 The shame of self at thought of seeing Him, — 
 Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory." 
 
38 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 And yet while we speak, and rightly 
 speak, of the pain caused by the looking 
 back upon the failures and sins of this 
 life, and realizing how different it might 
 have been, we must be very careful 
 to understand that all the time the soul 
 is in a perfect state of peace and happiness. 
 Perhaps we should do better to speak of 
 the feeling as one of education rather than 
 of pain. The old time-honoured prayer, 
 " Requiescat in pace," expresses the true 
 mind of the Church on this point. We 
 can have no doubt that the early Christians 
 were right when they laid their faithful 
 dead in the catacombs, and wrote upon 
 their graves the simple but expressive 
 words, " In pace." " The souls of the 
 righteous are in the hand of GOD, and 
 there shall no torment touch them." 
 
 But the purification of the soul is not the 
 only work of the Intermediate State. There 
 are " the great offices," that suit " the full- 
 grown energies of Heaven." 
 
 Our Lord carried on in that state the 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 39 
 
 work in which He was engaged in this 
 world. " He preached to the spirits that 
 were in prison." It is surely no unsafe 
 inference from this that spiritual work 
 begun here, may be continued there. " The 
 influence, the preaching, the ministrations, 
 are not stopped, they are only transferred 
 to another sphere, to be continued with in- 
 tensified energy under spiritual conditions, 
 though no material ear may hear the voice, 
 no mortal hand shall feel the touch ; they 
 are lost to the Church on earth ; they are 
 gained by the Church in the Intermediate 
 State." ' 
 
 There is a text often quoted, but not 
 always rightly understood, which bears 
 upon this. " Write, Blessed are the dead 
 which die in the Lord from henceforth ; 
 yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest 
 from their labours ; and their works do 
 follow them." - 
 
 There is no doubt that the literal trans- 
 lation of the last clause is, " Their works 
 
 M iickoLk. -Rev. xiv. 13. 
 
40 DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 follow with them." The works which they 
 practised in this life follow them into the 
 next, and are practised by them there also. 
 
 Our last point is that which was to 
 Tennyson's mind so comforting- a certainty. 
 " I shall know him when we meet." This 
 has been a belief common to all ages. 
 The old heathen writers, Homer, Vergil, 
 Piato, Cicero, all held it strongly. The 
 Jewish king consoled himself for the loss 
 of his child by the thought, " I shall go to 
 him." ^ Our Lord cheered the poor peni- 
 tent thief by His Divine word, " To-day 
 shalt thou be with Me." - 
 
 All nature teaches that change of form 
 does not mean loss of identity. The beau- 
 tiful stalk of wheat differs in form from 
 the tiny grain that was sown, )et their 
 identity is preserved, both are wheat. The 
 glory of the celestial body will not rob the 
 owner of his personal identity with the 
 body of this life. 
 
 Thus, if we feel, as we must feel, that 
 
 1 2 Sam. xii. 23. - S. Luke x.xiii. 43. 
 
DEATH AND THE FUTURE STATE. 41 
 
 Death fills us with awe ; yet we may also 
 feel that it is the portal to another life, a 
 life of pardon, of peace, of sancti&cation, 
 of growth in knowledge and wisdom, of 
 high and holy occupations, of sweet re- 
 unions, and, above all, of a life lighted 
 with the presence of Him, " Whom, having 
 not seen, we love," Who is " The Resurrec- 
 tion and the Life." 
 
III.— ®ou6f anb fait^. 
 
 EVEN if the biography of Tennyson 
 were not in our hands, we should be 
 able to infer from the internal evidence of 
 this poem that he was a Christian poet. 
 He speaks of Christ as " the Life Indeed " ; 
 " His power to raise the dead is confessed ; 
 He is the receiver of the souls of the dead 
 into the world beyond this world. He is 
 the Word of GOD that breathed human 
 breath, and wrought out the faith with 
 human deeds." ^ 
 
 To go no further, the first verse of the 
 prologue seems to put this beyond dis- 
 pute — 
 
 " Strong Son of GOD, immortal Love, 
 
 Whom we, that have not seen Thy face, 
 By faith, and faith alone embrace, 
 Believing where we cannot prove." 
 
 1 Siopford Brooke. 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 43 
 
 " But it would not be true to say that 
 Tennyson had not to fight for it (this posi- 
 tion) against thoughts within, which en- 
 deavoured to betray it, and against doubts 
 which besieged it from without. He did 
 not always repose in it ; he had to fight 
 for it, sword in hand, and many a troublous 
 wound he took. ... It fell to his lot to 
 live at a time when the faith in immor- 
 tality has had to run the gauntlet between 
 foes and seeming friends, of a greater 
 variety and of a greater skill than ever 
 before in the history of man." ^ We can 
 see this struggle in his early poems, pre- 
 eminently in that of " The Two Voices," 
 but at the date of the conclusion of " In 
 Memoriam " the victory has been won. 
 The poet has fought his doubts and laid 
 them. It is true that fresh difficulties en- 
 countered him at a later period of life, 
 which had to be fought in the same way, 
 but with these we have nothing to do now. 
 
 But " all through the seventeen years — • 
 
 1 Stopford Brooke. 
 
44 DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 the period covered in writing * In Memo- 
 riam ' — a soul knowing its own bitterness, 
 wrapped in profound meditation, tried 
 manfully to beat back its own scepticism 
 by patient, earnest inquiry into the rational 
 grounds for believing that GOD is ; that 
 He is personal ; that He is essential Justice 
 and Love ; that life, with its love and duty, 
 has intrinsic worth and meaning ; that 
 destiny is something loftier than the 
 dust." ' 
 
 The 54th stanza shows us something of 
 this struggle — 
 
 " Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill, 
 To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
 Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 
 
 That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
 That not one life shall be destroy'd, 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
 
 When God hath made the pile complete ; 
 
 That not a worm is cloven in vain. 
 That not a moth with vain desire 
 Is shrivel'd in a fruitless fire. 
 
 Or but subserves another's gain. 
 1 Sneath. 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 45 
 
 Behold we know not anything, 
 
 I can but trust that good shall fall 
 At last— far off— at last, to all, 
 
 And every winter change to spring. 
 
 So runs my dream : but what am I ? 
 An infant crying in the night : 
 An infant crying for the light : 
 
 And with no language but a cry." 
 
 Or again, the concluding" verses of the 
 next two stanzas — 
 
 " I falter where I firmly trod, 
 
 And falling with my weight of cares 
 Upon the great world's altar-stairs 
 That slope thro' darkness up to GOD. 
 
 I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope 
 And gather dust and chaff, and call 
 To what I feel is Lord of all. 
 
 And faintly trust the larger hope." 
 
 [Stanza 55.) 
 
 "O life as futile, then, as frail! 
 
 O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 
 What hope of answer, or redress ? 
 Behind the veil, behind the veil." 
 
 [Stanza 56.) 
 
 The trial of doubt is one that comes to 
 
46 DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 many, pre-eminently to those who think 
 most deeply. 
 
 He who paddles in shallow water is 
 secure of his footing; but as he advances 
 into the deep he is liable to be swept off 
 his feet and carried away. 
 
 Honest doubt is not a state of mind for 
 anyone to desire. Happy are those who 
 keep the child-like, simple faith of child- 
 hood throughout their lives ; but if doubt 
 comes, if the trial is met and faced, the 
 victory won then, the result is generally a 
 stronger faith and an ability to hold out 
 a sympathetic helping hand to those who 
 are passing through the same trial. We do 
 not, must not, seek for illness, but often we 
 are stronger when sickness has come and 
 gone than we were before. Such, I believe, 
 were the thoughts that prompted the C)6th 
 stanza — 
 
 " You say, but with no touch of scorn, 
 
 Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes 
 Are tender over drowning flies, 
 You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 47 
 
 I know not : one indeed I knew 
 In many a subtle question versed 
 Who touched a jarring lyre at first, 
 
 But ever strove to make it true : 
 
 Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 
 
 At last he beat his music out. 
 
 There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
 Believe me, than in half the creeds. 
 
 He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
 He would not make his judgment blind. 
 He faced the spectres of the mind 
 
 And laid them : thus he came at length 
 
 To find a stronger faith his own ; 
 
 And Power was with him in the night, 
 Which makes the darkness and the light, 
 
 And dwells not in the light alone, 
 
 But in the darkness and the cloud. 
 As over Sinai's peaks of old, 
 While Israel made their gods of gold, 
 
 Altho' the trumpet blew so loud." 
 
 Yes, there is such a thing as a formal, 
 lazy, thoughtless assent to a creed, an 
 assent which involves no exercise of faith, 
 and is consequently worthless. And there 
 
48 DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 is an " honest doubt," which longs to be- 
 lieve, and carries on an earnest wrestling 
 with difficulties until the victory is won. 
 In such an honest doubt there is more of 
 true faith than in the formal, careless 
 acceptance of a creed, which is nothing 
 more than a form of words, and a form 
 which produces little or no effect upon the 
 life of him who subscribes to it. 
 
 It is certain that in the past believers have 
 been far too apt " to condemn doubters, 
 as if doubt were wilful and unpardonable 
 sin." 
 
 Yet it is a fact " that on the one hand 
 great and good men believe ; and on the 
 other hand great and good men doubt" 
 Facts such as these deserve a more just 
 treatment than insolent condemnation or 
 mere insolent ridicule. 
 
 There are two ways in which doubt may 
 be, and often is, regarded, each of which 
 errs, though in a different direction. 
 
 By some it is condemned as an almost 
 hopeless condition. The terms " sceptic," 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 49 
 
 " atheist," etc., often too thoughtlessly 
 applied, stamp the unfortunate person as 
 a kind of spiritual pariah, who should be 
 shunned by all good people. 
 
 But Doubt is a matter not for scorn, but 
 for the most compassionate sympathy. It 
 shows that there is a defect in the 
 spiritual part of the doubter's nature, but 
 a defect which may be made good. 
 
 " No man on earth is perfect and with- 
 out defect. The defect sometimes appears 
 in the body, and is a defect of sense ; of 
 sight, or hearing", or taste, or speech. 
 Sometimes the defect is in the soul, and 
 produces imperfection of understanding, 
 or emotion, or affection, or will. And 
 sometimes the imperfection is in the spirit, 
 and produces imperfection of faith. . . . 
 As men may be, and sometimes are, 
 without sight or without reason, so like- 
 wise may they be, and sometimes are, with- 
 out faith." ^ 
 
 We pity the blind and the mad. We 
 
 1 Diggle. 
 
 D 
 
50 DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 labour to restore to them their sight and 
 their reason. No less should we have com- 
 passion for the unbeliever, and endeavour 
 to help him into the comfort and strength 
 of faith. 
 
 But by others Doubt is regarded almost 
 with admiration. It is so much the fashion 
 that it is regarded as a necessity for those 
 who would march with the times. So many 
 intellectual minds have been assailed by it 
 that it is regarded as a sign of intellectual 
 power to be sceptical. 
 
 But this is to mistake one thing for 
 another. " Strong minds doubt, but doubt 
 is no proof of strength ; noble minds 
 doubt — in these davs all the noblest must 
 pass through doubt — but doubt is no proof 
 of nobility. The strength and nobility 
 are shown when the doubts are grappled 
 with till they yield up some hidden treasure 
 of truth." ' 
 
 The " honest doubt "of which Tennyson 
 speaks implies that the doubter 
 
 1 Tainsb. 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 51 
 
 " Fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
 He would not make his judgment blind, 
 He faced the spectres of his mind 
 And laid them." 
 
 No careful student of this poem can 
 fail to see the importance which the author 
 attaches to faith. He had but little belief 
 in the great verities of religion being ca- 
 pable of proof, nor did he think highly of 
 what is commonly called " the Evidences 
 of Christianity"; but he felt that these 
 great truths were borne in upon the soul by 
 a great wave of faith, which satisfied the 
 believer and gave him rest and peace. 
 
 So Professor Sidgwick, writing of this 
 poem, says : " What * In Memoriam ' did 
 for us, for me at least, in this struggle, 
 was to impress on us the ineffaceable and 
 ineradicable conviction that hinnanity will 
 not, and cannot, acquiesce in a godless 
 world : the * man in men ' will not do this, 
 whatever individual men may do. . . ." 
 
 "If the possibility of a ' godless world ' 
 is excluded, the faith thus restored is, for 
 
52 DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 the poet, unquestionably a form of Christ- 
 ian faith ; there seems to him then no 
 reason for doubting that the 
 
 ' Sinless years 
 That breathed beneath the Syrian blue,' 
 
 and the marvel of the life continued, after 
 the bodily death, were a manifestation of 
 the immortal love which, by faith, we em- 
 brace as the essence of the Divine Nature." 
 This clear faith felt by the poet, even in 
 the midst of all the darkness of mystery 
 and clouds of doubt, finds its expression 
 in the 124th stanza — 
 
 " That which we dare invoke to bless 
 
 Our dearest faith : our ghastliest doubt ; 
 He, They, One, All : within, without ; 
 The Power in darkness whom we guess : 
 
 I found Him not in world or sun, 
 Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye : 
 Nor thro' the questions men may try, 
 
 The petty cobwebs we have spun : 
 
 H e'er when faith had fallen asleep, 
 I heard a voice ' believe no more ' 
 And heard an ever-breaking shore 
 
 That tumbled in the Godless deep : 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 53 
 
 A warmth within the heart would melt 
 The freezing reason's colder part, 
 And like a man in wrath the heart 
 
 Stood up and answered ' I have felt.' 
 
 No, like a child in doubt and fear : 
 
 But that blind clamour made me wise : 
 Then was I as a child that cries. 
 
 But, crying, knows his father near : 
 
 And what I am beheld again 
 
 What is, and no man understands ; 
 And out of darkness came the hands 
 
 That reach thro' nature, moulding men." 
 
 This would seem to be the fitting- place 
 to say a few words on the nature of faith. 
 
 The nature of man is tripartite. Body, 
 soul or mind and spirit. The body is the 
 material part ; the soul, the intellectual ; 
 the spirit, the highest part, which differenti- 
 ates man from the rest of the animal crea- 
 tion, and enables him to enter into relation 
 to, and communion with, the Divine Being. 
 
 Each of these parts has its own peculiar 
 faculties — e.g., the body has the power of 
 motion, and of exercising the organs of 
 sense. The soul has the intellectual facul- 
 
54 DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 ties of memory, thought, etc., and the spirit 
 has also its own faculties, among which 
 we may reckon faith. 
 
 But we must remember that so intimately 
 are these three parts united that often an 
 action involves the use of all three. Thus 
 an act of prayer may cause the body to 
 assume the humble posture of kneeling, 
 the soul to arrange its thoughts and to 
 express them in words, and the spirit to 
 exercise faith and communion with GOD. 
 
 It is, of course, the case that an indi- 
 vidual may be defective in one or other of 
 these parts. For example, the organ of 
 hearing may be defective in the body ; the 
 faculty of reasoning in the soul, and the 
 faculty of Faith in the Spirit. It is 
 therefore no proof of the non-existence of 
 Faith because some men do not believe, 
 any more than it would be a proof of the 
 non-existence of sight because some men 
 are blind. 
 
 The complete man is he who possesses 
 these three parts of his nature in their en- 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 55 
 
 tirety. The faculties of each part are 
 cultivated and improved by use. Exercise 
 your reasoning power, and you will reason 
 more accurately ; exercise your faith, and 
 you will strengthen it, till out of weakness 
 it is made strong. 
 
 It is thus that "honest doubt" may in 
 the long run prove a blessing. Faith 
 grows strong by grappling with obstacles. 
 Faith is not a heyday of believing what 
 we will. This borders upon credulity. 
 Faith is the grasping of ultimate spiritual 
 realities, and it needs to be tested, tried, 
 chastened, ere it attain its true balance and 
 proportion, and be worthy to rank with 
 reason as the noblest endowment of man- 
 hood. 
 
 There are splendid heights of assurance 
 reserved for those who win their way 
 thereto by unflinching courage. Spiritual 
 certitudes multiply in strength and sweet- 
 ness as a man walks humbly with GOD. 
 
 Faith is helped and strengthened in 
 different ways. 
 
56 DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 Many have been helped in their belief by 
 the argument that the wonders of creation 
 demand an Author, Who must be a Being 
 far transcending man in intelligence, in 
 wisdom, and in power. Nor is this argu- 
 ment to be despised. But it did not appeal 
 to Tennyson. 
 
 " I found Him not in world or sun, 
 Or eagle's wing or insect's eye.'' 
 
 " Nothing worthy proving can be 
 proven." It is here that the venture of 
 Faith must be made. We cannot, with our 
 limited knowledge, escape from difficulties, 
 nor can we hope to solve all the perplexing 
 problems which surround us, but we can 
 believe that the solution will come in the 
 future ; we can refuse to acquiesce in the 
 counsels of despair, and as we do this there 
 will arise in our hearts a conviction that 
 " all is well." 
 
 " Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne 
 connait pas!' ^ 
 
 1 Pascal. 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 57 
 
 Tennyson dreaded the idea of the loss 
 of faith among men. " Take away belief 
 in the self-conscious personality of GOD," 
 he said, " and you take away the backbone 
 of the world." 
 
 " On God and GOD-like men we build 
 our trust." 
 
 Another point in the faith of Tennyson 
 was its great reverence, coupled with its 
 deep humility. Speaking of GOD, he would 
 say, " I dare hardly name His Name." and 
 he would deprecate any rash intrusion into 
 mysteries which are beyond our under- 
 standing. Do we not need more of this 
 reverence and humility in the way in which 
 we deal with sacred things? In Dr. 
 Robbins' most valuable and suggestive 
 work, " An Essay toward Faith," he has 
 a chapter on " The Pride of Orthodoxy," 
 from which I must make one quotation, 
 though the whole should be read. 
 
 " To know all about Almighty GOD is 
 perhaps a more hopeless state of mind than 
 Agnosticism. GOD mapped out with the 
 
58 DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 precision of a mathematical demonstra- 
 tion ; Jesus Christ and His Atoning Work 
 fully explicated with the nicety of a scien- 
 tific definition ; spiritual life elaborated 
 according to the precedents of casuistry 
 until a rule of thumb determines every 
 problem beyond a peradventure ; here 
 is nutriment for pride which shall o'er- 
 top all other vanities of earth. Theology 
 is indeed the queen of sciences. Based 
 upon the revelation of GOD in Jesus Christ, 
 the development of doctrine in the Church 
 has safeguarded the fundamental truths of 
 the Gospel from the rash and perverse 
 speculations of men. The Catholic Faith 
 is a beautifully ordered system, in which 
 the mind, as well as the heart of man, may 
 find infinite delight and satisfaction. 
 There is legitimate certitude in which the 
 faithful rejoice amidst the shifting winds 
 of human opinion. But a dogma may be 
 true without being exhaustive. Though it 
 be based on a fact of revelation, the medium 
 of its expression is still the fallible Ian- 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 59 
 
 guage of earth. Finite terms cannot com- 
 pass infinite truth. At best a doctrinal 
 definition is but the stammering of chil- 
 dren, striving to utter the ineffable. When 
 definition serves to empty Divine truth of 
 its awe and mystery, it is doing the soul 
 a sorry service. Better a reverence which 
 dare not formulate, lest it derogate from 
 truth's dignity, than the shallow self- 
 assurance which would sound the depths 
 of eternity with the plummet of a glib 
 metaphysical statement." 
 
 Then as to reverence : 
 
 Is it not painful to read the most sacred 
 mysteries of our religion discussed in the 
 columns of the newspapers? 
 
 Is there no need for more reverence in the 
 way in which we patter off the well-known 
 words of a familiar prayer or the verses of 
 a favourite hymn? 
 
 Is the old idea of the practice of the 
 Presence of GOD quite lost?* Was it not a 
 good thing to teach as men used to teach, 
 that the first thing to do in kneeling down 
 
6o DOUBT AND FAITH. 
 
 in God's House was to remember that 
 " Surely the Lord is in this place " ? Was 
 not the advice of the wise man sound? 
 ** Keep thy foot when thou goest to the 
 House of God, and be more ready to hear 
 than to give the sacrifice of fools ; for they 
 consider not that they do evil. Be not rash 
 with thy mouth, and let not thine heart 
 be hasty to utter anything before GOD : for 
 God is in Heaven, and thou upon earth : 
 therefore let thy words be few." The very 
 frequency of our Services — rich blessing 
 though it is — is the very source of our dan- 
 ger. So soon as reverence departs and 
 formality enters we do not gain but lose. 
 The sole safeguard is the thought of the 
 Presence of GOD and all that it means. 
 
 Men flocked to hear Dr. Newman read 
 the Lessons at Oxford, and Prof. Maurice 
 say the daily Service at the Temple Church, 
 because they felt that there was a reality 
 about their ministrations which impressed 
 them as coming from " priests who were 
 clothed with righteousness." 
 
DOUBT AND FAITH. 6i 
 
 Faith which is born of humihty and 
 sanctified by reverence will lead us into all 
 truth, the peace of GOD will steal into our 
 hearts, all things will be made new, 
 according to the promise of Christ, and 
 we shall know Him as the Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life. 
 
 " O Living Will that shalt endure 
 
 When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
 Rise in the spiritual rock. 
 Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure ; 
 
 That we may lift from out of dust 
 A voice as unto him that hears 
 A cry above the conquer'd gears 
 
 To one, that with us works, and trust. 
 
 With faith that comes of self-control, 
 The truths that never can be proved 
 Until we close with all we loved. 
 
 And all we flow from, soul in soul." 
 
 {Stanza 131.) 
 
WE have seen that Tennyson's belief 
 in God was to him a matter of 
 faith, and not a matter of proof. 
 
 There is, as he thought, a domain of 
 knowledge and a domain of faith. These 
 are not contradictory. The domain of 
 faith lies beyond the domain of knowledge. 
 Knowledge is confined to what can be 
 known by the senses or demonstrated by 
 the reason. But beyond the limits of sense 
 and reason there lies the great world of 
 reality, w^hich can be entered only by faith. 
 
 So in the Prologue — 
 
 " Strong Son of GOD, immortal Love 
 
 Whom we, that have not seen Thy face, 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
 Believing, where we cannot prove." 
 
GOD. 63 
 
 And further on — 
 
 " We have but faith ; we cannot know, 
 For knowledge is of things we see : 
 And yet we trust it comes from Thee, 
 A beam in darkness : let it grow." 
 
 In another poem, " The Ancient Sage," 
 the same idea is worked out at greater 
 length. In the biography of Tennyson we 
 are told that the poet himself said of this 
 poem : " The whole poem is very personal. 
 The passages about * Faith ' and ' The 
 Passion of the Past ' were more especially 
 my own personal feelings." We may there- 
 fore fairly quote this poem as illustrating 
 Tennyson's thoughts and views. It is not 
 possible to do more than indicate passages, 
 which it is hoped the reader will peruse 
 in full in the original. The poem narrates 
 a conversation between an ancient sage and 
 a rich young man, " worn from wasteful 
 living." The youth has in his hand a scroll 
 of verse, which the sage asks permission to 
 read. And this is what he reads : 
 
64 GOD. 
 
 " How far thro' all the bloom and brake 
 
 That nightingale is heard ! 
 What power but the bird's could make 
 
 This music in the bird ? 
 How summer bright are yonder skies, 
 
 And earth as fair in hue ! 
 And yet what sign of aught that lies 
 
 Behind the green and blue ? 
 But man to-day is fancy's fool 
 
 As man hath ever been, 
 The nameless Power, or Powers, that rule 
 
 Were never heard or seen." 
 
 Here we have a thorough unbelief in the 
 existence of GOD, or, at best, an admission 
 that there may be some nameless Power or 
 Powers, but that man is but the fool of his 
 fancy if he thinks that he can apprehend 
 the Power. 
 
 The reply of the sage is expressed in 
 some of the noblest lines that Tennyson 
 ever wrote, beginning as follows : 
 
 " H thou would'st hear the Nameless, and wilt 
 dive 
 Into the Temple-cave of thine own self, 
 There, brooding by the central altar, thou 
 May'st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice, 
 
GOD. 65 
 
 By which thou wilt abide if thou be wise, 
 As if thou knewest, tho' thou canst not know ; 
 For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake 
 That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there." 
 
 We note in this passage that it is not by 
 knowledge that we apprehend GOD, for 
 knowledge does but skim, like a swallow, 
 upon the surface of the water ; but by faith 
 in the inmost depths of our own being we 
 can hear the voice of the Nameless. 
 
 The sage now continues to read the roll, 
 which demands proof of the existence of 
 the Nameless ; when he breaks off he 
 interjects this reply : 
 
 " Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my 
 son, 
 Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest 
 
 in, 
 Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone, 
 Nor canst thou prove that thou are spirit 
 
 alone, 
 Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in 
 one : 
 
 * * ♦ * * 
 
 E 
 
66 GOD. 
 
 For nothing worthy proving, can be proven, 
 Nor yet disproven ; wherefore thou be wise, 
 Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, 
 And cling to faith, beyond the forms of Faith ! " 
 
 Here again the poet is dwelling upon 
 the thought that GOD cannot be proved, but 
 the power of faith can penetrate where 
 those of knowledge and reason fail. 
 
 These extracts show clearly Tennyson's 
 position. As we have said before, the argu- 
 ment from design did not appeal to him, 
 nor did philosophical arguments commend 
 themselves to his mind. 
 
 " Nor thro' the questions men may try 
 The petty cobwebs we have spun." 
 
 For him, the existence of GOD is neces- 
 sary for the satisfaction of the demands 
 of the human race. " With a clear acknow- 
 ledgment that there is no purpose behind 
 the changes of things, and no working 
 towards an end, all striving must become 
 aimless, and life eventually intolerable." ^ 
 
 1 Masterman. 
 
GOD. 67 
 
 Some are led to the Truth by one path ; 
 others by another. We need not think that 
 the arguments which were voiceless to 
 Tennyson have necessarily no message for 
 others. A great preacher has said, " There 
 are three great postulates of reason — the 
 existence of self, of the world, of 
 God." ' 
 
 No doubt this is true, and yet it may be 
 helpful to make a brief digression from 
 Tennyson's views and to indicate certain 
 lines of thought which have undoubtedly 
 helped many towards Faith. 
 
 There is, first, the fact that the idea of 
 a Deity is everywhere rooted in the mind 
 of man. "A nation of pure Atheists is 
 yet to be discovered. Unworthy and de- 
 graded as are many of the beliefs on the 
 subject of a Higher Power that are to be 
 found in the heathen world, some groping 
 after the great unseen, some tentative in- 
 tuition, some shadowy belief there is to 
 be found always and everywhere. Man 
 
 ^ Bishop Alexander. 
 
68 GOD. 
 
 thinks of a Higher Power as he thinks of 
 the world around him or of himself." ^ 
 
 Secondly, as man looks out upon the 
 Universe he seeks for its productive cause. 
 " What cause, what force preceded and 
 brought into existence this Universe? All 
 the causes with which we come in contact 
 here are, as we term them, second causes ; 
 but they point to a cause beyond them- 
 selves, to a cause of causes, to a supreme 
 all-producing Cause, Itself uncaused, un- 
 originated. . . . The whole universe bids 
 us look beyond itself for the adequate ex- 
 planation of its existence. . . . ' How do 
 you know,' a Bedouin was asked, * that 
 there is a GOD ? ' 'In the same way,' he 
 replied, ' that I know, on looking at the 
 sand, when a man or a beast has crossed 
 the desert — by His footprints in the world 
 around me.' " ^ 
 
 Thirdly, there is another line of thought 
 which proceeds from the contemplation of 
 
 iLiddon, " Some Elements of Religion." 
 2 " Some Elements of Religion," Liddon. 
 
GOD. 69 
 
 our own being. The voice o f conscience bears 
 perpetual witness to us that we ought to 
 abhor evil and to do good. It also affirms 
 that if we are virtuous we should be happy. 
 "Yet, in the experience of life, the good 
 man who does good is often unhappy, 
 while vice is not unfrequently salaried and 
 crowned with rewards that are denied to 
 virtue. The sight of this contradiction 
 forces the conscience to infer a life to come, 
 and a Moral Being, Who, in His justice, 
 will re-establish those relations between 
 happiness and virtue which it persistently 
 recognizes as necessary." ^ 
 
 Let us now return to Tennyson's views, 
 and learn some of his thoughts concerning 
 the Divine Being. 
 
 To him, God was a Personal GOD : no 
 force, no tendency, no vague abstraction, 
 but a Living, Loving, Personal Being. 
 
 The last stanza in the poem may be 
 quoted in support of this — 
 
 1 Liddon. 
 
70 GOD. 
 
 " That God, Which ever lives and loves, 
 One God, one law, one element. 
 And one far-off divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
 God was no blind force, put forward to 
 account for the existence of the world and 
 then withdrawn, allowing the machinery of 
 the Universe to grind along as best it 
 could by itself, but a Personal Being, 
 working out His own great purpose and 
 watching over His own creation. 
 
 " Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit 
 with Spirit can meet — 
 Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than 
 hands and feet." ^ 
 
 He was asked to write the words of an 
 anthem about GOD, and he wrote " The 
 Human Cry." 
 
 "Hallowed be Thy Name— Hallelujah ! — 
 Infinite Ideality ! 
 Immeasurable Reality ! 
 Infinite Personality ! 
 Hallowed be Thy Name— Hallelujah ! 
 
 I'l'he Higher Pantheism. 
 
GOD. 71 
 
 We feel we are nothing— for all is Thou and 
 
 in Thee : 
 We feel we are something— that also has come 
 
 from Thee ; 
 We know we are nothing— but Thou wilt help 
 
 us to be. 
 Hallowed be Thy Name— Hallelujah ! " 
 
 To the idea of Personality, Tennyson 
 added that of Love. 
 
 " That Love which is and was 
 My Father and my Brother and my GOD." ^ 
 
 Thus, in the 126th stanza, 
 
 a 
 
 Love is and was my Lord and King, 
 And in His presence I attend 
 To hear the tidings of my friend. 
 
 Which every hour his couriers bring. 
 
 Love is and was my King and Lord, 
 And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
 Within His court on earth, and sleep 
 
 Encompass'd by His faithful guard. 
 
 And hear at times a sentinel 
 
 Who moves about from place to place, 
 And whispers to the worlds of space. 
 
 In the deep night that all is well." 
 
 ^ Doubt and Prayer. 
 
72 GOD. 
 
 It is true that at times he was troubled 
 by the problem of the apparent waste of 
 life, and by the vast amount of sin and 
 suffering throughout the world. 
 
 Thus, in these lines — 
 
 " O me ! for why is all around us here 
 As if some lesser god had made the world, 
 But had not force to shape it as He would, 
 Till the high GOD behold it from beyond, 
 And enter it, and make it beautiful ? " 
 
 It is a problem which has perplexed 
 many. If Tennyson has presented it to 
 us in the beauty of his verse, Newman has 
 done the same in the majesty of his prose. 
 
 " To consider the world in its length 
 and breadth, its various history, the many 
 races of men, their starts, their fortunes, 
 their mutual alienation, their conflicts ; and 
 then their ways, habits, governments, forms 
 of worship, their enterprises, their aimless 
 courses, their random achievements and 
 acquirements, the impotent conclusion of 
 long-standing facts, the tokens so faint 
 and broken of a superintending design, 
 
GOD. 73 
 
 the blind evolution of what turn out to be 
 great powers or truths, the progress of 
 things, as if from unreasoning elements, 
 not towards final causes, the greatness and 
 littleness of man, his far-reaching aims, his 
 short duration, the curtain hung over his 
 futurity, the disappointments of life, the 
 defeat of good, the success of evil, phy- 
 sical pain, mental anguish, the prevalence 
 and intensity of sin, the pervading idola- 
 tries, the corruptions, the dreary, hopeless 
 irreligion, that condition of the whole race 
 so fearfully yet exactly described in the 
 Apostle's words, ' having no hope and with- 
 out God in the world '—all this is a vision 
 to dizzy and appal, and inflicts upon the 
 mind a sense of a profound mystery, which 
 is absolutely beyond human solution." ^ 
 
 But if such thoughts troubled Tennyson 
 at times, as they have troubled others, if 
 he felt *' the sense of a profound mystery," 
 and was appalled by the dizzy vision, it 
 was only for a time. 
 
 ^Newman's "Apologia." 
 
74 GOD. 
 
 " After one of these moods," we are told 
 in his life, " he exclaimed — Yet GOD is love, 
 transcendent, all pervading ! We do not 
 get this faith from Nature or the World. 
 . . . We get this faith from ourselves, from 
 what is highest within us, which recognizes 
 that there is not one fruitless pang, just 
 as there is not one lost good." 
 
 So in a short poem, entitled " Faith " — 
 
 " Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest 
 and the best, 
 
 Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy 
 hope or break thy rest, 
 
 Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the ship- 
 wreck, or the rolling 
 
 Thunder, or the rending earthquake, or the 
 famine, or the pest ! " 
 
 And so in the 54th stanza of our 
 poem — 
 
 " Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
 Will be the final goal of ill, 
 To pangs of nature, sins of will. 
 Defects of doubt, and taints of blood." 
 
GOD. 75 
 
 "Behold, we know not anything 
 
 I can but trust that good shall fall 
 At last— far off— at last, to all, 
 And every winter change to spring." 
 
 Tennyson's attitude, therefore, was to 
 admit that there is much in the mystery of 
 suffering- we cannot understand, but never- 
 theless to hold firmly to the belief that 
 God is Love, and that the mystery will be 
 solved when we no longer " know in part," 
 but "know even as we are known." 
 
 But may we not go a step further than 
 this, and say, in all humility, that we are 
 permitted to see a little way into this mys- 
 tery, at least far enough to understand 
 that pain and suffering serve a purpose, a 
 merciful purpose, and that in permitting 
 them to exist, and to do their work in this 
 world, God is proving Himself a GOD of 
 Love. 
 
 We can see the necessity for pain as a 
 warning force. If pain were not the con- 
 sequence of injurious actions, how could 
 men be taucrht to refrain from them? 
 
76 GOD. 
 
 We can see the necessity for pain for the 
 development of character. 
 
 We can see the necessity for pain in the 
 reign of law. 
 
 " It seems hard, no doubt it is hard, that 
 a mother should lose her darling child by 
 accident or disease, and that she cannot, 
 by any agony of prayer, recall the child 
 to life. But it would be harder for the 
 world if she could. The child has died 
 through a violation of some of Nature's 
 laws : and if such violation were ever un- 
 attended with death, men would lose all 
 inducement to discover and obey them. It 
 seems hard, no doubt, that girls, young and 
 innocent, like Kate and Lily, whom Walter 
 Besant so graphically describes in ' Katha- 
 rine Regina,' it is hard that they should 
 be so destitute and wretched. Lily says to 
 her friend, ' We have done no harm to any- 
 body, why are we so horribly punished? 
 I have prayed for hours in the night ; I 
 have torn out my heart with prayer ; I have 
 prayed till I felt my words echoed back from 
 
GOD. 77 
 
 the senseless rocks.' It is hard for the indi- 
 vidual that such prayers are not answered ; 
 but It would be harder for the world if they 
 were. The miraculous providing of food 
 and comfort for one person would lead all 
 others to expect a miraculous provision. 
 ... It seems hard, it is hard, that children 
 are made to suffer for their fathers' crimes. 
 But it would be harder for the world if 
 they were not. If the father's wrong-doing 
 were averted from the children, men would 
 lose the strongest motive to do right." 
 
 Manifestly, then, there is a reason, and 
 a good reason, for some of the pain in the 
 world. " And the fact that we can see a 
 reason for sojiie suffering affords a logical 
 basis for the hope that there are reasons— 
 though as yet undiscovered — for all." ^ 
 
 In the belief that GOD is Good, and that 
 God is Love, we must be content to leave 
 the problem partly solved until we are 
 brought " behind the veil," and the dim twi- 
 light of this world is exchanged for the 
 endless, glorious noonday of the City of God. 
 
 1 Momerie on Pessimism. 
 
v.— (Bo5 anb '^ie (purpoee* 
 
 WE have seen that Tennyson believed 
 in a Personal GOD, and in a GOD 
 Who is Love. We must now add to this 
 the further belief that GOD is no indifferent 
 spectator of all that is going on in the 
 world, but that He is working out a great 
 purpose, that all is " co-operant to an end," 
 and bringing about that 
 
 " One far-off divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
 Tennyson was an ardent advocate of the 
 principle of Evolution. When first this 
 principle was stated it came with a shock 
 upon a great part of the religious world. 
 It seemed to many to minimize the power 
 of the Deity, and to remove Him almost, 
 if not altogether, from His place as the 
 
GOD AND HIS PURPOSE. 79 
 
 Creator of the World. With Tennyson 
 the effect was just the contrary. Behind 
 all the changes of Nature, all the dis- 
 coveries of science, all the events of history, 
 he could see a guiding hand bringing 
 order out of chaos, and developing all 
 things in the direction of the end He had 
 in view. 
 
 So in the 128th stanza — 
 
 '' The love that rose on stronger wings 
 Unpalsied when he met with Death, 
 Is comrade of the lesser faith 
 That sees the course of human things. 
 
 No doubt vast eddies in the flood 
 Of onward time shall yet be made, 
 And throned races may degrade ; 
 
 Yet, O ye mysteries of good, 
 
 Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, 
 If all your office had to do 
 With old results that look like new ; 
 
 If this were all your mission here, 
 
 To draw, to sheathe a useless sword. 
 To fool the crowd with glorious lies. 
 To cleave a creed in sects and cries, 
 
 To change the bearing of a word. 
 
80 GOD AND HIS PURPOSE. 
 
 To shift an arbitrary power, 
 
 To cramp the student at his desk, 
 To make old bareness picturesque 
 
 And tuft with grass a feudal tower ; 
 
 Why then my scorn might well descend 
 On you and yours. I see in part 
 That all, as in some piece of art, 
 
 Is toil co-operant to an end." 
 
 Yes, " toil co-operant to an end," and 
 that end will be achieved when the King- 
 dom of God comes in all its fulness, and 
 the earth is filled with the knowledge of 
 the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 
 
 Is not this the vision we have in the last 
 chapters of Holy Scripture? 
 
 The new Heaven and the new earth : the 
 Holy City, in which shall be "no more 
 death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither 
 shall there be any more pain." A City 
 whose purity can only be likened to the 
 flawless transparency of the clearest gems, 
 whose characteristics are perfect beauty, 
 radiant light, and absolute holiness. From 
 it is banished all evil. '' There shall in 
 
GOD AND HIS PURPOSE. 8i 
 
 no wise enter into it anything that defileth." 
 But the tree of life, and the river of the 
 water of life give to its inhabitants the gift 
 of life in its highest sense, life everlasting. 
 
 It is, no doubt, very difficult for us to 
 trace the working out of this purpose, be- 
 cause we only see such an infinitesimal 
 part, both in time and space, of the pro- 
 gress of the work. 
 
 We are constantly brought face to face 
 with sad, sorrowful, and sinful deeds, 
 which make us wonder why such things 
 should be permitted. We forget that it is 
 impossible for us to see the gradual on- 
 ward march of progress towards the " one 
 far-off divine event." 
 
 But it is well for us to try and realize 
 that behind so much that seems unintelli- 
 gible, God is working out His own end, 
 and that if, as must be the case, 
 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to 
 new," 
 
 yet it is also true that 
 
 " God fulfils Himself in many ways." 
 
82 GOD AND HIS PURPOSE. 
 
 Tennyson has brought this out in a 
 striking passage in " Sea Dreams," de- 
 scribing the vision of the wife — 
 
 " Round the North, a light, 
 A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapour, lay, 
 And ever in it a low musical note 
 Swell'd up and died ; and as it swell'd, a ridge 
 Of breaker issued from the belt, and still 
 Grew with the growing note, and when the note 
 Had reached a thunderous fulness, on those 
 
 cliffs 
 Broke, mixed with awful light (the same as that 
 Living within the belt), whereby she saw 
 That all those lines of cliffs were cliffs no more, 
 But huge cathedral fronts of every age, 
 Grave, florid, stern, as far as eye could see. 
 One after one : and then the great ridge drew, 
 Lessening to the lessening music, back 
 And pass'd into the belt and swell'd again 
 Slowly to music : ever when it broke 
 The statues, king or saint, or founder fell ; 
 Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left 
 Came men and women in dark clusters round, 
 Some crying, ' Set them up ! they shall not 
 
 fall ! ' 
 And others, ' Let them lie, for they have 
 
 fall'n ! ' 
 And still they strove and wrangled : and she 
 
 grieved 
 
GOD AND HIS PURPOSE. 83 
 
 In her strange dream, she knew not why, to 
 
 find 
 Their wildest wailings never out of tune 
 With that sweet note ; and ever as their shrieks 
 Ran highest up the gamut, that great wave 
 Returning, while none mark'd it, on the crowd 
 Broke, mixt with awful light, and show'd their 
 
 eyes 
 Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept away 
 The men of flesh and blood, and men of stone 
 To the waste deeps together." 
 
 It is a striking picture. We see the 
 changes, the passing away of old forms 
 and customs, once so highly venerated, the 
 consternation with which some view the 
 dissolution of things that seemed so last- 
 ing. We hear the loud outcry of party 
 strife and the din of party warfare, and 
 yet amidst all there is the sweet " note 
 never out of tune," the purpose of GOD 
 steadily working itself out in a progress 
 towards its appointed end. 
 
 If there is a gradual working out of 
 this purpose in the world, so must there 
 also be in mankind. Gradually, but 
 
84 GOD AND HIS PURPOSE. 
 
 surely, man must " work out the beast/' 
 and " let the ape and tiger die," 
 
 " That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 This is the thought that is contained in 
 
 the 1 1 8th stanza. 
 
 " They say 
 The solid earth whereon we tread 
 
 In tracts of fluent heat began, 
 
 And grew to seeming-random forms, 
 The seeming prey of cyclic storms. 
 
 Till at the last arose the man ; 
 
 Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, 
 
 The herald of a higher race, 
 
 And of himself in higher place. 
 If so he type this work of time 
 
 Within himself, from more to more ; 
 Or crown'd with attributes of woe 
 Like glories, move his course, and show 
 
 That life is not an idle ore. 
 
 But iron dug from central gloom, 
 And heated hot with burning fears, 
 And dipt in baths of hissing tears, 
 
 And batter'd with the shocks of doom 
 
GOD AND HIS PURPOSE. 85 
 
 To shape and use. Arise and fly 
 The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
 Move upward, working out the beast, 
 
 And let the ape and tiger die." 
 
 Yes, surely all the events of this world 
 are working together to school mankind 
 into a higher life, the life of love. GOD 
 is Love. Man is made in the image of 
 God, therefore man must learn that Love 
 is the very Nature of GOD, and that to 
 draw near to GOD is to dwell in the very 
 atmosphere of love. As Browning says — 
 
 " For life with all it yields of joy and woe, and 
 
 hope and fear, 
 Is just our chance o' the prize of learnin.cf 
 
 love — 
 How love might be, hath been indeed, and 
 
 is." 
 
 But you say there is very little love in 
 the world. Nation goes to war with 
 nation. Tyranny, injustice and greed 
 grind down their victims, and in their 
 names nameless deeds are daily done. In 
 the Church of Christ itself party-spirit, 
 
86 GOD AND HIS PURPOSE, 
 
 bitter hatred, and scarcely veiled persecu- 
 tion stalk abroad. It is too true, and yet 
 those who think most deeply tell us that 
 all these horrors are calling forth self- 
 sacrificing love on the part of many, 
 and are gradually but surely teaching men 
 that Love is the better way. 
 
 The evolution of love is steadily going 
 on. All thoughtful persons recognize its 
 value and its beauty. " The number of 
 self-sacrificing men and women, the num- 
 ber of those who have merged their own 
 life and well-being in the life and well- 
 being of the race is continually on the in- 
 crease." ^ And assuredly the time is com- 
 ing when there will be a reign of love in 
 humanity as invariable and as universal 
 as the present reign of law in Nature. 
 
 That is 
 
 " The one far-off Divine event 
 Towards which the whole creation moves." 
 
 ^ Momerie. 
 
VI.— e^c t^tiet. 
 
 WHEN Tennyson was asked for his 
 views about Jesus Christ, he 
 answered that they were to be found in 
 " In Memoriam." 
 
 The Prologue, the 36th stanza, and a 
 small part of the io6th contain these 
 views ; but scanty though the matter may 
 be, it is sufficient to show us how the 
 Christian position had penetrated into the 
 Poet's mind and heart. It would be hard 
 to find clearer witness to the Incarnation 
 of our Lord, and the Incarnation is the 
 key to the Christian position. Grant the 
 Incarnation, and the rest of the Creed fol- 
 lows naturally. Indeed, of what purpose 
 would have been the Incarnation without 
 the rest? 
 
 We will read the first four verses of the 
 Prologue : 
 
88 THE CHRIST. 
 
 " Strong Son of GOD, immortal Love, 
 
 Whom we, that have not seen Thy face. 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace. 
 Believing where we cannot prove ; 
 
 Thine are these orbs of light and shade : 
 Thou madest Life in man and brute ; 
 Thou madest Death ; and lo, Thy foot 
 
 Is on the skull which Thou hast made. 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why ; 
 He thinks he was not made to die : 
 
 And Thou hast made him : Thou art just. 
 
 Thou seemest human and divine, 
 
 The highest, holiest manhood. Thou : 
 Our wills are ours, we know not how : 
 
 Our wills are ours, to make them Thine.*' 
 
 We now turn to the 36th stanza — 
 
 " Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, 
 Deep-seated in our mystic frame. 
 We yield all blessing to the Name 
 Of Him that made them current coin ; 
 
 For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
 Where truth in closest words shall fail. 
 When truth embodied in a tale 
 
 Shall enter in at lowly doors. 
 
THE CHRIST. 89 
 
 And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
 With human hands the creed of creeds 
 In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
 
 More strong than all poetic thought : 
 
 Which he may read that binds the sheaf. 
 Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
 And those wild eyes that watch the wave 
 
 In roarings round the coral reef." 
 
 Surely no one can read these passages 
 without feeling that Tennyson believed 
 heartily in the Incarnation of the Son of 
 God — Human and Divine — " Who wrought 
 the creed of creeds in loveliness of perfect 
 deeds." 
 
 " A visitor once ventured to ask him, as 
 they were walking in the garden, what he 
 thought of our Saviour. He said nothing 
 at first ; then he stopped by a beautiful 
 flower, and said, * What the sun is to that 
 flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul. He is 
 the Sun of my soul.' His niece, Miss Weld, 
 among other touching recollections of her 
 uncle, says that he often dwelt in his talks 
 upon the special nearness of Christ to him 
 in the Holy Communion." 
 
go THE CHRIST. 
 
 Tennyson's special contribution to re- 
 ligious thought does not lie in the fresh 
 exposition of theological subtleties so 
 much as the " reiteration and enforcement 
 of certain fundamental and central beliefs, 
 enshrined in that exquisite choice of pure 
 English of which he was such a master — 
 beliefs and truths that seem to be ever well- 
 ing up from the depths of his conscious- 
 ness, and from life-long experience of their 
 vital importance to have become a part of 
 his very being. 
 
 " This is indeed a boon which it is 
 scarcely possible to over-estimate in an age 
 when nothing has been thought too solemn 
 or too sacred to be called in question, and 
 canvassed and pronounced upon in almost 
 oracular language by the ephemeral litera- 
 ture of the magazine or newspaper. In 
 this aspect Tennyson must be regarded as 
 a true Va^es — prophet as well as poet — to 
 his generation, and to those that are to 
 come. For, again and again, we believe 
 that in the future men and women, jaded 
 
THE CHRIST. 91 
 
 with the toil and hurry incident to modern 
 civilization, stunned and perplexed by the 
 many distracting voices around them, will 
 return for calm and repose to those serene 
 galleries peopled with the stately creatures 
 of his imagination, and vocal with utter- 
 ances full of elevated thought — a constant 
 source of strength and consolation, of in- 
 spiration and joy, to uplift from the earth, 
 and at the same time to nerve for the most 
 strenuous performance of daily duty." ^ 
 
 We have seen that our poet felt and ex- 
 pressed a very true and loving belief in our 
 Incarnate Lord, in His creed of creeds, and 
 in His sinless life. We must next ask 
 what was that special aspect of the 
 Incarnate Christ which appealed most to 
 Tennyson. 
 
 In fact, when he wrote the line — 
 
 " Ring in the Christ that is to be " 
 
 what were the thoughts that were suggested 
 to his mind by " the Christ that is to be " ? 
 
 iQzanan "Etudes Germaniques." 
 
92 THE CHRIST. 
 
 For nothing is clearer to the student of 
 Church History than that in every age the 
 Christ has been the central figure of attrac- 
 tion and the central factor in thought to 
 Christians : yet the aspect of Christianity, 
 that is, the way in which the Christ has 
 affected the thoughts and lives of people, 
 has varied very considerably ; so that the 
 history of the Church presents a series of 
 pictures of Christian life, different from 
 each other, yet each witnessing to some 
 truth, though often overlaid with the errors 
 and weaknesses of its particular age. 
 
 "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the 
 Avorld." 
 
 Thus in the third century we have the 
 Hermits, who in their love for the Christ 
 fled from the awful wickedness of that 
 wicked epoch, and led in the solitude of 
 the desert a pure and simple life. 
 
 It was a protest which was most useful 
 
THE CHRIST. 93 
 
 at the time, but it was not the ideal 
 Christian life, not the permanent expres- 
 sion of Christianity. Christ's disciples 
 were to leaven the world in which they 
 lived, not to stand aside from that world 
 and leave it to its fate. 
 
 The Hermits were followed by the 
 Monks. " At the close of the fifth century 
 the wild bands of Gothic barbarians were 
 shattering the political fabric of the Empire 
 to pieces. Amid homeless men, amid de- 
 populated provinces, amid perishing insti- 
 tutions, amid the rising deluges of heathen- 
 ism and barbarity, * a type of common life,' 
 says Bishop Westcott, ' was needed to pre- 
 serve the inheritance of the old world and 
 to offer a rallying point for the Christian 
 forces that should fashion the new.' 
 
 " What was it that had preserved the best 
 elements of Christianity in the fourth cen- 
 tury? The self-sacrifice of the hermits. 
 What was it which saved the principles of 
 law and order and civilization? What 
 rescued the wreck of ancient literature 
 
94 THE CHRIST. 
 
 from the universal conflagration? What 
 kept alive the dying embers of science? 
 What fanned into a flame the white ashes 
 of art? What redeemed waste lands; 
 cleared forests, drained fens, protected 
 miserable populations, encouraged free 
 labour? What was the sole witness for 
 the cause of charity, the sole preservative 
 of even partial education, the sole rampart 
 against intolerable oppression? What 
 weak and unarmed power alone retained 
 the strength and the determination to dash 
 down the mailed hand of the baron when 
 it was uplifted against his serf, to pro- 
 claim a truce of GOD between warring vio- 
 lences, and to make insolent wickedness 
 tremble by asserting the inherent supre- 
 macy of goodness over transgression, of 
 knowledge over ignorance, of quiet right- 
 eousness over brutal force? You will say 
 the Church ; you will say Christianity. 
 Yes, but for many a long century the very 
 bulwarks and ramparts of the Church were 
 the monasteries, and the one invincible 
 
THE CHRIST. 95 
 
 force of the Church lay in the self-sacrifice, 
 the holiness, the courage of the monks. 
 
 " Poverty, chastity, obedience had always 
 been the triple vow of the monk — poverty 
 in ages which were dying of opulence ; 
 chastity, in an age weakened by orgies ; 
 obedience, in an age perishing of d isorders." ^ 
 
 This was the aspect of the Christian life 
 which presented itself to them, an aspect 
 most useful for the days in which they 
 lived and bore their witness. 
 
 But again the scene shifts, and we have 
 the age of the Franciscans, with their 
 speaking and stirring protest against the 
 worldliness and luxury which was sapping 
 the life of the clergy, and so of the 
 Church. To them the conception of the 
 Christ and the Christian life was contained 
 in the words : " Provide neither gold, nor 
 silver, nor brass in your purses ; neither 
 two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves. 
 And as ye go preach, saying : The King- 
 dom of Heaven is at hand." 
 
 ^ Farrar's "Saintly Workers." 
 
9* THE CHRIST. 
 
 These instances will be sufficient to show 
 what I mean. Let us return to the question, 
 What was the aspect presented by Tenny- 
 son in " the Christ that is to be " ? 
 
 If you will read the io6th stanza care- 
 fully I think you will see that what 
 Tennyson wishes to teach is the duty of 
 translating the Christian creed into action. 
 When this is done, when our belief influ- 
 ences our deeds, when we live the kind of 
 life that we profess to believe in, then in- 
 deed a new era will set in, an era of truth, 
 of charity, of nobler modes of life, of 
 sweeter manners, of peace, of kindliness, 
 of the teaching of the Christ expressed in 
 the lives of Christ's people. 
 
 The age in which we live is distinctly a 
 social age, and its problems are social 
 problems. It is for us Christians to see 
 that the social problems can only be 
 solved by the teaching of the Christ lived 
 out in our own lives and applied to the 
 lives of others. For " there is no depart- 
 ment of human life and action in Christen- 
 
THE CHRIST. 97 
 
 dom which has not something to tell us of 
 the influence which His character has 
 exerted in the world. ... It is true that 
 He left no writing behind Him ; but what 
 literature would remain, if we were to give 
 up all in which the influence of His teach- 
 ing could be detected? He was neither 
 poet nor musician ; but poet and musician 
 alike have, in innumerable instances, bor- 
 rowed from His life the inspiration which 
 has enabled them to accomplish their best 
 work. He contributed nothing to archi- 
 tecture, nothing to art ; but to His honour, 
 and for the better realization of His 
 abiding presence, have been erected the 
 noblest buildings the world has seen, and 
 sculptors and painters have vied with each 
 other in perpetuating His memory and His 
 influence. He kept aloof from all politics, 
 and promulgated no schemes for the re- 
 dress of social evils ; but far and wide, in 
 civilized and in heathen lands, wherever 
 His teaching has become known and His 
 character has been understood, slavery and 
 
 G 
 
98 THE CHRIST. 
 
 oppression have tended to disappear, and 
 justice and mercy to take their place." ^ 
 
 It is by realizing the kind of character 
 which the Christ put before His people as 
 the chcLracter for His disciples, and then 
 living out that character in our daily life, 
 that we shall, each one of us, help to ring 
 in " the Christ that is to be." 
 
 This character is delineated with beauti- 
 ful simplicity in the Beatitudes. 
 
 The Blessed Life is lived by those who, 
 so far from setting their hearts upon riches, 
 sit lightly to the things of this world, and 
 are " poor in spirit " : by those who 
 worthily lament their own sins and are 
 ever ready to enter into the sorrows of 
 others with sympathy and aid — " They that 
 mourn " ; by those who are meek and 
 gentle, even under provocation ; by those 
 who strongly crave for all that is right, 
 true, and good, who " hunger and thirst 
 after righteousness " ; by those who are 
 
 1" Human Nature a Revelation of the Divine." C. H. 
 Robinson. 
 
THE CHRIST. 99 
 
 merciful, who, realizing how often they 
 fall themselves, are ready to look with 
 pity and forgiveness on the falls of others ; 
 by those who are pure in heart, single- 
 minded, absolutely intent upon goodness 
 and the service of GOD ; by those who, 
 among all the strife and malice of this 
 world, are peacemakers ; and by those who 
 are ready to stand by these principles at 
 the risk of unpopularity, of scorn, possibly 
 of persecution. 
 
 This is a sadly imperfect sketch ; yet it 
 may give us food for thought. 
 
 This is the kind of character that the 
 Christ desires His people to form, and then 
 this character expressed in the life will have 
 its influence and effect upon others. It will 
 be the salt that will purify ; the Light that 
 will burn in the darkness ; the city that is 
 set on a hill, which must arrest attention. 
 
 If all of us Christians were aiming at 
 such a life as this, Christianity would be 
 an irresistible torrent that would carry 
 everything before it. It is because we lower 
 
lOO THE CHRIST. 
 
 our ideals, because we are too fond of the 
 things of this world, to become poor in 
 spirit ; too unconscious of our sinfulness 
 to mourn for it ; too full of party-spirit 
 and controversialism to be meek ; too care- 
 less of righteousness to hunger and thirst 
 for it ; too easily offended to be merciful ; 
 too fond of ourselves and our pleasures 
 to be pure in heart ; too quarrelsome to be 
 peacemakers ; too cowardly to stand perse- 
 cution. Thus the Kingdom of Christ does 
 not make the progress it should, and the 
 fault is with us, His people. 
 
 Can we have any better work than to 
 draw near in penitence for the past to the 
 foot of the Cross, and to draw fresh teach- 
 ing and new grace for the future, that we 
 may go forth to " ring in the Christ that 
 is to be." Some of you may remember the 
 description which is given in the life of 
 F. \V. Robertson, of the effect which the 
 study of Christ's life produced upon his. 
 
 " The Incarnation was to him the centre 
 of all history. The life which followed 
 
THH CHRIST. loi 
 
 the Incarnation was the explanation of the 
 Life of God, and the only solution of the 
 problem of the life of man. He did not 
 speak much of loving Christ ; his love was 
 fitly mingled with that veneration which 
 made love perfect ... he paused before 
 he spoke His Name in common talk ; for 
 what that Name meant had become the 
 central thought of his intellect and the 
 deepest realization of his spirit. He had 
 spent a world of study, of reverent medita- 
 tion, of adoring contemplation on the 
 Gospel history. Nothing comes forward 
 more visibly in his letters than the way in 
 which he had entered into the human life 
 of Christ. To that everything is referred — 
 by that everything is explained. The gos- 
 sip of a drawing-room, the tendencies of 
 the time, the religious questions of the 
 day . . . the loneliness and the difficulties 
 of his work, were not so much argued upon 
 or combated, as at once and instinctively 
 brought to the test of a life which was lived 
 out eighteen centuries ago, but which went 
 
loa THE CHRIST. 
 
 everywhere with him. Out of this intuitive 
 reception of Christ, and from this ceaseless 
 silence of meditation which makes the 
 blessedness of great love, there grew up in 
 him a deep comprehension of the whole, 
 as well as a minute sympathy with all the 
 delicate details of the character of Christ 
 Day by day, with passionate imitation, he 
 followed his Master, musing on every 
 action, revolving in thought the inter- 
 dependence of all that Christ had said or 
 done, weaving into the fibres of his heart 
 the principles of the Life he worshipped, 
 till he had received into his being the very 
 impression and image of that unique per- 
 sonality. His very doctrines were the life 
 of Christ expressed in words. The Incar- 
 nation, Atonement and Resurrection of 
 Christ were not dogmas to him. In him- 
 self he was daily realizing them. They 
 were in him a life, a power, a light." 
 
 I could not find fitter words to express 
 what I mean, nor a better wish with which 
 to conclude these thoughts, than that some 
 
THE CHRIST. 103 
 
 such conception may be ours, and that such 
 an ideal conceived in our hearts may be 
 carried out in our lives. 
 
 " Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
 The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
 The year is dying in the night ; 
 Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 
 
 Ring out the old, ring in the new, 
 Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
 The year is going, let him go ; 
 
 Ring out the false, ring in the true. 
 
 Ring out the grief that saps the mind. 
 For those thai here we see no more ; 
 Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 
 
 Ring in redress to all mankind. 
 
 Ring out a slowly dying cause, 
 And ancient forms of party strife ; 
 Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
 
 With sweeter manners, purer laws. 
 
 Ring out the want, the care, the sin. 
 The faithless coldness of the times; 
 Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, 
 
 But ring the fuller minstrel in. 
 
 Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
 The civic slander and the spite ; 
 Ring in the love of truth and right, 
 
 Ring in the common love of good. 
 
104 THE CHRIST, 
 
 Ring out old shapes of foul disease; 
 
 Ring' out the narrowing lust of gold ; 
 
 Ring out the thousand wars of old, 
 Ring in the thousand years of peace. 
 
 Ring in the valiant man and free 
 The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
 Ring out the darkness of the land, 
 
 Ring in the Christ that is to be." 
 
 The End. 
 
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