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THE 
 
 RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
THE 
 
 RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 ESS A YS 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE, ROBERT BROWNING, 
 ALFRED TENNYSON, 
 
 INCLUDING CRITICISMS UPON THE THEOLOGY OF 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT, GEORGE MACDONALD, AND 
 
 ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE M C CRIE. 
 
 Hontion: 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCLXXV. 
 
 s 
 
 <&? 
 
UNWIN BROTHERS, PRINTERS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE I 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING 69 
 
 III. 
 ALFRED TENNYSON IIO 
 
 IV. 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 181 
 
 V. 
 THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY 223 
 
 VI. 
 THE ^ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION 255 
 
 VII. 
 A WORD TO GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD ... 286 
 
 VIII. 
 ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON 315 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 LITERATURE, in the centuries that went before the 
 Reformation, did an essential service in preparing the 
 way for it. The poet and the litterateur being universally 
 allowed a very great license, even an intolerant priesthood 
 suffered them to speak out the truth, and, despising probably 
 any opposition which came from that quarter, was doomed 
 to find that genius and imagination form the mightiest 
 influence of all. 
 
 The same considerations that made literature an ad- 
 mirable herald of the Bible and of the Reformation, 
 render it a dangerous pioneer of doctrine that is likely to 
 overthrow them both. The false in religion, as well as 
 the true, will make appearance first in our literature. When 
 advocated there it makes rapid progress, because it excites 
 no alarm, and because sound theologians are smiling at the 
 flimsiness of the argument, while they forget the fascination 
 by which it is recommended. 
 
 Infidelity is making rapid strides in our literature, under 
 the plausible disguise of a new Christianity. 
 
 According to the system now adopted by it, miracles are 
 either discarded altogether or are considered of no value as 
 evidence in this remote age of ours. For the same reason 
 it is deemed impossible to establish the historical truth of 
 the Record. The illustrious writers to whom I refer being 
 only men of wit, art, and letters, do not judge it necessary 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 of course to support such positions by profound and learned 
 argument. Meanwhile, having been led in the pride of 
 their understanding to doubt the solid foundations of Chris- 
 tianity, they become, in the first instance, sceptics, and pass 
 through an agonizing ordeal of soul which is considered to 
 be equivalent to a day of religious conviction. This is what 
 constitutes the earnestness of religion in our literary men. 
 
 Next, they profess to reach a conviction of the truth of 
 Christianity by a new way of their own ; though, as might 
 be expected, it turns out to be a Christianity entirely different 
 from ours. Having looked abroad upon the world in the 
 exercise of their own observation, and consulted with 
 their own inward sentiments, they find that God is a God 
 of love. They say nothing of His justice. No discovery of 
 that attribute seems to have been made by them. But they 
 have found Him out to be a God of love. And now they 
 at once recognise Christ to be the Son of God ; not because 
 He is proved to be so by miracle or record, but from His 
 corresponding in character and message with this idea. 
 
 What then ? Do they receive Him as having come to 
 make an atonement for sin, and turn away the wrath of God 
 from us ? Do they recognise the existence of any such 
 wrath ? No. Everything in our Bible that seems to teach 
 such things they take leave to discard, as not accordant with 
 the findings of their own observation, and with their inner 
 consciousness or moral sentiments. Would not we ourselves, 
 who are men, they argue, wish all to be saved irrespective 
 of an atonement ? Do not we who are men turn away with 
 aversion from the thought of everlasting punishment ? Why 
 not consider then that God feels in the same way as we men 
 do ? For this very purpose, according to them, was the Son 
 of God made flesh, that God might persuade us how truly 
 human He Himself is. For this, and for no other purpose, 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 Christ is not so much God in the flesh as the flesh in God, for 
 that is their favourite phraseology. 
 
 In the eighteenth century it was reason that exalted itself 
 above revelation. In the nineteenth it is the moral sense 
 within us that is exalted above it, for modern infidelity 
 holds reason of no account in matters of religion. But every 
 doctrine is to be expunged from our Bible that has not the 
 supposed imprimatur of the natural conscience. Thus, in 
 our day, it is the very vicegerent of God that has rebelled 
 against God. 
 
 The object of the present volume is to meet this new 
 Christianity. 
 
 First, I have brought the system of Thomas Carlyle for 
 the first time as a whole before the eye of the public, tracing 
 his opinions to their source. For as his style, although 
 eccentric to the last degree, has affected even the English 
 language, so his religious views, however outrageous in 
 themselves, have insensibly coloured the minds of many in . 
 the community. 
 
 Next I have fully exposed and canvassed the theology 
 taught by Browning and Tennyson. A feeling has uni- 
 versally obtained that these poets have been broaching novel 
 religious tenets, but owing to the obscurity, especially of 
 Browning's style, few seem to know exactly what they are. 
 
 "Without enlarging at length upon the other contents of 
 this volume, the author has only to observe that he has given 
 an extended criticism of our two most illustrious poets, 
 with a view to settle the question of the comparative merits 
 between them and the poets of a preceding generation. 
 
 Finally, in a separate essay, he has ventured to throw 
 down the gauntlet in favour of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
 as the truest poet of the age. 
 
THE 
 
 RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 i. 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 FEW men have occupied so prominent a place in the eye 
 of the community as Thomas Carlyle. No man living 
 has more originality. As a writer he is per se, and is allowed 
 by general consent to write as no other man does, violating 
 the rules of English grammar, and even adopting positions 
 in argument which make logicians stare, and men of ordinary 
 sobriety stand aghast. The atonement is of course his 
 genius. Since the English language seems to confine him 
 somewhat, we are willing that he should use certain liberties 
 with it ; although it is impossible to say whether his compo- 
 sition be poetry or prose, we are satisfied to have them both 
 at once — why not ? and, once in the year, it is felt to be 
 a relief to leave the monotonous champaign of ordinary 
 literature, and, taking up Carlyle, to visit the rude magnifi- 
 cence of its highlands — 
 
 The mountains that like giants stand. 
 
 To sentinel enchanted land ; 
 
 Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurled, 
 
 The fragments of an earlier world. 
 
 Being an author in every respect so eccentric, some might 
 have judged it unlikely that he would produce much impres- 
 sion upon the age. And, no doubt, there are few who might 
 be expected to imitate his style, or endorse his sentiments. 
 But he belongs to a class of writers whose indirect influence 
 
 2 
 
2 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 is great. The style of our language has been affected by 
 him, whether for the better or the worse we do not stop to 
 inquire. What it has lost in purity, it has gained perhaps 
 in piquancy. Nor can it be denied that, while he is alone 
 in holding many of his wilder opinions, he has inoculated 
 many with his peculiar philosophy. 
 
 Whether is the influence he has exerted upon the country 
 to be hailed or deplored ? In settling this question, let us 
 first ascertain what is the place he aims at occupying — the 
 mission he has sought to fulfil. We will then be abler to 
 determine whether he has succeeded or failed. 
 
 He has appeared amongst us in the character of a Re- 
 former. Again and again has he come forward to address 
 the age and generation — showing no inclination to spare it, 
 and bearing a message which he has inculcated with the 
 fervour of a prophet. He is a religious Reformer. More 
 than a politician, neither is he a mere moralist come to lash 
 the vices of the nation. It is the want of God-recognition 
 he mainly finds fault with. He dates the degeneracy of the 
 land from the Restoration. He bewails the system of 
 government which, ignoring whatever is Divine, steers its 
 course by expediency. With the same feeling does he con- 
 template the godless science that would reduce the universe 
 to a mechanism. He is the sworn foe of Formalism in re- 
 ligion, and Hearsays, and of all who see no mystery in the 
 system of things around them. "Whither am I going?" 
 " Whence have I come ? " The man after his heart is he 
 who has looked beyond the hulls of things — the mere clothes 
 — and, recognising the eternal and irreconcilable distinc- 
 tions between good and evil, sets himself to obey the sacred 
 call of duty, so help him God, and in defiance of the devil. 
 
 They who are acquainted with his writings must be fami- 
 liar with the mode in which he reiterates these things, set- 
 ting himself as with Thor's hammer against the Jotuns of 
 secularisms, formalisms, laissez-dc-faires, dilettantisms, &c. 
 So far well. Earnestness — religious earnestness — is a good 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 thing, and it cannot be denied that his writings have tended 
 to give a stimulus to the energies of the generation. No 
 writer has intenser sympathies with the great men in every 
 department of excellence, or has more powerfully pourtrayed 
 them. Nowhere is the mercenary, the material, the merely 
 intellectual, and the atheistic more mercilessly scourged than 
 in his pages ; and we should be sorry to think that nothing 
 has been effected by all he has said so intensely to exalt 
 humanity, especially as it grapples with the mystery of its 
 own being, and of the universe. 
 
 We should say he were an unreasonable soul who doubted 
 the earnestness of Thomas Carlyle ; but our readers may 
 agree with us in holding it to be important to know what is 
 the religion he believes in, for which he is himself earnest, 
 and for which he would wish us all to be earnest. That, 
 again, is exactly the point he considers to be of no conse- 
 quence. We shall show immediately that, in his judgment, 
 it signifies little what a man's religion may be, if he have 
 one, and (to use an expression of his own) be full of it. Now, 
 here, he differs from other religious reformers whom we have 
 been accustomed to venerate. They have always considered 
 that the kind of religion we adopt is a point as essential as 
 the earnestness with which we pursue it. To put the various 
 religions that are known in the world upon a level, as regards 
 their connection with man's spiritual and eternal interests ; 
 to maintain that men may be saved by any of them as well 
 as by another, and that earnestness in one is as praiseworthy 
 as earnestness in its opposite, is a position which Luther 
 or Knox (whom yet he admires and even worships) would 
 have stared at, as betraying an amount of ignorance they had 
 never encountered, and an excess of boldness scarcely to be 
 credited. Yet this is the position which our author has taken 
 up. Hence the extraordinary medley and jumble of panegy- 
 rics which we find in his writings — at one time a life of 
 Cromwell, which would lead simple souls to believe he was 
 himself a Puritan ; next a lecture upon Mahomet, which 
 
 r, * 
 
4 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 might have been written by one that was circumcised ; at 
 one time a glowing eulogy upon the Reformation ; next upon 
 the Christianity of the Middle Ages, " a thing for ever me- 
 morable and for ever true, as to the essence of it ; " anon, 
 an enthusiastic defence of Odinism. 
 
 We merely refer in general terms at the outset to these 
 things, in order to show that if Thomas Carlyle be a religious 
 reformer, he is one of a new and peculiar stamp ; and that, 
 if his earnestness be unquestionable, it would require to be 
 the subject of some investigation. 
 
 Let us hear what is his idea of the battle that is to be 
 waged, and of the way in which it is to be set. 
 
 " No thought that ever dwelt honestly as true in the heart 
 of man," he writes in one of his Lectures on Heroes and Hero 
 Worship, "but was an honest insight into God's truth on 
 man's part, and has an essential truth in it which endures 
 throughout all changes, an everlasting possession for us all. 
 And what a melancholy notion is that which has to represent 
 men in all countries and times except our own as having 
 spent their life in blind condemnable error, mere lost pagans, 
 Scandinavians, Mohammedans, only that we might have the 
 true ultimate knowledge. All generations of men were lost 
 and wrong, only that this present little section of a genera- 
 tion might be saved and right. ... It is an incredible 
 hypothesis. . . . Are not all true men that ever lived soldiers 
 of the same armv, enlisted under heaven's captaincy to do 
 battle against the same enemy — the empire of darkness and 
 wrong? Why should we misknow one another, fight not 
 against the enemy, but ourselves, from mere difference of 
 uniform ? All uniforms shall be good — so they hold them 
 true, valiant men. All fashions of arms, the Arab turban, 
 Thor's strong hammer-smiting-down Jotuns shall be wel- 
 come. Luther's battle voice ; Dante's march melody, all 
 genuine. Ye are with us, not against us. We are all under 
 one Captain, soldiers of the same " 
 
 Rather than come to the conclusion that so many millions, 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 5 
 
 pagans and Mohammedans, are perishing, it is best, in order 
 to avoid melancholy, that we should reckon it to be the 
 truth, or truth sufficient for salvation, which they hold. 
 Again, he thinks it enough to prove that religions cannot be 
 condemnably false if some hundreds of millions have adopted 
 them. It is impossible that so many people should be 
 wrong. Would he tell us how many people it is supposable 
 should go wrong? Does a hundred thousand seem too 
 many ? Or is it when a million have gone wrong that they 
 must be right ? This common warfare which he would have 
 us to wage alongside of idolaters, Mohammedans, and Papists, 
 against the empire of darkness, is as pretty a Latitudinarian 
 fight as a man might wish to see. Against what enemies, 
 we would ask, are we to fight in this Holy Alliance ? We 
 suppose against all mere Formalists, all who follow Hearsays, 
 all dilletantists, all who look to mere profit and loss, and are 
 mercenary men. Ere the expedition commence — are these 
 enemies few in number, or do they amount to vast multi- 
 tudes ? If few, where the need of such a host to meet them ? 
 If amounting to countless millions, then is it not an incre- 
 dible hypothesis and too melancholy to judge that all these 
 should be in " blind condemnable error" ? And what is the 
 common truth we are to contend for ? So far as idolaters, 
 Norsemen, for instance, are concerned, he tells us else- 
 where that the " everlasting possession for us all " which 
 they held was valour, and that the great essential truth of 
 popery, viewed as a Christianism, was humility. So, then, 
 here is an Armageddon struggle for valour and humility at 
 any rate. He may say, let us contend against all vice, 
 profligacy, wrong, oppression, covetousness, worldliness. 
 But why is he so much shocked with those who are wanting 
 in the duties of the Second Table of the Law, while he is 
 quite willing to associate with those who are the grossest 
 violators of the First Table of the Law. He fights shoulder 
 to shoulder with a man who has robbed God of all the glory 
 due to His infinite attributes, and given it to a stock ; mean- 
 
6 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 while he handles roughly a man who has acted dishonestly 
 and disgracefully to a fellow-creature. He shakes hands 
 with Mahomet, who deceived millions by his fanatical and 
 hysterical delusions, and he fights against those who at the 
 worst are common liars. 
 
 The fact that he calls upon us to associate with pagans, 
 papists, and followers of the false prophet, and to recognise 
 them as brother combatants, shows that he considers the 
 points of difference between them and us to be of no vital 
 consequence. According to the terms of this alliance (which, 
 in all conscience, is broad enough) the object of our worship 
 may be idols, or the one true and living God ; our faith may 
 be in Mahomet or Jesus; we may walk by tradition, and 
 decrees of pope and council for our rule, or by the Koran, 
 or by the Bible. All this ranks with the non-essential. 
 
 Then as to what he holds to be essential. He holds it to 
 be essential that we have a religion. It may be one Lord, or 
 many gods. It may be a fetish, but we must worship 
 something. He holds it essential that we be earnest in our 
 religion. Whether it be the fetish or Jehovah, signifies 
 nothing, so we be full of either. He holds it essential that 
 there be a message from heaven we believe in. Whether it 
 be that contained in the Koran or in the Bible is a matter of 
 moonshine — whether it be true, even, provided we honestly 
 believe it to be true. He holds it to be essential that we 
 consider right and wrong to be irreconcilably opposed. As 
 to error and truth, Thomas Carlyle is not very particular. 
 Once more, he holds it essential that we believe in future 
 states of separation of the good from the wicked. But 
 whether the heaven we look for be a holy heaven like that of 
 our Bible, or an eternal sensuality like that of the Koran, 
 does not signify : whether we may hold a third state, purga- 
 tory, does not signify neither. 
 
 These being the essentials according to him, one can see 
 well enough why he can fight alongside of such strange 
 allies as he adopts and would have us to recognise. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 Meanwhile the errors of this system of his are palpable 
 enough. 
 
 Take his idea, for example, that it does not signify what 
 the object of our worship may be. He overlooks the im- 
 portant bearing which this has upon the honour and glory of 
 God. He must know that we whom he invites to join in 
 this novel order of battle believe that there is only one God, 
 the true and the living God, infinite in all His perfections ; 
 and yet he would have us consider it a matter of indifference 
 whether men ascribe this character and glory to Him, or 
 deride Him, and degrade Him in their worship to the vilest 
 things imaginable. He would neither have us to condemn 
 them as inexcusable when they act the latter part, after 
 seeing His works, nor will he allow us to consider them as 
 belonging to the empire of darkness whom we ought to seek 
 to enlighten ; for of course it is only in this sense that we 
 think of fighting against them, or of fighting against any. 
 But supposing that Carlyle cannot, for the life of him, see 
 any dishonour that is cast upon God by worshipping Him 
 under the image of a beast, does he not see that the question 
 of the object of our worship materially affects the restraint 
 put upon the conduct of the worshipper? Does he think 
 that the moral restraint exerted upon the worshipper by a 
 multitude of contemptible deities, male and female, and 
 having a licentious history each of them to boot in the 
 legend, is the same with the salutary restraint of one omni- 
 scient and righteous Jehovah ? And does he not perceive 
 that according to the object we worship will be the estimate 
 we form of our guilt in breaking the law which has issued 
 from it ? Will those who have offended gods such as are 
 represented by wooden images of their own making, estimate 
 their guilt at the same figure as those who have offended a 
 Being of infinite majesty, holiness, justice, and goodness? 
 
 Then, just think how ridiculous the idea is of its being a 
 matter of no essential importance whether a man be guided 
 by the Bible or by the Koran, which Thomas Carlyle has 
 
8 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 himself, in his lecture upon Mahomet, declared, after reading 
 it, to contain " a mass of absurdities" ! 
 
 He seems to think that he has made out all the parties he 
 recommends to our acceptance as brethren in the Lord, or 
 in the gods, to be clean enough when he says that their 
 thoughts about religion, whatever they may be, " dwell 
 honestly in their hearts as true." Honesty is only one of 
 the virtues. If any have been careless in informing them- 
 selves of the truth and real nature of the religion they adopt, 
 this is enough to incriminate them. There are steps so 
 important, that carelessness in taking them is criminality 
 enough. A man drinks hellebore, and administers k to his 
 whole family, " honestly believing " that it is a most whole- 
 some beverage. Thomas Carlyle acquits him of all moral 
 blame. Heaven forbid that he should condemn him. The 
 idea dwelt honestly in his heart that the drink was good 
 both for himself and his children ; and " no thought ever 
 dwelt honestly in the heart of a man, but there is an essential 
 truth in it." There must be something that is wholesome in 
 hellebore after all ! 
 
 One great and cardinal reason why we have always looked 
 upon the various parties which he would have us fraternise 
 with as belonging to the empire of darkness, is that they 
 know nothing of, or deny, or set aside the only atonement for 
 guilt through the blood-shedding of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 Ignorant of that, we have always considered them to be the 
 children of darkness and not of the day. But this also is a 
 non-essential according to the system of our author. 
 
 We have insisted too long upon these very obvious objec- 
 tions to the line of battle proposed by him. We are aware 
 that, as regards many of our readers, the only difficulty must 
 be to see how he could vend such a preposterous doctrine, 
 and they may be anxious to know what are the grounds upon 
 which he endeavours to make good his apologetic views of 
 false religions, and what is the nature of that scheme of 
 Christianity which he has himself adopted. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 In the following essay — 
 
 I. We shall examine his defences of idolatry, of Islamism, 
 and of popery. 
 
 II. We shall set before our readers Carlyle's own scheme 
 of Christianity, and the history of his religious opinions, as 
 this may be gathered from his writings. 
 
 III. We shall canvass his theory of hero worship. 
 
 HIS DEFENCE OF IDOLATRY. 
 
 The view we take of the idolatries of the world will depend 
 upon that which we take of the primeval condition of man. 
 If we are wise and humble enough to follow the account of 
 it given in our Bible, that man was at first made upright, 
 and that God directly made Himself known to him, then we 
 come to view idolatry as a wilful and criminal departure 
 on man's part from the true religion. It was the result, 
 more or less gradual, of that lamentable fall which the Bible 
 also records as having taken place. Once grant that man 
 had fallen and become depraved, and we can easily see how, 
 when abandoned to himself, he should have been unwilling 
 to retain the knowledge of so great and so holy a God as 
 the true God is. His awful attributes of omniscience, infinite 
 holiness, &c, being a restraint, theje was an obvious temp- 
 tation to apostatise to other objects of worship ; not to say 
 that we can very well believe how, in the pride of his depraved 
 understanding, beginning to speculate upon a subject too 
 high for him, he became vain in his imagination, and 
 wandered more and more into the wildest superstition. This 
 is the origin of idolatry as we find it fully stated in the 
 opening part of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. It 
 explains the whole matter of idolatry in a most intelligible 
 form — in a way no doubt that is very humbling to us, and 
 fitted to make us blush for poor fallen humanity, but in a 
 way which justifies God, and bears its own melancholy truth 
 upon the face of it. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle belongs to a school which rejects the 
 
io THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 scriptural account of man's first condition. Ignoring the 
 Fall altogether, and not professing to give any account of 
 man's first creation, he takes for granted that the primeval 
 pair began life in a state of savagery. In his " Chartism, or, 
 Past and Present," he describes them as " two hairy-naked, 
 or fig-leaved human figures, who began as uncomfortable 
 dumbies; but, anxious to be no longer such, endeavoured 
 with gaspings, gesturings, with unsyllabled cries, with painful 
 pantomime and interjections, in a very unsuccessful manner 
 to express themselves." 
 
 We can easily see how those who adopt this theory should 
 profess to find a different origin for idolatry. It was the first 
 rude attempt of man to grope his way to that knowledge of 
 God which, in the progress of society, we now possess ; and, 
 being prosecuted under every disadvantage, is to be viewed 
 as a very creditable and even noble commencement. " 'This 
 is what we made of the world,' may the nations say to us." 
 We quote him again. " ' This is all the image and notion we 
 could form to ourselves of this great mystery of a Life and 
 Universe. Despise it not.' " Instead of forming a chapter 
 in the history of the human family, which we must read 
 
 ( with shame-covered face, the story of paganism is one that 
 records the struggles of early piety. Instead of being 
 shocked at the various idolatrous nations of the past, we 
 recognise them as interesting portions of the Primitive 
 Church. He can scarcely find terms sufficiently strong in - 
 
 ' which to express his sympathy with these noble first efforts 
 by which idolatry was achieved. " Look," he exclaims in 
 triumph, " to what perennial fibre of truth was in that ! 
 .... It is thought, the genuine thought of deep, rude, 
 earnest minds, fairly opened to the things about them ; a 
 face-to-face and heart-to-heart inspection of the things — the 
 first characteristic of all good thought at all times." One 
 would have thought that the Norse religion would have 
 staggered him, but here is the effect which it produces. 
 "There is something very genuine, very great in the ideas 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. n 
 
 into which the Norse fell as to the creation. That the gods 
 having got the giant Yaner slain, a giant made by ' warm 
 wind ' and much confused work, out of the conflict of frost 
 and fire, determined to construct a world with him. His 
 blood made the sea, his flesh was the land, the rocks his 
 bones ; of his eyebrows they formed Asgard, their god's 
 dwelling ; his skull was the great blue vault of immensity, and 
 the brains of it became the clouds. Untamed thought ! 
 Great, giant-like, enormous ! Spiritually, as well as bodily, 
 these men are our progenitors ! " 
 
 Is not this rank nonsense ? This theory, if it justify the 
 idolatry of men, does so at the expense of God. Can any- 
 thing be more odious than the light in which He is here 
 represented as having sent the progenitors of the human 
 family, a couple of hairy savages, into the world ; not only 
 leaving them to invent a language in which to converse with 
 one another, but to grope their upward way from idolatry to 
 the knowledge of Him who made them? Meanwhile, this is 
 a question of history. The books of Moses have established 
 the fact that all this is a libel against our Maker ; that God 
 directly held converse with man upon his first creation ; that 
 He gave him the knowledge of Himself that was necessary ; 
 that when man had fallen, and through his lamentable blind- 
 ness sunk into idolatry, God graciously restored the whole 
 human family once again to the knowledge of the true 
 religion under Noah; and again a third time, through 
 Abraham, separated one nation to Himself, as a testimony 
 against the idolatry into which man still perversely and 
 obstinately sank. If Thomas Carlyle had spent his life in 
 writing a folio volume to controvert the claims of the books 
 of Moses to reception, and had succeeded in making good 
 his point, we would have considered him at liberty to vend 
 theories of the present description. He has neither had the 
 courage, nor has he the learning to do any such thing. We 
 shall therefore take the liberty of considering it as at present 
 historically established that the way in which idolatry came 
 
12 THE RELIGION 01 OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 in was exactly the reverse of what he insinuates ; that instead 
 of being a process by which men meritoriously rose from the 
 lamentable state of ignorance in which the Creator first 
 placed them, it was nothing but a gross apostacy from the 
 knowledge of Himself which He gave them more than once. 
 Instead of rising, as Carlyle absurdly supposes, from the 
 images of idolatry to the worship of the true God in the 
 course of ages, " they changed the glory of the incorruptible 
 God " into these images. What he considers to have been 
 an upward was a downward process. And, indeed, if he 
 believes in the historical records of the Jews at all, or in any 
 sense, he must be aware that they had the knowledge of the 
 true religion at the earlier periods of their career, and were 
 constantly sinking down again into idolatry, notwithstanding, 
 the warnings of their teachers. How can he reconcile this 
 with his theory? 
 
 He endeavours to establish that the idolatries of the 
 heathen are just a fair and indeed commendable outcome of 
 the wonder which the mystery of the universe excites in their 
 rude minds. The thorough prostrate admiration they had of 
 whatever was great either in things animate or in heroes that 
 had departed, took the form of worship ; and this, instead of 
 being a condemnable sentiment, is judged by him to lie at 
 the foundation of human improvement. " We do not 
 worship," says he, " in that way now, but is it not reckoned 
 still a merit — a proof of what we call a poetic nature— that 
 we recognise how every object has a divine beauty in it ? 
 .... They did even what he (the man of genius) does, in 
 their own fashion. That they did it, in what fashion soever, 
 was a merit, better than what the entirely stupid man did — 
 what the horse and camel did — nothing ! Their worship of 
 the hero was just their transcendent admiration of the great 
 man. No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one 
 higher than oneself dwells in the breast of man. Religion, I 
 find, stands upon it — not paganism only, but far higher and 
 truer religion — all religion hitherto known." 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 13 
 
 He here mistakes the ground upon which any object can 
 be warrantably worshipped. This is not that it be wonderful, 
 or even wonderful to a degree incomprehensible by us, unless 
 we have ascertained it to be the author of its own wonderful- 
 ness. If plainly upon the face of it it be something which 
 did not make itself, and could not make itself, then to 
 worship it is an act not only infatuated, but criminal, being an 
 outrage done to the author of it. Unlimited admiration of 
 what is great in the universe will not therefore account for 
 the rise of idolatry ; there remains to be explained how, since 
 the objects exciting this admiration were things made, or 
 only creatures, this admiration should have taken the form 
 of worshipping these objects themselves, and not the Maker 
 of them. It is a mistake to say that " all religion hitherto 
 known, even the true religion," rests merely upon the feeling 
 of admiration for one higher than ourselves. This would 
 resolve the distinction there is between our feeling towards 
 God and towards others than God into a mere distinction of 
 degree, whereas it is a distinction in kind. It is not merely 
 that we admire God infinitely more than we do any of His 
 creatures, but that we recognise Him to be the Author of all 
 that is admirable in His creatures. Adoration includes this, 
 or it includes nothing. He may object that the heathen, 
 owing to their ignorance, could not tell whether the great 
 and wonderful phenomena meeting their eye in the universe 
 were self-caused, or caused by another. But it is an insult 
 upon God to say that He has framed man so stupid and 
 irrational as that, in any circumstances, he cannot recognise 
 a thing to be a thing made, the effect of the power of another, 
 when he sees it. If it be a thing material, for example, 
 without life and without intelligence, it were inexcusable for 
 him to worship it, since it is even of less value and dignity 
 than himself, however huge it might be, though it were the 
 sun in the heavens. That sun surely exhibits no signs of 
 life ; it surely exhibits no signs of intelligence ; it is plainly 
 enough only one part of a great material fabric by which we 
 
14 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 are surrounded which is senseless, but bearing marks every- 
 where of intelligent contrivance. In asserting so much we 
 are making allowance for the lowest savagery of condition in 
 which man can be placed, for he is still essentially a rational 
 creature. In fact it requires a much greater exercise of 
 ingenuity for him to disjoin the sun from the rest of the" 
 system, and suppose it entitled to worship, than to accept it 
 as just a part of the material system around him, made by 
 one and the same Being; and one may wonder therefore that 
 Carlyle should have failed to recognise some obliquity of 
 man's heart in this matter. 
 
 This is what God Himself in His word has called upon us 
 to recognise, but of course our friend was too profound a 
 philosopher to rest in his deliverance — " The invisible things 
 of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being 
 understood by the things that are made, even His eternal 
 power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." He, 
 again, has such exalted views of human nature, that, accord- 
 ing to his philosophy, it can never by any possibility be in 
 the wrong. If men worship stocks and stones, we may be 
 sure that those are shallow philosophers who cannot see 
 something good and noble here. Let us recognise that he 
 is at least better than a " horse," which worships nothing. 
 It never occurs to Carlyle that fallen man should do a 
 condemnable thing. This is very much the spirit of his 
 school in other departments of inquiry, and is no doubt very 
 gratifying to poor humanity, which likes to be well spoken 
 of. However, Carlyle has here proceeded, we think, a step 
 rather too far to be successful. As a sycophant overreaches 
 himself when he proceeds to praise a huge wen on the face 
 of his worshipful patron, or some gross bodily deformity, so 
 we fear that Carlyle has gone too far in his praise of our 
 humanity when he has fixed upon our idolatry as the subject 
 of his fulsome panegyric. 
 
 There is one passage in which he bethinks himself for a 
 moment of the rather daring position he has taken up in 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 15 
 
 eulogising what the prophets of the Lord have so emphatically 
 condemned. He suggests that the idolatry which they con- 
 demned was insincere idolatry — and, making bad worse, and 
 absurdity more ridiculous, he asserts the extraordinary 
 doctrine that the idolatry to be commended is that where ' 
 the votary is maddest upon his idols. " Condemnable 
 idolatry," he writes, " is insincere idolatry. Doubt has 
 eaten out the heart of it. . . . This is one of the balefullest 
 sights. Souls are no longer filled with their fetish, but only 
 pretend to be filled, and would fain make themselves feel 
 that they are filled." So that the time when the heathen 
 were fervent idolaters was their best time — the day of their 
 espousals, eh ? to their " birds and four-footed beasts and 
 creeping things." So long as the Egyptians worshipped 
 their bull with all their heart, believing it to be worthy of 
 divine honours, we are to admire them. When they began > 
 to doubt whether after all it was a proper object of worship, 
 then indeed there was no hope of them ; till at last a time 
 comes when they begin to worship God only, in which case 
 they recover our admiration, because they are sincere again, 
 but not because they have discarded the bull. The bull was 
 as good as God, so long as they imagined it. Is not this sad 
 stuff ? Doesn't he know that superstition and infidelity, as 
 regards badness, are much about six and half a dozen ? 
 
 The reader may desire to know what is that essential truth 
 in heathen religions which he considers to compensate what 
 is otherwise reprehensible in them, and which entitles the 
 heathen to be considered as fellow-soldiers with us in the 
 same battle against the " empire of darkness." Take the 
 Norse religion then for an illustration. He finds the great 
 lesson Odin taught — the seed-germ of his religion — to be the 
 infinite importance of valour. 
 
 " The consecration of valour," says he, " is not a bad 
 
 thing Unconsciously, and combined with higher 
 
 things, it is in us yet, that old faith withal. To know it 
 consciously brings us into closer and closer relation with the 
 
1 6 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 past — with our own possessions in the past. In a different 
 time, in a different place, it is always some other side of our 
 common human nature that has been developing itself. The 
 actual true is the sum of all these ; not any one of them by 
 itself constitutes what of human nature is hitherto developed. 
 Better to know them all, than misknow them. ' To which 
 of these three religions do you specially adhere ? ' inquires 
 Meister of his teacher. ' To all the three,' answers the 
 other, ' for they by their union constitute the true religion.' " 
 We are here taught that the " actual true " in religion, in 
 other words, the true religion in its perfection, is just the 
 sum of all the developments of human nature in its various 
 sides in the history of the past. The religion of Odin was 
 the struggling into existence, after its own rude form, of that 
 worship of valour lying unconsciously still in the bosom of 
 us all. We may grant that too exclusive a prominence was 
 thus given to a physical quality. But it was only natural 
 that the worship of such-like qualities should make its 
 appearance at the earlier stages of social progress. It was 
 reserved for the religion of Christ to bring forward those 
 other and higher qualities of a strictly moral character, such 
 as humility, charity, patience, and others, where the enemies 
 to be wrestled with are not flesh and blood, but injuries, 
 afflictions, persecutions. Christianity itself, however, is only 
 a development of a higher side of human nature. We are 
 to recognise that there is an underlying worship of such 
 qualities in the bosom of us all as well, only it required 
 the master-skill of that Divine Man, Jesus Christ, who 
 appeared last of all in the list of teachers (if, indeed, He is 
 the last of all), to draw them forth. 
 
 The defective and mistaken view of Christianity pro- 
 ceeded on in this theory will strike the evangelical reader at 
 once. It is represented not as a thing come for the salvation 
 ' of humanity, but as the highest development of humanity. 
 We shall have an occasion, however, in another part of this 
 essay, to discuss his low view of Christianity. What we 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 17 
 
 have to do with at present is his extravagantly high view of 
 the paganisms, and here, for instance, of Odinism. 
 
 His idea, then, is that it conveyed what he calls " an 
 everlasting possession for us all" — a lesson of infinite im- 
 portance — by consecrating valour. Was not Odin, whom 
 the Norse worshipped, a hero — a right valiant man ? Let 
 us lay aside our prejudice to the mere circumstance of their 
 worshipping the man — it was valour in the abstract to which 
 the homage was paid. Cowards were sent to hell by this 
 religion, and don't they deserve it ? Heaven was stocked 
 with gallant captains. Humanity, therefore, was in the right 
 among the Scandinavians, as everywhere else. This idolatry 
 of theirs was a devotion to valour, and surely "the conse- 
 cration of valour is not a bad thing." He adds, alluding to 
 us who are Christians, " Combined with higher things, it is 
 in us yet, that old faith withal." 
 
 There is a good deal of the sly evinced in this last addition 
 of his with its adroit qualification inserted — " combined with, 
 higher things." Valour, courage in the field, is no doubt 
 granted by most Christians to be a good thing — but it is 
 considered as holding a very subordinate place, and certainly 
 as holding only one place, if it holds one, in the righteous- 
 ness whereby a man may see the kingdom of God. Mean- 
 while our apologist for paganism is bound by his argument to 
 remember that, in the Norse theology, it was valour by itself 
 — martial prowess, and that, perchance, shown in ruthless 
 deeds enough — which was considered as not only entitling 
 men to sit down in the kingdom, but entitling a man to be 
 God in the kingdom. A system of religion fraught with more 
 mischievous and disastrous consequences than this cannot 
 well be conceived of. To assign divine honours to any man 
 for the possession of all the virtues taken together, would have 
 been to forget that these are entirely the production of God, and 
 entitled to no merit whatever. Even had Odin been such a 
 man, to worship him would have been an abominable piece 
 of flattery rendered to human nature, and proved Scandi- 
 
 3 
 
1 8 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 navian morals to be poisoned at their very source. The 
 case was of course still worse if the possession of one single 
 virtue was deemed sufficient to entitle him to worship, and 
 to entitle men to seats in his Hall ; for there is no more 
 , dangerous doctrine to broach than that one virtue can be a 
 substitute for the rest. It would appear, however, that the 
 Norse proceeded yet a step farther, and, in good sooth, 
 singled out martial courage as what entitled a creature like 
 themselves to divine honours, while their idea of heaven was 
 that of a band of sturdy warriors with swords in their hands. 
 Valour, in short, was made a god among the Scandinavians, 
 as Reason was made a goddess among the French at the 
 Revolution. The pride which leads fallen humanity to exalt 
 its own qualities, for very obvious reasons, appeared in the 
 worship of valour among savages, and in the worship of 
 reason among civilised infidels. Instead of recognising this 
 perverse monstrosity in the place assigned to valour and 
 reason, Thomas Carlyle, with a simplicity that is fitted to 
 provoke a smile, reminds us that valour and reason are good 
 things ! He means, we hope, that they are exalted gifts of 
 God ? We hope he grants that God is to be glorified as the 
 Author of them. We hope he does not mean that one way 
 of glorifying Him for them is to worship these qualities 
 themselves, or any fellow -creature who possesses them. 
 Yet, judging from all he writes, we are ashamed to say that 
 the last seems to be his deliberate judgment. Can anything 
 be more palpably absurd ? He is himself the author of some 
 thirty volumes, which, on some accounts, merit the very 
 highest reputation. Let us suppose that the nation, acting 
 the same part by him as the Scandinavians did by God, 
 should refuse to acknowledge him as the writer of them, and 
 should bestow the honours due for them upon his publisher, 
 into whose hands the MSS. had been consigned, loading 
 him with every distinction, and praising the writings them- 
 selves to the sky for the valour of the sentiments they con- 
 tained, and the reason everywhere shining through them. 
 
THOMAS- CARL YLE. 19 
 
 Our friend in these circumstances would perhaps venture to 
 remonstrate against the injustice of such a proceeding. He 
 would insist upon it that he was the real author of the whole 
 thirty volumes, and that, if these qualities of valour and 
 reason characterised them, he alone was entitled to the 
 credit, certainly not the publisher, who was a mere creature 
 of his. But he has unfortunately furnished us with the 
 means of our justification. We would tell him that "the 
 consecration of valour and reason was not a bad thing ; " 
 that our infinitely admiring them both as they appeared in 
 his writings was the same thing as acknowledging him ; and 
 that there was the less room to complain, as we had given 
 the honours due for the volumes enthusiastically to the 
 publisher. Probably Thomas Carlyle would shake his head 
 at this explanation, and consider that he had been scurvily 
 used. So should we ; but, unlike him, we think that so was 
 God by the Norse. 
 
 HIS DEFENCE OF MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Not satisfied with appearing as the apologist of idolaters 
 (ugly clients enough), he does not hesitate to undertake the 
 cause of the Mohammedans. It may seem strange enough 
 that he should have anything to say in defence of Mahomet. 
 No doubt the prophet showed a determined hatred to idolatry 
 so far as it remained among his tribe, but then Carlyle had 
 just finished an elaborate argument to prove that idolatry 
 was a good thing. His mouth then might seem to have been 
 shut from saying a word in his praise even upon this the only 
 point that was defensible about him. But in imagining that 
 he was foreclosed owing to this circumstance, we would 
 betray the same simplicity as the rustic who thinks it im- 
 possible that a counsel at the bar who has pled a certain 
 side of a cause in one court should stand up and plead the 
 opposite side in another. In his lecture upon Mahomet, we 
 have such eulogies upon his destruction of idols as could 
 not have been more eloquent though he had received a 
 
 3* 
 
20 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 retaining fee from the Turks. Having adopted the principle 
 that earnestness in one's religion is everything, and the 
 religion for which one is earnest a matter of moonshine, our 
 author is of course consistent enough in eulogising idolatry, 
 as it goes up, and next sympathising with the zealous man 
 who casts it down. He first cheers on the poor idolater, and 
 bids him be of good heart ; then, when he has become some- 
 what short of wind, less zealous for his fetish, and Mahomet 
 comes and knocks him down, Thomas Carlyle immediately ac- 
 cepts the latter as his champion. This would scarcely do in 
 the ring ; but as we have only to do at present with religions, 
 we shall suppose that we must accept it as fair and honour- 
 able dealing. So let us proceed to consider his views of the 
 Arabian. 
 
 He considers him as a hero. He even accepts him as a 
 prophet. " He is by no means the truest of the prophets," 
 he writes, " but I do esteem him a true one." 
 
 We shall have no needless argument with our author. 
 For the sake of narrowing it, we shall give up old Prideaux's 
 opinion, that Mahomet was a downright impostor, and that 
 is conceding a great deal. But we have no need to go farther 
 than Carlyle's own assertions to prove that he was two-thirds 
 a fanatic. A sincere enthusiast, let us say, at the first — a 
 man of heated imagination and epileptick temperament, who 
 mistakes the raptures of his own mind for a communication 
 from spirits (evil spirits at first, good spirits afterwards) — 
 surely this description saves him from the infamy of an im- 
 postor at the expense of losing any claim to the title of a hero 
 or a great man. There is not a more despicable condition 
 of a man, were it not that it is pitiable because morbid, than 
 to be unable to distinguish between his own mental exercises 
 and a supernatural communication. Nobody disputes the 
 eloquence of Mahomet, his power of swaying men, and his 
 genius, which shone so wonderfully through the disadvantages 
 of his education ; but if the Koran, as Carlyle grants, was 
 merely the outcome after all of his own meditations — what 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 he had taken up of the mystery of the universe with such 
 aids as were around him — then, by sending it forth as a 
 message received by him from heaven, he is proved either to 
 have been an impostor, or to have laboured under some 
 derangement in his upper regions. It is in vain for Carlyle 
 to take up a middle position, and try to save him both from 
 the charge of imposture and fanaticism. He tells us that 
 he has attempted to read the Koran, that " it is an unread- 
 able mass of lumber; " " insupportable stupidity, in short ; " 
 and that it is "difficult to see how any mortal ever could 
 consider it as a book written in heaven ; " and yet he would 
 have us to accept the man who thoroughly believed that this 
 absurdity of his own brains was a supernatural revelation, as 
 ranking among the great benefactors of the species. 
 
 Carlyle has himself loose views of what constitutes a 
 message from heaven, and it is necessary that we examine 
 these if we would see the ground upon which he justifies this 
 visionary. 
 
 " Such life had come, as it could, to illuminate the dark- 
 ness of this wild Arab soul. A confused, dazzling splendour, 
 as of life and heaven, in the great darkness which threatened 
 to be death : he called it revelation and the angel Gabriel — 
 who of us yet can know what to call it? It is 'the inspiration 
 of the Almighty that giveth him understanding.' . . . ' Is 
 not belief the true God-announcing miracle ? ' says Novalis. 
 That Mahomet's whole soul, set on flame with this grand 
 truth vouchsafed him, should feel as if it were important, and 
 the only important thing, was very natural. That Provi- 
 dence had unspeakably honoured him by revealing it, saving 
 him from death and darkness ; that he was bound therefore 
 to make known the same to all creatures ; this is what is 
 meant by ' Mahomet is the prophet of God.' " 
 
 We have here Carlyle's own view of what constitutes a 
 message from God. What any man may have seen more 
 than others of the truth of things in the universe, which may 
 have powerfully impressed itself upon his soul, and so power- 
 
THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 fully that he feels impelled to go forth and communicate it 
 to his fellow-creatures, is a message from God, and such a 
 man is a prophet. He grants that this was the only sense 
 in which Mahomet had any revelation, and suggests that it 
 was very natural for him to think that the grand discovery 
 which had burst upon his mind in the Arabian solitudes was 
 from Gabriel. 
 
 This is not the place to canvass Carlyle's own theory here 
 thrown out, as to what constitutes a God-message and a 
 prophet. It is enough to say that this is not the definition 
 or understanding of these terms in the common parlance of 
 Christendom. What Mahomet, or any other man, might 
 discover in the exercise of his own faculties, could only be his 
 own message to his fellow-creatures — the result of the inves- 
 tigations of a puny mortal like ourselves, who is subject to 
 the verdict of our own judgment, and who is even liable (as 
 the greatest of men often show in matters of religion) to 
 broach " insupportable stupidity." His heart might be set 
 on flame with some grand truth he professed to have dis- 
 covered, and he might consider that Providence had unspeak- 
 ably honoured him by enabling him to discover it ; but we, 
 who are as competent to judge of truth as he is to discover 
 it, are called to ascertain whether it be the truth after all 
 which had inflamed his mind, or whether the devil had not 
 deceived him into a dangerous speculation. Had the Arabians 
 acted this manly and sensible part, instead of being carried 
 away, like Carlyle himself, by weak admiration of a great 
 man, they would have escaped the snare of this erroneous 
 enthusiast of the desert. But, granting a man in the exer- 
 cise of his natural faculties to have discovered something that 
 is true in the department of religion, and that Providence 
 has thus far unspeakably honoured him, of course he has 
 only by his diligence investigated more thoroughly than 
 others what has already been objectively revealed. He has 
 not made a new revelation to his fellow-creatures. He has 
 only been a more diligent student of the old one already 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 23 
 
 made. But none knows better than Thomas Carlyle that all 
 Christendom has been long agreed, upon testimony that has 
 never been refuted, that God has made from time to time 
 supernatural revelations of Himself to the children of men — 
 revelations of things not contained in the system of the 
 universe before our eyes, and of His own purposes affecting 
 our eternal destinies. Revelations of this kind stand of 
 course upon an entirely different footing than what he is 
 pleased by a confusion of ordinary language to call messages 
 of God. They are clothed with a dreadful authority, being 
 no less than communications from God Himself. He has 
 employed men to convey them to the rest of the human 
 family, but, as might be supposed, He has never employed 
 them without amply evidenaing to the men themselves that 
 the message was from Him, and evidencing the divinity of 
 the message to those for whom it was intended. These and 
 these only are prophets. 
 
 Mahomet claimed to be a prophet in this sense, and the 
 Arabians received him as a prophet in this sense. It will not 
 do for our author to whitewash Mahomet's guilt in this 
 matter by a rationalistic justification of his own, which he 
 conveniently furnishes him with from the nineteenth century. 
 We dare say Mahomet would have been very much obliged 
 to Carlyle for any such justification at the first stages of his 
 audacious assumption of the prophet's office. His conscience 
 troubled him, as well it might. At first, as we all know, 
 and as his present defender admits, he entertained doubts 
 that his supposed visions might proceed from evil spirits. It 
 was only after a conversation with his notable partner in life, 
 and in this wickedness, Chadidschah, that he was confirmed in 
 his opinion of his Divine mission. What shall we think of a 
 man who proceeded to propagate a new religion in the name 
 of God, having only the judgment of his wife that he was not 
 in communication with the devil ? We would wish to realise 
 all the extenuating circumstances in this extraordinary wild 
 Arab's case. By a violent effort of fancy we carry ourselves 
 
24 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 back to the seventh century, and endeavour to conceive of 
 the state of religion prevalent around him, being a mixture 
 of idolatry, Judaism, and Christianity. We give him credit 
 for deep convictions of the evil of idolatry, and can suppose 
 great and noble ideas to have possessed him of being his 
 country's reformer ; and we can very well suppose how, in 
 his cave-fastings and meditations, his religious reveries should 
 have assumed something like the vividness of visions. There. 
 was his temptation — a temptation through spiritual pride to 
 confound what were merely peculiar experiences of his own, 
 and devout imaginings, with a communication from the 
 Divine Being. Carlyle sees no great sin there ; but this 
 argues the same obtuseness of moral sense which led him to 
 see no evil in idolatry. The wfiter who could not see the 
 difference between wonder and idolatry cannot be supposed 
 to see the difference between having an intense apprehension 
 in his own mind of Divine things, and believing himself to 
 be the subject of a Divine revelation; between a desire self- 
 conceived of preaching one's own views, and claiming to be a 
 prophet, having Heaven's commission. He considers that if 
 this enthusiast had any truth especially borne in upon his 
 mind, he was entitled to say that Gabriel had been sent from 
 heaven to give it to him. He had nothing to authenticate 
 these visions of his, and yet Carlyle considers that he might 
 take upon himself the most tremendous responsibility which 
 any mortal creature can assume, of vending them, not as his 
 own insight into the truth of religion, but as a positive 
 revelation he had received from heaven — not making known, 
 besides, the fact to the world, as an honest man should have 
 done, that he had doubts from the beginning whether it were 
 not from the devil, and owed his ultimate clearance upon 
 that point to the assurances of his own wife. He had no 
 miracle to certify him or to certify others that it was a Divine 
 revelation. What of that ? " Is not belief," says Novalis, 
 " the true God-announcing miracle ? " It is amusing to see 
 the profound gravity and reverence with which our author 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 25 
 
 produces this silly nonsense of a German philosopher, that , 
 the earnestness with which Mahomet believed in what he 
 taught, proved his doctrine to be from God, as well as a 
 miracle could have done. If so, then the earnestness with 
 which idolaters in Arabia had previously believed in what ' 
 they taught, proved idolatry to be from God ; and thus we 
 have both idolatry, and Mohammedanism, which denounced 
 it, proved to be from God, for thus saith Novalis. 
 
 In proving Mahomet to be a true prophet, he considers it 
 to be enough to show that he had a following of 180 
 millions of men. Again and again he points to the wide 
 extent of the Mohammedan religion as an argument in favour 
 of its truth. This is one of the illustrations we have in his 
 writings of the fact, that while no man comes down more 
 heavily upon such as are carried away by outside appearances 
 of things, by shams and hulls, there is none who succumbs r 
 more than he does before mere externals and adventitious 
 circumstances. He is not one of those who form their 
 estimate of truth by examination of the doctrine itself that is 
 taught, but by the number of those who adopt it. It may 
 be a gross error, but if a thousand men, seduced by the 
 talents and audacity of the man who has vended it, have 
 espoused it, he looks more favourably upon it ; if a hundred 
 thousand have swallowed it, it begins to dawn upon his . 
 mind to be a truth ; but if a million embrace it, he turns pale 
 and includes it among the articles of his faith. It is plain 
 that Thomas Carlyle was never destined to be a reformer. 
 This is not the spirit that has ever regenerated the world or 
 done great things. " There must be some truth," he says, 
 " at the bottom, when 180 millions of men have believed in 
 this religion." Why so ? He has told us already that the 
 Koran is "a mass of insupportable stupidity; " and yet after 
 ' these millions have swallowed all this nonsense, and received 
 it with profound adoration, he would have us think it impos- 
 sible that they should receive anything but what was true at 
 the bottom of it. 
 
26 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 But let us hear what is the essential truth which he has 
 discovered to be at the bottom of this large mass of tom- 
 foolery. We saw that the inculcation of valour was the 
 essential truth of the Norse religion. What is the grand 
 fundamental truth of Mohammedanism, which shall incline 
 us, if not to submit to circumcision, at least to fight along- 
 side of the Crescent against the empire of darkness ? He 
 maintains that it comprehends the essentials of all religion, 
 because it includes, first, faith in the greatness of God, Allah 
 Akbar, God is great; and, secondly, submission to the will 
 of God, Islam. 
 
 " This submission," says he, " is the soul of Islam ; it is 
 properly the soul of Christianity, for ' Islam ' is definable as 
 a confused form of Christianity. Had Christianity not been, 
 neither had it been. . . . ' Though he slay me, yet will I 
 trust him.' Islam means, in its way, denial of self, annihila- 
 tion of self. This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has 
 revealed to our earth." 
 
 Our determination of the question whether " Islam " be 
 the highest wisdom revealed on earth, because it teaches us 
 submission to God's will, must depend entirely upon the 
 view we take of man's present condition. If man be a sinner 
 under the eternal condemnation of the law, and God's will 
 concerning him be that the sentence of the law shall be 
 executed upon his head, surely our author does not mean to 
 affirm that there is any consolation in the doctrine which 
 does no more than inculcate upon him submission to such an 
 awful dispensation of His justice. If this be the soul of 
 " Islam," and its highest wisdom be that it teaches us sub- 
 mission to God's will in the execution of the death-sentence 
 of His law, there is not much comfort to be derived from it 
 in this world, and still less in the next. Most certainly this 
 is not " the soul of Christianity." The glory of the Christian 
 religion is that it meets our forlorn and desperate condition 
 by announcing the great truth that " God so loved the world 
 as to send His only begotten Son into the world, that who- 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 27 
 
 soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlast- 
 ing life." The revelation it has made of the only way of 
 reconciliation with an offended God, through His Son lifted up 
 on the cross for our sins, has generally been considered as 
 the highest wisdom made known to our earth. Having once 
 known how we may be reconciled as guilty sinners to God, 
 we are then, and only then, prepared for submission to His 
 fatherly will. Whether Christian submission thus defined, 
 or " Islam " be the best, we leave it with wise men to deter- 
 mine ; but that they are not the same is plain enough. Of 
 course Carlyle does not accept the above idea of Christianity. 
 But as evangelical Christendom does, he surely cannot expect 
 that we are to subscribe to his fancy of Mohammedanism 
 being essentially Christian, because it teaches submission to 
 the will of God. 
 
 Two things connected with Mohammedanism have always 
 attracted attention — its holding out a sensual heaven, and 
 its making proselytes by the sword. One has only to look 
 at them both to find out a much more natural explanation of 
 the number of its followers than that which suggested itself 
 to our author. Unless there had been an essential truth at 
 the bottom of it, he cannot see for the life of him how 180 
 millions of men should be Mohammedans ; whereas he has 
 only to suppose that half of their ancestors submitted to it 
 with a sword at their throats, and that the others were 
 seduced into a religion which pandered in its eternal sanc- 
 tions to the flesh. We are sorry to say that he has prostituted 
 his pen by apologising both for Mahomet's heaven and sword. 
 " That gross sensual paradise of his— that horrible flaming 
 hell— what is all this but a rude shadow, in the rude Bedouin 
 imagination of the grand spiritual fact, and beginning of 
 facts— the infinite nature of Deity. Bodied forth in what 
 way you will, that man's actions are of infinite moment to 
 him, is the first of all truth." 
 
 That is, if there was an eternal heaven held out at all by 
 Mahomet, it did not signify though it was represented as 
 
28 I HE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 consisting in sensual delights, since it held out the infinite 
 importance of man's actions all the same. He forgets that 
 the nature of the heaven we believe in is an essential point, 
 owing to another reason. The heaven which any religion 
 holds out to its votaries is of course understood to represent 
 to them, and impress upon them, what is the highest happi- 
 ness man should aspire after, and what is the highest point 
 of character they should aim to reach. Its votaries there- 
 fore will square their ideas both of happiness and character 
 by the views which their religion gives them of heaven. Our 
 religion holds out a heaven whose enjoyment consists in our 
 being brought nearer to God, and whose occupation consists 
 in serving and worshipping Him. Mahomet's heaven is 
 stocked with ravishing, black-eyed girls, whose society forms 
 the eternal felicity of the faithful. He that has the former 
 hope in him will purify himself ; but how the man who has 
 the other should do so, baffles our comprehension. Our 
 philosopher tells us that he is taught even by this heaven of 
 his that " his actions are of infinite importance to him " — 
 by which of course are meant his good and virtuous actions. 
 True ; but he is taught that they are infinitely important only 
 as bringing him to a life of eternal sensuality. He is taught 
 to be good and virtuous on earth by the promise of being 
 eternally sensual in heaven. Suppose that Mahomet had 
 promised a heaven where topers would enjoy a never-ending 
 revel, according to Carlyle's doctrine we must have considered 
 his religion as being an admirable one, for it would still have 
 taught that man's actions are infinitely important to them — so 
 important, in fact, that unless they were virtuous on earth they 
 would not be drunkards to all eternity. After this specimen 
 of Carlyle's profound moral philosophy, we are prepared to 
 find him justifying Mahomet's proselytising by the sword. 
 " Even this," says he, " was difficult. You must have those 
 who will become soldiers for your cause, and be strong enough 
 in your cause to conquer the nations to it ; " where he forgets 
 that the question is not as to the difficulty of what was done 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 29 
 
 by Mahomet, but the warrantableness of it. However, he 
 has a doctrine upon this point, which, if it could be esta- 
 blished, would both justify Mohammedanism and highway 
 robbery and murder. " I care little about the sword ; I will 
 allow a thing to struggle for itself in this world, with any 
 sword, or tongue, or implement it has, or can lay hold of. 
 We will let it preach, and pamphleteer, and fight, and to the 
 uttermost bestir itself, and do, beak and claw, whatsoever is 
 in it ; very sure that it will in the long run conquer nothing 
 which does not deserve to be conquered." 
 
 HIS DEFENCE OF POPERY. 
 
 The opinion hitherto held among us is that popery was a 
 horrible declension from Christianity, brought in by a master- 
 piece of the devil's subtlety, who contrived gradually to draw 
 men away from the purity of Christ's doctrine and institu- 
 tions, and from the Bible itself, where they are revealed ; 
 while the Reformation was caused by the Spirit of God 
 awakening the attention of men again to the Bible, the only 
 source of truth, through which they were led out of these 
 absurdities and monstrous superstitions to the point from 
 which they had departed. But Thomas Carlyle believes in 
 no such thing as men going wrong, or any number of them 
 at least. As he absolutely denied idolatry to have been the 
 effect of the apostacy of men at first from the true religion, 
 and boldly advocated it as something good in itself, and upon 
 the whole a creditable first effort of man in the religious 
 department, so he refuses to consider popery as an apostacy 
 from the Christian religion, and maintains it to have been 
 what he calls a Christianism. 
 
 By this, as we may gather partly from his lecture upon 
 " Dante," in his volume of " Hero Worship," and partly from 
 his lecture upon " Luther," he means a system which, after 
 Christ had appeared, the mind of man itself developed in the 
 course of a meditation of ten centuries, expressing the idea 
 which it took up of the great theorem of the universe. Thus, 
 
30 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 speaking of " hell, purgatory, and paradise," as set forth by 
 Dante, he maintains that they were just the reality of the 
 unseen world, expressed in such emblems as suited the state 
 of advancement of the human mind in the middle ages. 
 
 " All these make up the true unseen world, as figured in 
 the Christianity of the middle ages ; a thing for ever memor- 
 able, for ever true — the essence of it to all men. It was a 
 sublime embodiment, or sublimest, of the soul of Christianity. 
 ... It expresses as in huge, wide, architectural emblems, 
 how the Christian Dante felt good and evil to be the two 
 polar elements of this creation on which it all turns ; ever- 
 lasting justice, yet with penitence, with everlasting pity. All 
 Christianism, as Dante and the middle ages had it, is em- 
 blemed here." 
 
 Purgatory, indeed, he considers to be the noblest concep- 
 tion of the middle ages. " It is a noble thing that Purgatorio 
 — mountain of purification — an emblem of the noblest con- 
 ception of that age. If sin is so fatal, and hell is and must 
 be so rigorous and awful, yet in repentance too is man puri- 
 fied — repentance is the grand Christian act. . . . Hope has 
 now dawned, never-dying hope, if in company still with 
 heavy sorrow. The obscure sojourn of demon and reprobate 
 is under foot, a soft breathing of penitence mounts higher 
 and higher to the throne of mercy itself. . . . The joy, too, 
 of all when one has prevailed ; the whole mountain shakes 
 with joy. ... I will call this a noble embodiment of a true, 
 noble thought." 
 
 He calls upon us to compare popery with the idolatry of 
 heathen nations, and admiringly to consider what an advance- 
 ment the human mind had made by this Christianism. 
 
 " Paganism emblemed chiefly the operations of nature ; 
 the destinies, efforts, combinations, vicissitudes of men and 
 things in this world. Christianity emblemed the law of 
 human duty — the moral law of man. One was from the 
 sensuous nature — a rude, helpless utterance of the first 
 thought of man ; the chief recognised virtue, courage, supe- 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 31 
 
 riority to fear. The other was not for the sensuous nature, 
 but for the moral. What a progress is here, if in that 
 respect only." 
 
 Having thus represented popery, not as an apostacy from 
 Christianity, but as what he is pleased to call a Christianism, 
 or an advancement made by the human mind, through the 
 help of Christianity, from the idolatry that preceded, he 
 proceeds next in his lecture upon " Luther " to represent the 
 Reformation, not as a return to the Bible, but as the effect 
 of the human mind advancing in its development of the 
 theorem of the universe, and also in the better reading of 
 Christianity. 
 
 " A theorem, or spiritual representation, so we may call it, 
 which once took in the whole universe, and was completely 
 satisfactory in all its parts to Dante, had, in the course of a 
 century, become dubitable to common intellects — become 
 deniable, and as to every one of us incredible, obsolete as 
 Odin's theorem. Why could not Dante's Catholicism con- 
 tinue, but Luther's Protestantism must needs follow ? Alas ! 
 nothing will continue. . . . No man whatever believes 
 or can believe exactly what his grandfather believed ; he en- 
 larges somewhat by fresh discovery his view of the universe." 
 
 Having given these extracts, I shall now proceed to take 
 up this peculiar view which Carlyle adopts of popery — not as 
 a monstrous apostacy from Christianity, but as itself a Chris- 
 tianism ; that is, as the first rude and commendable attempt, 
 after Christianity had been introduced, which man made in 
 the exercise of his own reason, silently meditating for ten 
 centuries to comprehend the theorem of the universe. The 
 name Christianism implies that he views it as a system 
 which was evolved out of Christianity. It was so far a good 
 system — fairly representing Christianity, for he calls it " a 
 sublime embodiment of the soul of Christianity." It was the 
 best which the men of the middle ages could make of it. It 
 was at last felt to be untrue in form at least, and at the 
 Reformation Luther and his compeers came to a juster view 
 
3= THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 of what Christianity really is, and of what the theorem of the 
 universe really is. 
 
 It never seems to strike Carlyle that the insuperable diffi- 
 culty he has to grapple with in this theory of his, is how 
 those who at the start of Christianity had the Bible in their 
 hands, just as truly as Luther had it in the sixteenth century, 
 should have gone into popery, which he acknowledges to be 
 a defective Christianism. If he maintains that it was be- 
 cause the mind of man was not yet able to take up the 
 perfect truth of Christianity as it lay in the Bible ; if he 
 maintains that popery was the first rude best which men 
 could make of Christianity, then his position is overthrown 
 by the simple historical fact that the Christianity of the earlier 
 ages was identical with that of Luther and the Reformers. 
 Had popery been the first system of things which prevailed 
 after Christianity appeared, he might with some show of 
 reason represent it as being the only result, rude and im- 
 perfect, to be expected at the beginning. But when the 
 historical fact is unquestionable that the Christians of the 
 first ages adopted the same view and practice of Christianity 
 which Protestantism afterwards returned to, it is plain that 
 popery was nothing but an inexcusable, absurd, and per- 
 verse departure from better attainments. In the extracts we 
 have given, we are favoured with a most philosophical view 
 of the way in which men in the dark ages marched forward 
 to the farther knowledge of the great theorem of the universe, 
 till at last they advanced to Protestantism. " No man can 
 exactly believe what his grandfather believed — he enlarges 
 somewhat by fresh discovery." In adopting this theory to 
 explain the beginning of Protestantism, he forgets that he 
 thereby renders the beginning of popery inexplicable. The 
 Christians of the first ages being all of the same view 
 which the Protestants of the sixteenth century afterwards re- 
 turned to, it follows that they should have gone on enlarging 
 their discoveries of things. Instead of this, they went into 
 popery, which by Carlyle's confession was the less perfect 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 33 
 
 system. Then, with the grossest inconsistency, he tells us 
 in one place that the Reformation was caused (and, indeed, 
 how could he deny it ?) by Luther's discovering a Bible and 
 learning out of it the errors of the Popish system. He calls 
 this a " blessed discovery," although with almost the same 
 breath he had told us that popery " could not have continued, 
 because nothing continues," and that the true theorem of 
 the universe was coming in by the deaths of grandfathers. 
 
 He attempts to show that popery, instancing more par- 
 ticularly its three future states of Hell, Purgatory, and 
 Paradise, was " a sublime embodiment of the soul of Chris- 
 tianity." By the " soul of Christianity " it is evident that 
 he understood the peculiar development which is made under 
 it of the moral qualities of our humanity, as distinguished 
 from its physical, such as valour and superiority to fear 
 developed in the Paganisms ; and also the discovery it 
 makes of pity as being part of the character of God, and 
 of repentance as being prevalent with Him. He would have 
 us believe that the Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise which 
 formed the theme of Dante, and which formed the scheme 
 of the spiritual world in the middle ages, was " an embodi- 
 ment of this soul of Christianity." First, here were Heaven 
 and Hell representing "good and evil to be the two polar 
 elements of this creation on which it all turns," — a Heaven 
 and Hell, too, where it is not valour merely that is rewarded, 
 or its opposite that is punished, but where the whole range 
 of moral qualities is recognised ; and next, here was Purga- 
 tory representing that by repentance man is purified — ever- 
 lasting justice with everlasting pity. All this, Carlyle en- 
 thusiastically declares, expressed, as in "wide architectural 
 emblems," the truth and reality of the unseen world. He is 
 especially in raptures with Mount Purgatorio ; "a soft 
 breathing penitence mounts higher and higher to the throne 
 of Mercy itself." 
 
 We shall not insist here upon the misapprehension he 
 labours under of what constitutes "the soul of Christianity," 
 
 4 
 
34 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 for this we have done in a former part of the essay. This 
 lies not in the particular qualities to which it assigns eternal 
 rewards and punishments, nor even in the discovery it 
 makes of God as showing pity upon repentance being forth- 
 coming. It lies in its revealing the atoning blood of Jesus 
 Christ, through whom God is willing, and, consistently with 
 His infinite justice, is able to extend to us the fullest pardon 
 upon earth, without any Purgatory being required. It is 
 plain that Carlyle does not know what Purgatory is. He 
 considers it to have some connection with repentance, and 
 with the pity of God. Any one acquainted with the theology 
 of the Church of Rome knows that Purgatory is a place of 
 penal doom. The Church of Rome considers that upon 
 faith and repentance the eternal punishment of sin is re- 
 mitted to the believer, but he must still endure the temporal 
 punishment due for certain of his sins by being tormented in 
 Purgatory. Purgatory, therefore, is not a place where there 
 is repentance, but where there is the endurance by torture 
 of that temporal punishment for which no repentance is 
 available. Our author declares it to be "the noblest concep- 
 tion of the middle ages ; " but if he had lived in those ages 
 he would probably have found the nobleness of the concep- 
 tion balanced by the tortures which it engendered. If it 
 was an error that caused infinite anguish to myriads of souls 
 for centuries, we profess not to have much admiration for 
 the genius that conceived it. It was the foulest blot upon 
 
 ' the pity and compassion of God. It was the absurdest 
 conception, besides, upon the face of it, which ever entered 
 into the hearts of men, because it supposes first that God 
 has remitted the eternal punishment, and then that He 
 refuses to remit the temporal punishment. Your mortal 
 sins shall at once be remitted, but you shall smart for your 
 venial sins. This was the noble conception which our 
 philosopher admires, showing how easily the Church of 
 Rome can entangle the greatest of our thinkers in the 
 
 ■ worst of her meshes. And then we are called to imagine 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 35 
 
 " the soft breathing penitence mounting higher and higher " 
 from those poor wretches in Purgatory, whose eyes, as 
 Dante himself tells, are sewn with an iron thread, or who 
 expiate their sins under waggon -loads of stones, or in a 
 mass of flames. Purgatory sprang out of base priestcraft ; 
 and, if it was a " sublime conception," those who originated 
 it were well paid for it. 
 
 It is not wonderful that a writer who has defended pagan 
 rites, and found interesting first efforts in natural religion in 
 Odinism, should have discovered popery to be, not Anti- 
 christ, but a Christianism, and should actually in his 
 writings have praised its idolatrous practices. In his 
 "Chartism; or, Past and Present," having first protested 
 against the ungodliness of the Present, he reproves it by 
 presenting to our eye the contrast of the Past. And to what 
 period is he pleased to point us, as exhibiting the palmiest 
 days of religion ? To the twelfth century ! This is a piece 
 of rationalistic affectation — which we find writers of his 
 stamp indulging in, to show their contempt apparently for 
 Evangelical religion. We find another instance of it in 
 Robert Browning, who, in his " Ring and the Book," puts 
 his best and most liberal theology in the mouth of one of 
 the popes. But to return to Carlyle. We are introduced 
 by him to St. Edmondsbury Shrine, where " regimented 
 companies of men devote themselves to meditate on men's 
 nobleness and awfulness, and celebrate and show forth the 
 same, as they best can, thinking they will do it best here, in 
 the presence of God the Maker, and of so awful and so noble 
 made by Him." Next he holds up to us all as a pattern 
 the honest abbot of this shrine, called Samson, narrating 
 at length how he conducted the offices of the abbey with 
 uprightness and discretion ; how he stood up against all and 
 sundry who would trench upon its interests and rights, not 
 excepting Richard Cceur de Lion ; and how he put on a hair- 
 shirt at the retaking of Jerusalem by the Pagans. This 
 last act is too much for the feelings of our author, who 
 
 4* 
 
36 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 exclaims : " The great antique heart ! . . . . Heaven lies 
 over him wherever he goes or stands on the earth, making 
 all the earth one mystic temple to him, the earth's business 
 all a kind of worship. Wonder, miracle encompasses the 
 man ; heaven's splendour over his head ; hell's darkness 
 under his feet. A great law of Deity hid in these two 
 infinitudes, dwarfing all else, making royal Richard as 
 small as peasant Samson." It is thus that he rebukes 
 the ungodliness of the Present by holding up to our admira- 
 tion the superstition of the Past. His way of reviving 
 modern Protestantism, which is no doubt cold and dead 
 enough, is by presenting us with popery when it was in 
 its most lively condition. Nobody of course denies that 
 there was individual piety to be found in the middle ages, 
 but Carlyle is here justifying the form it assumed. 
 
 He no doubt grants that popery's days are past, but it 
 was good for the time. " In prizing justly," he writes, " the 
 indispensable blessings of the New, let us not be unjust to 
 the Old. The old was true, if it no longer is. In Dante's 
 day it needed no sophistry, self-blinding, or other dishonesty 
 to get itself reckoned true. It was good then — nay, there is 
 in the soul of it a deathless good." So Carlyle ; and so, sooth 
 to say, and the more shame, Froude, Macaulay, and others. 
 "We may well stand amazed to hear them talk in this way — 
 that popery was a good thing in any circumstances ; that it 
 was good for the middle ages and became bad in the sixteenth 
 century ; that it was an excellent thing to worship the Virgin 
 in the year of our Lord 1200, and is blasphemy to do it now; 
 that it is a good thing now to keep the saints in their proper 
 place, and was as good long ago to worship their bones; that 
 it is a good thing now to have the Bible in every home and 
 in every hand, but was somehow no worse formerly to burn 
 it, or throw it to the moles and the bats ; that it would be a 
 humiliating spectacle to see thousands of young women 
 abjuring marriage now, and taking the veil, and crowds of 
 clerks and well-to-do apprentices assuming the cowl, but 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 37 
 
 that our progenitors male and female did not make fools of 
 themselves when they entered the monastery or the nunnery; 
 that the Abbot of St. Edmondsbury is to be hailed as " a 
 great antique heart," " heaven's splendour over his head," 
 but that we would be entitled to laugh at Thomas Carlyle if 
 he should now put on a hair-shirt to mourn over the state of 
 the Holy Sepulchre. It may be all very well for those writers 
 to hold a position of this kind who do not consider the 
 practices of popery to be in themselves blasphemous, or idol- 
 atrous, or destructive of the souls of men, and branded by 
 the Word of God ; but we must say that it is disgusting to see 
 them come forth and with the same pen pass glowing pane- 
 gyrics upon Luther and John Knox. We cannot conceive 
 of a greater humiliation to these Reformers, were they now 
 living, than to read eulogistic lectures upon the mighty 
 work they did in destroying popery, introduced by other 
 lectures showing that popery was a good thing, and was "in 
 the soul of it a deathless good " — to have first their indigna- 
 tion roused by imbecile defences of Antichrist, and then be 
 forced to accept of hero worship from the men who had 
 made them. 
 
 II. — AN INQUIRY INTO CARLYLE's OWN CREED, AND THE 
 HISTORY OF HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 
 
 Although he recognises idolaters, Mohammedans, and 
 Papists as brother soldiers, ranged under the same Captain, 
 he acknowledges himself to be, as to uniform, a Christian. 
 We shall now show in what sense he is so, as that may be 
 gathered from his writings. 
 
 His earliest contributions to our literature are to be found 
 in his " Critical and Miscellaneous Essays." Were any man 
 whom we had first encountered in a splendid oriental costume, 
 strangely and richly decorated every way,gold-tasseled turban, 
 and robes dyed with every gaudiest colour, to meet us next 
 in a plain English suit, we could not be more astonished than 
 by the contrast between Carlyle's style of composition to 
 
38 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 which we have been all accustomed, and that which we meet 
 with in turning back to these essays. Instead of the strong- 
 painted, disjointed, grotesque, and supremely imaginative, 
 we have the simple, classical, and common-place. We do 
 not mean to inquire into the cause of this, which after all is 
 a mere question pertaining to the philosophy of clothes. Some 
 may think it proves that his present style is not natural to 
 him — rather an awkward circumstance in connection with one 
 who declaims against all shams. But we think otherwise. 
 We imagine that it is to be accounted for by a great revolu- 
 tion which his mind underwent — stirring him to the very 
 depths of his being— a revolution which we shall immediately 
 bring before the reader, and which, though it took an issue 
 in our own judgment ever to be deplored, naturally enough 
 evoked a genius whose consummate power no man will 
 deny. From the essays it appears that he had plunged 
 deeply from the first into the study of the German poets and 
 philosophers. His article upon Goethe, from the enthusiastic 
 encomiums he passes upon them, shows that he had already 
 become inoculatedwith the philosophical views of Christianity 
 which that poet adopted, and which he propounds in his 
 "Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre." According to that poet 
 all religion consists in reverence. Men, as to the mass of them, 
 are wanting in this, though they have enough of that fear 
 which trembles. A few men only have had this higher sense 
 of religion, the true saints, or gods of our world, who have 
 communicated it in various ways to the vulgar. Goethe di- 
 vided religion thus considered into three stages of historical 
 progress. First, ethnical religion, so called because its 
 development was connected rather with nations than the 
 individual. This inculcated reverence for that which is above 
 11s. He acknowledges the Jewish nation to have been the 
 best model of this kind of religion, and their Scriptures to 
 have been the best, though it is only an equivocal prefer- 
 ence of degree he assigns to the Jewish religion. The second 
 phase which religion assumed was reverence for that which is 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 39 
 
 around us. He styles this a philosophical religion, and he 
 considered Christ to be the great Exemplar of it. It leads us, 
 first, to draw down that which is above us to our own level, 
 which Christ did, for He dared to equal Himself with God, 
 nay, to declare that He Himself was God. Christ thus 
 taught us the great lesson of reverence for one's self, which 
 Goethe does not hesitate to call the highest of all the three 
 reverences. By this means man attains to the highest eleva- 
 tion of which he is capable, that of being justified in reckon- 
 ing himself the best that nature has produced. But, secondly, 
 it leads us to exalt that which is below us to our level. 
 Christ sought to make the ignorant wise, to strengthen the 
 weak, &c. This, in its twofold aspect, then, is what Goethe 
 means by Christianity, the philosophical religion which 
 Christ introduced, and which he styles reverence for what 
 is around us. Taught by this religion, we learn to rid our- 
 selves of the idea of there being a great distance between 
 God and us, on the one hand ; between ourselves and those 
 below us, on the other. The third phase which religion as- 
 sumed was that of reverence for what is beneath us; viz., 
 afflictions, persecutions, death, &c. Here also Christ is the 
 model, but specially in His sufferings and Passion. So that 
 this also was part of the Christianity which Goethe held. 
 We here enter the Sanctuary of Sorrow. We have been 
 taught by Christ to recognise something Divine in these 
 things, as illustrative and probative of character. 
 
 We have been thus particular in detailing the scheme of 
 Goethe's religion, because the sketch which Carlyle gives of 
 it in one of his essays was written at an early period of his 
 life ; and it must be plain to any one who reads his com- 
 ments upon it, that he lent himself to the adoption of it. It 
 contains the seminal principles of the religion which he 
 afterwards inculcated. The grand and fatal mistake of it 
 lies in ignoring guilt, the curse under which it has brought 
 us, and the entire change which it has produced in our 
 legal relations to God. Goethe starts by dismissing the fear 
 
40 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 that trembles, because reverence is the form which religion 
 should take. It may be so ; but if we have broken God's 
 law, and brought down its penalty upon us, did Goethe mean 
 to say that there is no reason for our trembling ? The 
 wretchedness and despair of mankind, since the Fall, arises 
 of course from a sense of guilt. Everybody knows that the 
 glory of the Bible, and the ground upon which the infinitely 
 wise God who wrote it claims to have made foolishness all 
 the wisdom of this world, is its revelation of the only remedy 
 for this guilt. It shows that steps absolutely stupendous 
 were needed to take it away ; that the only begotten Son of 
 God needed to be incarnated and crucified, ere the atone- 
 ment for it could be provided. Upon the ground of it, and 
 only upon the ground of it, are we called upon to dismiss our 
 fears. The poet-theologian of Germany, on the other hand, 
 makes short work of our fears, by telling us that they are 
 not the best form of religion, and that we should cultivate 
 reverence. The view he gives of Christ corresponds with 
 the superficial view he has taken of our condition through 
 _ the Fall. Christ, instead of being a Saviour for sinners in the 
 way we have described, is a Philosopher, who comes to teach 
 us the proper view we ought to take of what is above us, and of 
 what is around us, and of what is underneath us. He comes 
 to instruct us, not to make expiation for our sins. So far 
 are we indeed from being treated as sinners, that Christ the 
 Philosopher has appeared to teach us self-reverence, and that 
 there is no such gulf between us and God as we imagined. 
 One part of His philosophy is to teach us to bring God down 
 to our own level. Hence the seed of that doctrine of hero 
 worship and creature worship which, as we shall afterwards 
 show, was so largely inculcated by Carlyle, and considered 
 by him to be the grand hope of the world's regeneration. 
 To be sure, another part of Christ's philosophy is to teach us 
 to bring up those who are below to our level, that they may 
 be gods along with us. But the presumption of the first act, 
 whereby we have such prodigious reverence for ourselves, is 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 41 
 
 scarcely compensated by the reverence we thus show to those 
 who are below us. Such was the philosophy of Christ in His 
 life, according to Goethe. Next, that of His sufferings and 
 death consisted in His teaching us to reverence the things 
 that are beneath us, afflictions, persecutions, and every evil, 
 on account of the divine ends they accomplish in connection 
 with our character and God's government. If we have no 
 atonement by Goethe's scheme, we have something that is 
 more poetical — the Sanctuary of Sorrow. Our sins remain, 
 for Christ did not suffer or die to take them away ; but we 
 have learned that there is something divine about the 
 consequences which our sins have introduced. Altogether 
 reverence seems to have a potent influence with Goethe. 
 Are we afraid of our sins, and consequently of God ? his cure 
 is reverence for Him; are we vile and polluted sinners? he 
 recommends self-reverence ; are we afflicted ? reverence for 
 our afflictions is the sure antidote. That a German poet 
 should have adopted such an absurd view of Christianity is 
 not wonderful, but that one who had been trained in the 
 scriptural theology of this country should have been misled 
 by it is lamentable enough. 
 
 From another of his essays, that upon Voltaire, it appears 
 that Carlyle had come not only to deny the plenary inspira- 
 tion of the Bible, but to maintain that Christianity, being as 
 to the essence of it written upon man's heart by nature, does 
 not need to be proved either by miracles or by historical 
 documents. It has its foundation in human nature. It is 
 intuitionally discovered by us to be true. On these accounts 
 he meets Voltaire's attacks upon Christianity, not by esta- 
 blishing the truth of miracles, or defending the Scriptures, 
 but by resting its claim for acceptance upon the findings 
 of man's own heart. 
 
 " That the Christian religion," he says, " could have any 
 deeper foundation than books, could possibly be written in 
 the purest nature of man, in mysterious, ineffaceable charac- 
 ters, to which books and all revelations and authentic tra- 
 
42 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 ditions were but a subsidiary matter, were but as the light 
 whereby that Divine writing was to be read — nothing of this 
 seems to have, even in the faintest manner, occurred to him. 
 Yet herein, as we believe that the whole world has now 
 begun to discover, lies the real essence of the question — or 
 rather never was divided regarding it — Christianity, the 
 ' Worship of Sorrow,' has been recognised as Divine on far 
 other grounds than miracles. Religion is not of sense, but 
 of faith — not of understanding, but of reason ; and he who 
 has failed to unfold the reason in himself can have no 
 knowledge of the Christian religion." 
 
 We are not for a moment to understand that in giving up 
 to Voltaire here the external evidences of Christianity, he 
 takes up his stand upon what we have been accustomed to 
 call the internal evidences of Christianity. Nothing so 
 shallow or superficial as this. What he means is that 
 Christianity has not only its response, but its foundation in 
 this nature of ours — a deeper foundation there than in the 
 Scriptures — that it is there written in mysterious ineffaceable 
 characters, and that the Scriptures are at best only a light 
 whereby the divinely written Christianity within us may be 
 read. The fact is that he had now, as we have shown, ex- 
 punged from his Christianity all reference to an atonement 
 or to any of the supernatural doctrines of the Bible, and re- 
 solved it into those three reverences, all of which lie hidden 
 within our nature, although the Philosopher Christ has 
 appeared to draw them forth by His teaching and by His 
 example. It is easy to see how with such views he should 
 feel indifferent whether Voltaire overthrew miracles or inva- 
 lidated the written Record, since Christianity was a thing of 
 which we have not only the evidences, but the component 
 elements in our own bosoms. 
 
 He even considers the Frenchman, whose works we have 
 been accustomed to look upon as only destructive and pesti- 
 lential, to have done good service by casting down the confi- 
 dence men had been disposed to place in miracles, and in 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 43 
 
 the written Record. He and his school are accustomed to 
 speak of Voltaire as the pioneer of a better era, and the 
 French Revolution as introducing what they hope to be a 
 second Reformation. " The better part of our readers," 
 says he in the above essay, "will unite with us in candid 
 tolerance and clear acknowledgment towards French phi- 
 losophy, towards this Voltaire, and the spiritual period that 
 bears his name." Indeed, we can perfectly understand how 
 our author should have " candid tolerance," and feel himself 
 under " clear acknowledgment " to Voltaire, though it is an 
 ugly symptom of the Christianity he has adopted that it 
 claims to be benefited by the great apostle of infidelity. 
 Carlyle's Christianity being in fact nothing but a spurious 
 Christianity — a mere form of natural religion under the 
 disguise of that name — is felt by him and his disciples to be 
 condemned by the Bible, and they have good reason to bless 
 the man who has undermined the authority of the Bible and 
 its miraculous evidences. Meanwhile here is a second refor- 
 mation in good sooth ! Here is a new Christianity with a 
 vengeance ! Here is Voltaire going before, in the character 
 of John the Baptist laying the axe to the root of every 
 miracle, and casting down the Bible ; and here are Carlyle, 
 Robert Browning, and Tennyson (for they belong, as we 
 shall show, largely to one school), with all the zeal of apostles, 
 preaching a gospel, not such as is a positive revelation from 
 heaven, but such as is "written with ineffaceable characters 
 in the present nature of man." 
 
 But it was in 1838 that Thomas Carlyle first formally 
 broached his religious opinions in his volume called " Sartor 
 Resartus." This, in the whole style of it, was an eccentric 
 work, professing to be the lucubrations of a German, Herr 
 Teuffelsdrok — this name being a mere blind of course. Herr 
 Teuffelsdrok, in what is called humorously his " Philosophy of 
 Clothes, "is represented as looking beyond whatever strikes the 
 senses to the naked truth of things — stripping society in its 
 loud trafficking around us, in its commerce and polity, in its 
 
44 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 establishments, army, and police, of all the adventitious shows 
 belonging to it ; nay, abstracting his mind from the external 
 system of nature around us, and from this body itself, and 
 asking himself the unanswerable question, "Who am I ? the 
 thing that can say I. Whence ? How ? Where to ? But 
 the interesting part of the volume for us is the account given 
 of Herr Teuffelsdrok's conversion and religious experiences. 
 We cannot doubt that they detail those of Thomas Carlyle 
 himself. To be sure, he is ever and anon, as he details 
 them, calling them "strange utterances," and craving license 
 for his eccentric friend ; but as Herr Teuffelsdrok is a ficti- 
 tious name, he can only have been employed of course to pro- 
 pound Carlyle's own views, who accordingly homologates the 
 " Philosophy of Clothes " at the end of the volume, and, with 
 the enthusiasm of a new apostle, expresses his hope that 
 others might propagate these religious opinions. Before 
 detailing these, we might just observe that this way of 
 broaching his new gospel, adopted by Thomas Carlyle, does 
 not savour much of the valour which Odinism deified. 
 Luther or John Knox, in propounding their religious views 
 to the nation, would never have skulked behind a fictitious 
 German. 
 
 He represents his model man, Herr Teuffelsdrok, as, first of 
 all, passing into a state of scepticism, in which from doubting 
 miracles and the plenary inspiration of the Bible he is led to 
 doubt the very existence of God. A description is given us 
 of the agony of soul which he endured in this contest with 
 the everlasting No. It is spoken of as necessary. 
 
 " First, must the dead letter of religion own itself dead, 
 and drop piecemeal into dust, if the living spirit of religion, 
 freed from its charnel-house, is to arise on us, new-born of 
 heaven, and with new healing under its wings ? " 
 
 It is spoken of as not at all blameworthy. 
 
 " Perhaps at no period of his life was HerrTeuffelsdrok more 
 the servant of goodness — the servant of God — than even now 
 when doubting God's existence. ' Truth,' he cried, ' though 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 45 
 
 the heavens crush me for following her ! no falsehood, though 
 a whole celestial lubberland were the price of apostacy ! ' 
 Thus, in spite of all motive-grinders, and mechanical, profit- 
 and-loss philosophers, with the sick ophthalmia and hallucina- 
 tion they had brought on, was the infinite nature of duty 
 still dimly present to me ; living without God in the world, 
 of God's light I was not utterly bereft ; if my sealed eyes 
 could not see Him, nevertheless in my heart was He present, 
 and His heaven-written law still stood legible and sacred 
 there." 
 
 We have here the approved system of religious experience 
 current with our modern disciples of a philosophical or 
 rationalistic Christianity. In the pride of their- intellect, or 
 infected with vain speculations, they stumble at the super- 
 natural doctrines of the Bible, and at the testimony borne to 
 the truth of them by miracles ; and, in due time, as might 
 be expected, they stumble at the evidence we have for the 
 existence of God Himself. The distress of mind into which 
 they fall through their scepticism, and the scepticism itself, 
 they esteem to be an honourable distinction. Instead of 
 being ashamed of it, they glory in it. Robert Browning, in 
 his " Ring and the Book," actually maintains in good blank 
 verse that this scepticism answers the same purpose for 
 engendering earnestness as the fires of persecution did in the 
 primitive Church. It never seems to occur to them that 
 whether this sort of scepticism be a virtue or not depends 
 upon whether the evidences for the plenary inspiration of the 
 Bible on the one hand, and the existence of God on the other, 
 be sufficient. If they are not so, then indeed we may pro- 
 nounce the doubts justifiable, and sympathise with the dis- 
 tress. But if they are not only sufficient, but overwhelming, 
 we must come to a different conclusion. We may make 
 allowance, even in that case, for a man having his doubts for 
 a time (sUch is the weakness of the human understanding, 
 and so apt are some speculative minds to raise difficulties), 
 but it were ridiculous to praise such doubts. Upon the sup- 
 
46 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 position made, they ought not of course to exist. As to scep- 
 ticism or doubt being desirable, from its leading eventually to 
 a living and earnest faith, we must draw a distinction. If a 
 man has in the first instance been holding any truth igno- 
 rantly and without inquiry, an objection brought against it 
 from some quarter outside may stagger him, and the state of 
 doubt into which he is thrown, by leading him to examine the 
 grounds upon which the truth rests, may eventually issue in 
 his having a more intelligent and a more earnest faith. Such 
 doubting did not arise from something sinful discovered in the 
 state of his own mind — from that pride of the fallen understand- 
 ing, or from that vain speculation which leads some to call 
 the truth in question, but it arose from his being presently 
 unable from want of due knowledge to meet the objection 
 from without. He is only led by it to inquiry ; the temporary 
 doubt is overruled for good ; and he more than ever earn- 
 estly believes in the truth he had doubted. Now we should 
 be quite satisfied with Herr Teuffelsdrok's scepticism, that 
 is, with the scepticism of Carlyle and his school, if it were of 
 this description — if, in short, having had some doubts for a 
 time, they were brought after examination to see the ground- 
 lessness of them, and embrace Christianity in good or better 
 earnest. But, alas! the earnest and living Christianity with 
 which they end is not the same, as to the matter of it, which 
 they doubted. Their scepticism in the Bible ends, as we 
 shall see, in their denying its plenary inspiration, and 
 coming to have an earnest faith in a spurious Christianity 
 which has its foundation in human nature. Nay (as we shall 
 also show), their scepticism in the existence of God ends by 
 an earnest faith in a very unsatisfactory sort of God indeed. 
 Herr Teuffelsdrok's state of mind when he doubted of 
 God's existence is represented to us by himself in such com- 
 mendatory and Thrasonic terms as may well engender the 
 worst suspicions of it in our mind. " ' Truth,' I cried, 
 ' though the heavens crush me for following her ! no false- 
 hood, though a whole celestial lubberland were the price of 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 47 
 
 apostacy ! ' " &c. That is to say, he was resolved to prosecute 
 this inquiry into God's existence defiantly of those fears by 
 which weaker men are influenced, who are prevented from 
 coming to the negative conclusion by the fear of this being 
 an impiety which will draw down heaven's vengeance, and 
 who allow themselves to come to the positive conclusion 
 (though it might be false), because it is the more pious con- 
 clusion, and seems to be the passport to heaven. Such 
 lubberly weaklings, who are influenced in their judgments by 
 the Divine sanctions, he styles "motive-grinders, mechanical 
 profit-and-loss philosophers," &c. 
 
 We grant that in such an inquiry as the one now before 
 us a man is called upon to decide by the evidence ; but we 
 are prepared to maintain that it is too proud a position for 
 him to occupy to say that he is not a responsible being in 
 this inquiry, or that he is entitled to deal with the Divine 
 sanctions in this braggadocio style. Here, at the outset of 
 the inquiry, are certain great and glorious objects before him, 
 including the whole fabric of the material universe. The 
 very fact that these may be of God, and be the evidences God 
 has been pleased to afford of His existence and of His glorious 
 perfections, lays Him under a responsibility in conducting 
 the inquiry — a responsibility which it is impossible for him 
 to shake off. For if it should be found that the fabric of 
 things around him contains sufficient evidences of God's 
 existence, then for him to fail in recognising God's existence, 
 or to live in the denial of it, would be sin. It is but right and 
 fitting, therefore, that even in such a rudimental investigation, 
 the inquirer should have the whole possible results of it before 
 his contemplation-, and should not work it out in the jaunty 
 and vauntingsome style of Carlyle's friend and model, but 
 with a solemn sense of responsibility connected with it, and of 
 the eternal consequences accompanying this responsibility. 
 It seems to be his idea that any sense of this would be fatal 
 to freedom in judging of the evidence — an idea which, if 
 carried out, amounts to this, that all acting under responsi- 
 
48 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 bility and under the influence of the eternal sanctions is 
 incompatible with man's freedom and independence. Would 
 he condemn those who patronise such acting as motive- 
 grinders, &c. ? Of course, to be influenced in any inquiry, 
 or in any line of conduct, by no other considerations than 
 the eternal consequences which may follow to ourselves, is 
 mercenary; but God has seen it to be necessary that the 
 most virtuous and noble creatures He has ever made should 
 be encouraged to the good by eternal reward, and deterred 
 from the evil by eternal punishment annexed to it. As to 
 the very question now before us, that of God's existence, 
 although it is a question men should settle by the evidence, 
 is it not well that they should be solemnised by the eternal 
 consequences that must attend the denial of His existence, 
 when duly attested ; all the more, as their evil hearts are 
 only too much inclined to come to the conclusion on this 
 question which would most favour their licentiousness ? It 
 was therefore mere pride and presumption on the part of 
 Herr Teuffelsdrok, when prosecuting this inquiry, to trust 
 entirely to his own so sublime regard for truth, and look 
 upon the salutary sanctions by which the settling of the 
 question in favour of God's existence (if the evidence were 
 sufficient) was enforced, as nothing but a blinder to his pure 
 soul. We mention this to show what reason we have to sus- 
 pect that the scepticism itself of the Carlyle school is the 
 scepticism of pride, not that humble doubting which is 
 entitled to respect and commiseration in its distress. 
 
 The reader may wish to know how Herr Teuffelsdrok is 
 represented by Carlyle (who of course is describing his own 
 case) as obtaining deliverance from the sore agony and 
 distress to which he was exposed during his- scepticism — his 
 conflict with " the everlasting No." 
 
 " One day there rose a thought in me — What art thou 
 afraid of, despicable Biped ? Death is the worst. Suppose 
 Tophet, all that the devil or man can do — canst thou not 
 suffer whatever it be, and as a child of freedom trample 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 49 
 
 Tophet itself under thy feet ? I will meet it and defy it. I 
 was strong, of unknown strength — a spirit — almost a god. 
 Ever from that time the temper of my misery was changed — 
 not fear, not whining sorrow, but indignation and grim-eyed 
 defiance." 
 
 This Carlyle calls Herr Teuffelsdrok's " Baphomatic, Fire 
 baptism " (alluding to the famous ordeal for Knights 
 Templar), " the most important transaction in his life, the 
 turning-point in his history;" and he remarks that "now 
 the old Satanic school had received judicial notice to quit." 
 
 First, let us have a clear notion of the nature of his soul's 
 distress — his fear, and the cause of it. He tells us elsewhere 
 that at this time he was supremely miserable, "that he lived 
 in fear, as if the heavens and earth were the boundless jaws 
 of a devouring monster." All this, be it observed, had no 
 relation to his condition as a poor guilty sinner. We 
 do not find that either Thomas Carlyle, or any of his 
 school, have ever been visited with distress of that descrip- 
 tion. It was not the distress that troubled Luther at all 
 — an infinitely less noble trouble, God knows. What was 
 it then ? Having begun to doubt his Bible, and even the 
 existence of God, his distress we are to suppose arose from 
 the utter darkness and confusion that now filled the future ; 
 nothing but annihilation awaited him ; destruction, and none 
 to save him from it ; nay, as he talks of a possible Tophet, 
 he would seem not to have been altogether certain of there 
 being an everlasting No after all, so that it might fare with 
 him all the worse for his disbelief. -But can there be any- 
 thing more ridiculous than the way in which he effected his 
 escape from this sufficiently wretched state of soul ? Was 
 it by coming to discover his own folly in ever yielding to 
 scepticism, and setting himself in another and a better, 
 because a humbler spirit, to examine into thee vidences both 
 for his Bible and for a God ? Was it by examining evidences 
 at all ? No ; but one day he turns upon all his distress with 
 defiance, and it disappears like a shot. Out of his distress 
 
 5 
 
50 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 he came like an approved Knight Templar, and having 
 nothing to praise but his own valour. For Carlyle's religion, 
 as represented in Herr Teuffelsdrok, is a piece of vainglory 
 from beginning to end. Thus we find him saying : — 
 
 " Capabilities there were in me to give battle in some 
 small degree against the great empire of darkness. Does not 
 the very ditcher and delver with his spade extinguish many 
 a thistle and puddle ? How much more one whose capabi- 
 lities are spiritual, who has learned the grand thaumatur- 
 
 gic art of thought Truly a thinking man is the worst 
 
 enemy the prince of darkness can have." 
 
 Without contesting the point with Carlyle whether valour 
 or defiance be the way to escape from the fears of scepticism, 
 we must decisively object to his attempts to show in some 
 parts of his writings that this is also the way to escape from 
 the fears of guilt. 
 
 " Shall I be saved? Shall I not be damned? What is 
 this at bottom but a new egoism, stretched out into the 
 infinite ? Brother, rise above all that. Thou art h'ke to be 
 damned ; consider that as the fact ; reconcile thyself even to 
 that, if thou be a man ; then first is the devouring universe 
 subdued under thee, and from the black mirk of midnight, 
 and mire of greedy Acheron, dawn of an everlasting morning 
 shall spring. . . . Thy future fate, while thou makest it the 
 chief question, seems to me extremely questionable. Norse- 
 Odin, immemorial centuries ago, did not he, though a poor 
 heathen, in the dawn of time, teach us that for the dastard 
 there was and could be no good fate? ... A greater than 
 Odin has been here, and has taught us not a greater das- 
 tardism, I hope. My brother, thou must pray for a soul ; 
 struggle to get back thy soul. Know that religion is no 
 Morrison's pill from without, but a reawakening of thy own 
 self from within." 
 
 We had long been very anxious to find out how Carlyle 
 and others of the same views dealt with the question of 
 guilt. They seldom speak of it. But we have the whole 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE- 5* 
 
 question of how it is to be disposed of here brought before 
 us. We have a few remarks to make upon it. 
 
 The party whom he here advises is supposed to be 
 anxious about his future state — alarmed in reference to it. 
 He is supposed to be making this the chief question. We 
 shall not dispute with Carlyle whether it ought to be made 
 the chief question ; as, for example, whether it should occupy 
 a man more than other questions which it is also his duty 
 to consider. If that were all which our author found fault 
 with in the party he advises, less might be said. But 
 plainly the advice given has reference not merely to an 
 undue amount of fear being entertained by a man regarding 
 his eternal state, but to fear being entertained at all. Had 
 the former only or chiefly been in the eye of Carlyle, of 
 course his advice would have been to moderate his fears 
 upon that subject, and to subordinate them to other con- 
 siderations which were less selfish and more important. 
 His advice would have been moderation, not defiance. His 
 advice plainly has relation to the fears themselves, and the 
 way in which they are to be dealt with. And his counsel 
 is — by defiance. The man is told that his fears are an 
 indication of cowardice. He is not told that they are 
 groundless ; nay, he is advised to grant the worst, that his 
 damnation is likely enough, and to brave it out like a 
 gallant Knight Templar. 
 
 In speaking thus our adviser was of course aware that 
 the man's alarm in reference to his future state arose 
 from his sins ; from his having broken God's law, and 
 having to answer for the violation of it. There are only 
 two suppositions we can make regarding the author when he 
 tenders such advice. The first we are unwilling to make. 
 It is that he himself really believes in the possibility of 
 eternal punishment for sin ; in which case he advises the 
 man to take God into his own hands, and outbrave Him as 
 he would do a fellow-creature. We are unwilling to impute 
 to him such an impious, audacious, and monstrous counsel. 
 , 5* 
 
52 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 The other is that he does not himself believe that sin is 
 penal, or followed up by eternal punishments, and there- 
 fore considers that the fears of which he speaks are ground- 
 less, and to be dismissed as cowardly. Now, if they are 
 groundless, they are cowardly. Your if is a wonderful 
 peacemaker. Had all the world been of the same happy, 
 superficial turn with our Chelsea philosopher, so as to take 
 it as a thing for granted that no punishment follows the 
 breaking of God's law, there would have been a considerable 
 amount of distress of conscience saved, and a great deal of 
 that valour shown which he admires. 
 
 We think the reader will agree with us that the passages 
 quoted exhibit the religion of Carlyle, so far as bears upon 
 the essential point of guilt, as most unsatisfactory and most 
 absurd. The way in which they are expressed, besides, 
 ■ is highly offensive. The blessed atonement of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ must be included when he tells us in contemp- 
 tuous terms that the remedy is to be found in " no Morri- 
 son's pill from without." Again, when seeking to comfort 
 the alarmed sinner, instead of pointing to the cross of Jesus 
 Christ, he points him to his Norse-Odin nonsense of con- 
 secrated valour. 
 
 Is it not lamentable to think that this is the kind of 
 religion which is now shown by many — consisting in distress 
 and agony of soul sinfully caused by their own scepticism, 
 while on the subject of their personal sin they have never 
 known what it is to be distressed and alarmed ? They look 
 upon the distress or fear which their shameless scepticism 
 has caused them as being their Bathomatic Baptism. They 
 actually talk of those as being half-men who have not gone 
 through the distress of infidelity. Their self-conceit pre- 
 vents them from knowing that the others whom they despise 
 have been suffering meanwhile from that distress of con- 
 science for guilt which the Holy Ghost alone can produce, 
 and which nothing but the glorious atonement of the cross 
 can heal. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 53 
 
 But let us now hear what was the nature of that faith 
 which Herr Teuffelsdrok came to when he was delivered, or 
 rather had delivered himself by valour, and " the thau- 
 maturgic art of thought." 
 
 First — as to the existence of God. He had doubted of 
 this. He had gone here through the grand ordeal of scep- 
 ticism. Did he come to faith in it ? Yes ; so he declares. 
 But, judging by Carlyle's own writings, it is a very unsatis- 
 factory kind of God he groped his way to. Thus in his 
 " Chartism ; or, Past and Present," he writes :— 
 
 " Is there not a sole reality, and ultimate controlling 
 power of the whole ? He who knows this, it will sink silent, 
 awful, unspeakable into his heart. He will say with Faust, 
 ' Who dare name him ? ' Most rituals or namings he will 
 fall in with at present, are like to be namings which shall be 
 nameless. In silence, in the Eternal Temple, let him wor- 
 ship, if there be no fit word. Such knowledge the crown of 
 his whole spiritual being, the life of his life, let him keep 
 and sacredly walk by. He has a religion. Hourly and 
 daily for himself, and the whole world, a faithful", unspoken, 
 but not ineffectual prayer rises, ' Thy will be done.' He 
 has a religion, this man." 
 
 Now we all acknowledge the mystery and incomprehensi- 
 bleness of God, but the vagueness and blankness of Carlyle's 
 object of worship, as he here and elsewhere refers to it, comes 
 under another category. If we acknowledge something 
 Divine, something that is above all, then, according to him, 
 this is enough, though we cannot tell what it is. We have 
 seen already that according to him we may put Odin, or 
 Jupiter, or God, or the Three-one God into the high place. 
 These are what he calls namings, nothing else ; but if a man 
 walk by a Divine something or a Divine anything, which is 
 " the crown of his whole spiritual being, the life of his life," 
 it is all one. Sometimes, with Carlyle, it is the soul of the 
 universe; sometimes the essence of the universe ; sometimes 
 " the eternal silences, or stars." 
 
54 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 This vagueness is accounted for by the scepticism which 
 led him to reject not only the clear and certain exhibition of 
 the nature of God which is given us in His blessed Word, 
 but even to reject as too inconclusive for his logical mind 
 the evidence which all creation affords upon the subject of 
 God's perfections. We saw already that in his scepticism 
 he fell back in despair upon the moral sentiments of his own 
 nature — the law written upon his own heart, as the only 
 thing evidential to him of something divine. "The infinite 
 nature of Deity was still dimly present to me, if my as yet 
 sealed eyes could not see Him ; nevertheless in my heart He 
 was present, and His heaven-written law still stood legible 
 and sacred there." " At last, that Divine handwriting 
 blazed forth," he says again, " in true sun-splendour." Now 
 it is not denied that our moral nature lays the foundation of 
 an argument for the existence of a God ; it suggests a Divine 
 Being who has impressed this great law upon us. But if 
 we would arrive at any definite knowlege of the nature of 
 God, we must fill up the rudimental idea which our moral 
 constitution suggests of Him by fully availing ourselves of 
 the information to be derived from His works, and especially 
 from His Word. Carlyle, smitten by that evil spirit which 
 is the source of all impotence, and unable to accept of any 
 writing of God as authentic, except that which we bear upon 
 this puny nature of ours — ever " looking into his own navel," 
 to use an expression of his own — seems never to have been 
 able to this day to advance beyond the vaguest knowledge of 
 God ; and while we are all rejoicing in a full and glorious 
 acquaintanceship with His perfections, even with His person- 
 alities, he, as if he had been living in some desert island of 
 the ocean unvisited by the gospel, walks on, maundering 
 about "eternal silences, or stars," " the unnameable," "the 
 primeval unspeakable," and such like. 
 
 Next we saw that Herr Teuffelsdrok had doubted his 
 Bible, and the miracles by which it is authenticated. Did 
 he ever come back to the faith of Christianity ? He did ; 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 55 
 
 but let us see to what kind of Christianity. After losing faith 
 in the Bible, he tells us that he went for light to the great 
 men of every age. " For great men I have ever had the 
 warmest predilection, and can perhaps boast that few such 
 in this era have wholly escaped me. Great men are the 
 inspired (speaking and acting) texts of that divine Book of 
 Revelations, whereby .a chapter is completed from epoch 
 to epoch, and by some named History." 
 
 He mentions Schiller and Goethe. 
 
 Having left the guidance of God himself in the Bible, and 
 given himself up to the guidance of great men and "the 
 Divine handwriting " upon his own heart, we need not wonder 
 that he soon imagined himself to have reached what he calls 
 " sunlit slopes." 
 
 Now he began to say, — 
 
 " O Nature. Ha ! why do I not name thee God ? Art thou 
 not the living garment of God ? heavens, is it in very 
 deed He then that ever speaks through thee, that lives and 
 loves in me. . . . With other eyes, too, I now look upon my 
 fellow-men — with an infinite love, with an infinite pity. O 
 my brother, my brother, why cannot I shelter thee in my 
 bosom?" 
 
 Here he speaks as if he. had now arrived at a new feeling 
 and experience with regard to. God, and also with regard to 
 his fellow-man. Now, he has not only faith in the existence 
 of God, but finds that he can rejoice in Him — that he loves 
 Him, and is loved by Him : also a new love has sprung up 
 towards his fellow-men, whom he opens his arms to embrace. 
 All this, be it observed, is an experience of natural religion, 
 for he had not yet come to recognise the truth of Christianity, 
 of which afterwards. Upon examination, however, it must 
 appear that all this on the part of Herr Teuffelsdrok was a 
 mere sentimental and fanatical delusion. Being a sinner 
 (it is presumed) like us all, and having broken the law of 
 God, and incurred its penalty, whence did he derive that 
 peace and confidence and joy in God which he expresses ? 
 
56 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 The school of theologians to which he belongs tell us indeed 
 that they only need to look around them on all creation to 
 see that God is love. But this is sad, loose talk. Tokens 
 meet our eye on every side that man has drawn upon himself 
 judgment for sin, and his own conscience condemns him, and 
 will always condemn him the more he reflects upon his sin. 
 Herr Teuffelsdrok was not entitled to argue to his possessing 
 the love of God because there linger traces in the creation of 
 that goodness which God as Creator showed to man before 
 his fall ; nor was he entitled to conclude that his sins were 
 not to be reckoned for because of the forbearance of his 
 present Providence. He exclaims, " O heavens, is it in very 
 deed He then that ever speaks through thee " (i.e., nature), 
 " that lives and loves in me." 
 
 We have underscored the last phrase, for, as those who are 
 acquainted with this school of writers know, it expresses one 
 of their great arguments from nature that God is love, in the 
 sense of being all love, and no judicial wrath in Him against 
 sin. The argument may be stated thus. We are conscious 
 of love going forth from ourselves to others — strong love — 
 love or desire, too, for the everlasting salvation of others. 
 Why should we think that God is less loving than we are ? 
 Is it not God who " loves in us" ? What we are ourselves, 
 God is. If we love, then it is God who loves in us. There- 
 fore, God loves and desires the everlasting salvation of all, 
 and to represent Him as subjecting any of His creatures to the 
 curse for sin, or refusing to save them without a Redeemer, 
 who was made a curse for them, is to misapprehend Him. 
 This is one of the famous arguments of this school. It is 
 as flimsy and fallacious as it can well be. 
 
 Let us even grant that man's affections, or way of being 
 affected, may be safely taken as a test of God's, what right 
 have they to fix on this one affection, love, and seek to prove 
 thereby that God is all love and benignity ? We know that 
 man has other sentiments than love, that he has strong 
 feelings of condemnation of sin when committed by others ; 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 57 
 
 that he desires to see it punished ; that he hates sin, and 
 condemns the sinner. If it be true then that " God loves in 
 me," it must be equally true that " God hates in me," and 
 we shall hereby prove by the same logic that He is a God 
 who is all hatred to sin, and indignation against sinners. 
 Even if God is to be squared and measured by what we are 
 ourselves, we are ourselves the subjects of moral and judicial 
 sentiments, and not of that indiscriminating sentimental love 
 they lay hold of. 
 
 But we need scarcely say that we fall into a great mistake 
 when we conclude God to be altogether such a one as our- 
 selves. Suppose that my love or benevolence leads me to 
 desire the everlasting salvation of a fellow-creature, without 
 satisfaction being made in the first place to the violated law, 
 does it follow that because I love in this manner "God loves 
 in me," that is, loves after this manner? Can there be 
 grosser impiety than to palm off upon God all the sentiments 
 and all the sentimentalities of this fallen nature of mine ? 
 
 But to return to Herr Teuffelsdrok. He had now suc- 
 ceeded, through self-reverence, in raising himself to the level 
 of God ; coming to recognise that " God lived and loved in 
 him ; " that God, in short, was not different in any respect 
 from himself, so that all fear was cast out. Having thus 
 attained to what I have already shown in a previous part of 
 the essay to be in fact the first part of Christianity according 
 to Goethe's philosophical view of it, and having attained to 
 it from the light of nature, nothing remained but that he 
 should have some experience of the higher part of it, viz., 
 reverence for that which was beneath him ; that he should 
 recognise something Divine about afflictions, and contume- 
 lies, and injuries ; that, in short, he should know the worship 
 of sorrow. 
 
 This he is represented as doing. And now that he has 
 reached these attainments entirely by the God-written law 
 upon his heart, which he had been driven back upon by the 
 blessed distress of his own scepticism, he comes to be certified 
 
53 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 of the truth of Christianity. He had, in the first instance, 
 become a sceptic in reference to it because he had lost faith 
 in the Bible, and in the miracles upon which it rests. But 
 now he has found it true by a method independent altogether 
 of the Bible, or of any positive revelation attested by miracles. 
 He has proved it by the light of nature — the feelings of his 
 own heart. 
 
 " Is the God present in my own heart a thing which 
 Voltaire will dispute out of me ? In the worship of sorrow, 
 ascribe what origin or genesis thou pleasest, has not that 
 worship originated and been generated ? Is it not here ? 
 Feel it in thine heart, and then say that it is of God. This 
 is belief. All else is opinion, for which latter whoso wills 
 let him worry and be worried. . . . One Bible I know, of 
 whose plenary inspiration doubt is not so much as possible ; 
 nay, with mine own eyes I saw the God's handwriting it ; 
 therefore all other Bibles are but leaves, say in picture- 
 writing, to assist the weaker faculty." 
 
 Never was there a grosser delusion than this of the Carlyle 
 school that they can establish the truth of Christianity by 
 this process of theirs. The Christianity in which their 
 scepticism has ended is not the Christianity of the Scriptures 
 at all. The Christianity of the Scriptures is, that we are all 
 under the wrath and curse of God naturally ; that God sent 
 His Son made flesh, made sin, made a curse, to redeem us 
 from the curse of the broken law ; that we are all dead, 
 besides, naturally in pollution, and that the Holy Ghost is 
 sent by Christ to produce a mysterious change upon our 
 moral nature. These are supernatural doctrines, such as it 
 never entered into the heart of man to conceive, and such as 
 Carlyle not only does not profess to find written upon his 
 heart, but repudiates with all his soul. He has no right to 
 palm Goethe's nonsense upon Christ. If he will kiss the 
 toe of a German poet, and fall crouching at the feet of his 
 fellow-creatures, he ought to call the religion he has adopted 
 from them by their name, and not by the name of Christ. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 59 
 
 He may say that the Christianity which he and those other 
 great men have adopted is proved to be the true one, as 
 against that which the Scriptures exhibit, or have generally 
 been supposed to exhibit, because it tallies with nature, or 
 what is written upon the heart. But whether any repre- 
 sentation of Christianity be the true one or not, is entirely 
 an historical question. Christianity, if it means anything, 
 means the doctrine which Christ taught. It is downright 
 absurdity to say that such and such doctrines must have been 
 taught by Him, because they tally with the God-written law 
 upon our hearts. For aught we know Christ may have 
 taught doctrines subversive of the law of nature ; He may 
 have taught anything. What He did teach must be ascer- 
 tained by examining historical documents, which have 
 recorded and handed down His doctrines.* 
 
 Our Scriptures have been shown by testimony which is 
 irrefragable, and which neither Carlyle nor any of his brethren 
 have ventured to contravene, to be the record of Christ's doc- 
 trine, and it no more resembles the Christianity of Carlyle 
 (which is a mere development of natural religion) than day 
 resembles night. 
 
 We have thus set the religion of Thomas Carlyle before 
 our readers. We are aware that many of them will be 
 shocked at the result of this analysis. As it agrees with 
 his peculiar theory to admire earnestness in every kind of 
 religion, they have in all likelihood formed their idea of this 
 writer from the eulogiums he has passed upon Luther, or 
 Knox, or Cromwell. We ourselves in early life, after reading 
 his " Letters and Speeches of the Protector," formed a very 
 exalted estimate of his evangelical piety, never doubting that 
 he homologated the scriptural principles of his hero. It 
 was only upon taking up that work a second time, after 
 having read and studied his writings as a whole, that we dis- 
 covered the melancholy and humbling fact that his praise of 
 
 * This will be proved more at length in the Essay upon Robert 
 Browning. 
 
60 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Cromwell proceeds not from the value he attached to his 
 evangelical views (none of which he holds), but from the 
 value he attaches to what Cromwell held in common with 
 any earnest heathen, Mohammedan, or papist. He admires 
 his recognition of Calvinistic Christianity, not because he 
 himself holds by it, but because Calvinistic Christianity 
 being the right theory in Oliver's judgment, he worships his 
 earnestness. Let the sense of right and wrong fill a man's 
 soul, and it matters not with this writer whether the right 
 he rises up to defend be Calvinism or any other ism, God 
 or the gods. Take as a sample his description of the Pro- 
 tector's conversion, and you see that, while it has a very 
 plausible appearance at first sight, it tallies with the repre- 
 sentation we have given in this essay of Carlyle's own 
 religion. 
 
 " It is therefore in these years that we must place Oliver's 
 clear recognition of Calvinistic Christianity ; what he, with 
 unspeakable joy, would name his conversion, his deliverance 
 from the jaws of eternal death. Certainly a grand epoch for a 
 man, properly the one epoch, the turning-point which guides 
 upwards, or guides downwards him and his activity for ever- 
 more. Wilt thou join with the dragons ? wilt thou join with 
 the gods ? Of thee, too, the question is asked ; whether by 
 a man in a Geneva gown, by a man in ' four surplices at All- 
 hallowtide,' with words very imperfect ; or by no man and 
 no words, but only by the silences, by the eternities, by the 
 life everlasting, and the death everlasting. That the ' sense 
 of difference between right and wrong' had filled all time 
 and all space for man, and bodied itself forth into a heaven 
 and hell for him, this constitutes the grand feature of those 
 Puritan, old-Christian ages ; this is the element which stamps 
 them as heroic, and has rendered their events great, manlike, 
 fruitful to all generations." 
 
 Such statements, scattered through the work, are not 
 understood by the bulk of readers in this country, nor much 
 attended to as they read it ; but after the exposition we have 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 61 
 
 given of his views, as gathered from his whole ethical and 
 religious productions, they will perceive that they convert 
 the work into a mere heathenish psean over the Protector. 
 
 III. — HIS HERO WORSHIP. 
 
 We now come thirdly, and lastly, to speak of his peculiar 
 doctrine on the subject of hero worship. 
 
 We would not be insensible to the good influence which 
 his writings have exerted in bringing before the public stirring 
 examples of great men. Never was there a writer who 
 possessed to the same extraordinary extent the power and 
 the sympathies necessary for this. He has filled the land 
 with Titanic images, and has done little more for thirty 
 years than cry aloud as a herald that we should fall down 
 and worship them. He has also done something in teaching 
 us to undervalue such men as common minds are apt to 
 admire — the man of wealth or rank, the man of mere in- 
 tellect, the man of hearsay, red-tape, and precedent ; setting 
 up none, or comparatively few, upon his pedestal of unhewn 
 stone, but such as have been earnest souls in their way, 
 grappling with the mystery of the universe and the essence of 
 things. And had his object been simply to stimulate us to 
 good or great deeds by the example of good or great men, 
 we should not have added a single word of exception on this 
 head. It must have already suggested itself to our readers, 
 however, that he has had another and a special object in view 
 by his lifelong advocacy of heroism. According to Goethe, 
 whose disciple he became, it is part of religion, and of the 
 Christian religion, for men " to bring themselves up to the 
 level of God," and it is by inculcating this lofty self-reverence 
 that mankind and society are to be regenerated. Thomas 
 Carlyle's zeal in this department cannot be understood 
 unless we remember that it is the zeal of one who has for 
 many years been propagating a new religion. We had been 
 till now under the impression that Christianity had come 
 to convince us of our being vile, worthless, polluted, and 
 
6 2 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 undone, and to reveal the remedy in the blood of the Lamb, 
 and the energy of the Holy Ghost who removes our moral 
 inability. The new Christianity which our author adopted, 
 while it wholly ignores guilt, or anything that needs to be 
 rectified in our legal condition, comes to give us an exces- 
 sively exalted view of humanity, and to regenerate us by 
 impressing our minds with this, and by bringing before us 
 the highest specimens of it which have appeared. 
 
 It is no doubt useful to impress upon man the dignity 
 which belongs to him as a rational and immortal creature. 
 But it is just as essential to remind him that he is the mere 
 creature of God— finite in his faculties, and occupying the 
 lowest degree in the scale of rational existence. If we omit 
 to inculcate the one truth, the danger is that he may sink 
 into mean and unworthy pursuits. If we omit the other, 
 we are sure to lift him up with pride and presumption. The 
 Bible is careful to bring both truths before us. It impresses 
 us with the world-value of the soul in its destiny, and dignity, 
 as made originally in the image of God; but it dwells much 
 upon the littleness and insignificance of man, the limited 
 nature of his powers, and the unreliability of his judgment. 
 We shall not find much of the latter unflattering estimate 
 in the writings of the Carlyle fraternity. Man according to 
 them is " the divinest thing in nature, so that we touch 
 heaven when we lay our hand on a human body." So 
 Novalis. " The ultimate attainment of religion," says 
 Goethe, "is reverence for oneself; so that man attains the 
 highest elevation of which he is capable, that of being 
 justified in reckoning himself the best that God and nature 
 have produced." The same writer, as we have shown, tells 
 us that the philosophy of Christ was " to teach us to bring 
 down God, or all that is above us, to our own level." In 
 short, the result of Christ's religion, if we understand 
 Goethe, is very much the result of the religion first incul- 
 cated by the serpent upon us all, " Ye shall be as gods." 
 And it must be acknowledged that the whole tendency of 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 63 
 
 Carlyle's writings is to puff up humanity with the most 
 unlimited conceit of itself. In this respect he has done an 
 essential damage to the age. He has sought to reform men 
 by teaching them to deify their own nature, and by teaching 
 them to worship those of the race who have been more dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 Speaking of the transcendent admiration of great men, 
 he says : — ■ 
 
 " Religion I find stands upon it — not paganism only, but 
 far higher and truer religions, all religion hitherto known. 
 Hero worship, heart-felt, prostrate admiration, submission, 
 burning, boundless, for a noblest godlike form of man, is 
 not that the germ of Christianity itself ? The greatest of 
 all heroes is one whom we do not name here. Let sacred 
 silence meditate that matter; you will find it the ultimate 
 perfection of a principle extant throughout man's whole 
 history on earth." 
 
 Now we doubt whether he here does justice even to 
 paganism. Its philosophers and teachers never were so 
 superficial as mainly to rest the hope of reforming the 
 species upon this setting up of the lives of distinguished 
 men. They were not so stupidly puffed up with pride of 
 human excellence. The inculcation of morality and the 
 awful sanctions of religion (so far as they apprehended them) 
 was what they stood upon. They would have looked upon 
 it as toadyism to make " a prostrate admiration of great 
 men " the leading motive to virtue. But with regard to 
 Christianity, the very thing which proves it to have come 
 from God, and has always been considered as proving its 
 Divine original, is its having shown that the reformation of 
 fallen man never can be effected either by examples of moral 
 excellence, nor by our own efforts, nor even by the command- 
 ments of God enforced with their sanctions. What is born 
 of the flesh it declares to be flesh, and destined so to remain. 
 If Thomas Carlyle expects that in going down to the lanes and 
 closes of our large cities, or going anywhere, he will turn 
 
64 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 men to righteousness by setting before them the " noblest 
 godlike form of man," he has yet to learn that the de- 
 pravity of the human heart laughs at all such attempts. 
 Christianity stands not upon this as its mainstay, nor upon 
 anything like it. It comes to us declaring new methods 
 altogether, both for the justification of the guilty and for 
 the regeneration of the polluted. It stands upon the super- 
 
 . natural doctrines of justification through the blood of Christ, 
 and regeneration by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The true hope of the reformation of mankind therefore 
 rests upon the publication of these doctrines ; and to say 
 that it rests upon " the transcendent admiration of great 
 men," is to transfer the glory of effecting it from God to 
 man. Does any one believe, for example, that it was 
 admiration of the heroism of Martin Luther or of John 
 Knox that led to the Reformation ? On the contrary, it 
 was the doctrines they taught that produced it. What 
 would Luther have said had he heard Carlyle trace the 
 Reformation to himself as a hero, instead of tracing it to 
 the doctrine of justification through the sin-atoning blood of 
 the Lamb, which he was privileged to know and declare ? 
 What would he have said to hear that the Reformation 
 stood not upon that doctrine, but " unlimited admiration of 
 his own godlike earnestness " ? Nay, Carlyle's system is not 
 consistent with itself. First, he asserts those men to be 
 heroes who have grappled in earnestness of spirit with the 
 great essential truths of existence, God, eternity. Next he 
 represents religion as standing upon a transcendent admira- 
 tion of, and submission to such men ; and he does not see 
 
 'that he thus makes us men-admirers, instead of truth-lovers, 
 which is destructive of all greatness. Instead of calling us 
 to admire great men, it should have been the truths they 
 grappled with he should have insisted upon as important. 
 This is to introduce a vicious element. Thus the writer 
 who has written most against shams, singularly enough, has 
 been imposed upon by the greatest of all shams. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 65 
 
 The fact is that, in the writings of Carlyle, truth bulks 
 very little. Those men whom he holds up to our unlimited 
 admiration in the religious department are such as have 
 been distinguished by earnestness, but as this earnestness 
 has been shown in holding the most opposite doctrines, it is 
 plain that he holds the distinction between truth and error 
 as of little or no importance. The earnestness of Luther 
 and of Dante, of Mahomet and of Oliver Cromwell, of Odin 
 and of John Knox, is all one in his eyes. No doubt he 
 endeavours to make it out that there was a something of 
 essential importance in which they all agreed. But this 
 turns out to be little more than that they all held by the 
 eternal distinction between right and wrong. Meanwhile 
 what becomes of the eternal distinction between truth and 
 error ? One thing is evident, that the earnestness of the men 
 whom he thus sets up to us as heroes had no relation to the 
 very elementary point of agreement which he mentions, but 
 was entirely directed to those other points which he considers 
 non-essential, but which were the very peculiarities of their 
 system. Thus he would have us fall down in prostrate 
 admiration before men whose whole earnestness and life 
 were directed to the maintenance of what he considers 
 to be of no importance — of no more importance than its 
 opposite. So silly is his admiration of great men ! And 
 how ridiculously does he exaggerate the influence which 
 this sentiment has exerted for the regeneration of the world, 
 and is likely to exert for it. 
 
 The mightiest of all revolutions for good that ever took 
 place was that which was effected by Christianity upon its 
 first introduction. Were the apostles, I would ask, taking 
 them as a whole, heroes, even in the sense in which Carlyle 
 would understand the term — in the sense of having gone 
 through wonderful experiences in their own minds in grap- 
 pling with the mystery of the universe ? Could he have 
 written lectures upon Peter, or James, or Philip ? Every- 
 thing goes to prove that they were plain, ordinary, average- 
 
 6 
 
66 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 minded men, and purposely chosen such by God, in order to 
 show that the moral revolution accomplished by them was 
 owing to the truth they proclaimed, and the miracles ac- 
 companying it — certainly not to the instruments who were 
 employed. They themselves acknowledged that they could 
 do nothing without the truth. Carlyle's idea is that the 
 truth could do nothing without them. They uniformly 
 repressed with vehement indignation any tendency shown 
 to have "a transcendent admiration of them as great men," 
 or to give them a " prostrate submission ; " and, in doing so, 
 Thomas Carlyle maintains of course that they were repressing 
 the very thing which Christianity stands upon ! 
 
 Nay, in the extract I have given, he asks triumphantly 
 " whether hero worship, burning, boundless, for a noblest 
 godlike form of man, is not the germ of Christianity itself ? 
 The greatest of all heroes is one whom we do not name 
 here." 
 
 He is quite mistaken if he think that he has found the 
 germ of Christianity, or what constitutes its power and 
 glory, in its presenting us with " a noblest godlike form of 
 man." What Christianity truly is we can only learn, as 
 we have shown already, by consulting the historical record 
 we have of it in the universally received canon. There we 
 learn that the grand reason why the Son of God took the 
 form of Man, was that He might thus be capable of suffering 
 and dying for our sins, to deliver us from the wrath to come. 
 So far is the Record from representing God's grand design 
 in the Incarnation as being to swell and exalt our notions of 
 the human nature by setting a " godlike form of man " 
 before us, that it represents God's grand design as being to 
 humble His Son to this vile human nature of ours, in order 
 to an atonement through His humiliation. By the Incarna- 
 tion no doubt we have a perfect model of humanity; but to 
 speak of this, or of the effect produced by it, as representing 
 the germ of Christianity, or the grand principle upon which 
 it exerts its powers, shows entire ignorance of this Mystery. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 67 
 
 Most certainly its object was not to swell our sense of the 
 greatness of humanity. And while we have the self-denial of 
 the life and death of Christ set before us, which Carlyle 
 may pronounce to be heroism unexampled, it is not of the 
 kind at all which he founds upon, and considers to be so 
 influential. It was not shown by one who was a mere man 
 like ourselves, but by a Divine Person in our nature, and 
 therefore does not go to inflate our sense of human greatness. 
 The very expressions Carlyle uses, " a divine man," "a 
 noblest godlike form of man," instead of God-man, are 
 significant and deceptive; for in the Scriptures it is a 
 Divine Person, and not a Divine Man that is before us. It 
 is God that is glorified, and not the humanity. To make 
 this the more patent, Christ did nothing in His own name 
 even as a Divine Person. He tells us that if He had come 
 in His own name, doing great things as of Himself, the 
 world would have received Him. It would have looked upon 
 him as the greatest of all heroes, and bowed before Him 
 " with transcendent admiration and prostrate submission." 
 Instead of being the servant of the Father, He would then 
 have been the " godlike form of man, " which is the grand 
 affair with the world, and with Thomas Carlyle. But, as it 
 is, Christ is not popular with the world, and it is in vain for 
 Goethe and his disciples to try to make Him so by con- 
 verting our worship of Him from a God-worship into a man- 
 worship. 
 
 But we must close this lecture, which has already 
 swelled beyond just dimensions. 
 
 It may be thought by some readers that it was an exercise 
 of unnecessary patience to follow any author step by step 
 through such extravagances of opinion, and to combat with 
 arguments what are the chimeras of the wildest imagination. 
 But his religious notions have been adopted by many men 
 distinguished for genius, if not for solid judgment, and it 
 seemed desirable to refute what has been thought worthy of 
 so much embellishment. When one sees the monstrous 
 
 6* 
 
68 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 positions that have been held by this writer, he cannot but 
 perceive what a gigantic genius he must possess, to have 
 made his lectures and writings plausible — so plausible that 
 admiring multitudes read them, and even evangelical men 
 have cherished, and cherish, the belief that he has con- 
 tributed to advance the cause of religion. 
 
6 9 
 
 II. 
 
 + ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 BOTH Shakespeare and Milton had the advantage of 
 appearing at a period in the history of our country 
 when the place which they were qualified to fill, the one as 
 a dramatist and the other as an epic poet, had not been as 
 yet preoccupied. The great common passions of humanity 
 form the material for the dramatist, and they are not very 
 many in number. Happy the man who comes first, and 
 transfers to his page the virgin reflection of them ! Of 
 course a number of clumsy and ineffectual efforts are made 
 at the outset, but I refer to the man of genius who is able to 
 avail himself of the occasion still standing open. He has 
 possession ; and what can they do who come after the king? 
 Shakespeare occupied such a position. Till he appeared, the 
 nation felt that the passions of the heart, and life in its great 
 common aspects, had not yet been perfectly represented, and 
 there was no reason why he should not make them his 
 subject. The English language itself was not yet poetically 
 perfect, and there was, no need for his distorting it to make 
 an impression. When a man has thus an opportunity of 
 drawing nature in the beauty of .her primitive nakedness, 
 there is no temptation to array her in the dress of civilisa- 
 tion ; ornament is unnecessary, and when he has given the 
 world her figure, what remains behind ? He has had the 
 pattern upon the Mount, and his are the representations 
 that shall go down the ages. With regard to epic poetry, 
 much the same. The sublime Puritan knew that this region 
 was still his own, if he could occupy it. Nature, in her 
 
70 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 ordinary aspects, had been taken possession of by the bard 
 of Avon, but Paradise, Heaven, and Hell remained ; he had 
 these great subjects — great to all mankind — entirely within 
 his reach. He made them his own accordingly. Nor was 
 it necessary that he should use unwarrantable liberties with 
 the English language, in order to avoid imitating a prede- 
 cessor ; he could adopt the one, and perhaps the only, epic 
 style for which the language is naturally adapted. 
 
 There still remained one department of nature — the 
 amatory, or that which is expressed in songs. This had 
 not been perfectly taken possession of till Robert Burns 
 appeared. When he wrote, this section also of the natural 
 was foreclosed. 
 
 It was to be feared that in this dearth of primitive and 
 virgin subject there would be a divergence into false styles 
 of poetry — less flagrant at the beginning, and becoming 
 more marked as time advanced. So it happened. Unarti- 
 ficial enough in their style of composition, Scott and Byron 
 did not derive their material from the universal model of 
 nature. It was the chivalry of Border life that animated 
 the strains of Scott — life in one peculiar phase of it, seen 
 from the knightly side, resplendent with the romance of one 
 peculiar age. None will say that Childe Harold, Lara, the 
 Giaour, or the Corsair can be accepted as universal types. 
 We grant that both these poets drew largely from nature, 
 having a deep insight into it and an intense sympathy with 
 it ; but the subject from which they drew was not human 
 nature in its essential features, broad and catholic. Neither 
 had either of them, with all their extraordinary talent, that 
 highest mastery of genius which expresses a thing in the 
 perfection of a few words, but needed to make up for it as 
 they best might by lengthened description and splendour of 
 impassioned writing. Both of them were frank in their 
 acknowledgment of this. They confessed that they wanted 
 the divine faculty that distinguishes Shakespeare, Milton, 
 and Burns. 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 But in the age upon which we have fallen the poets give 
 evidence of being reduced to still more desperate shifts in 
 order to produce an impression, and establish for themselves 
 a reputation. There is no kind of outlandish legend to 
 which they have not had recourse*; no liberty they have not 
 used with the English language to produce effect ; no for- 
 midable species of new metrical or unmetrical lines they 
 have not set upon the wheels. All that is sublime in nature 
 or human life having been already anticipated, they have, as 
 if in revenge, resolved to show what can be done by magni- 
 fying the little and the unpromising ; so that we are not so 
 much thrilled by the magnificence of nature as by the 
 splendour of art. Instead of natural objects so described as 
 by a master's hand to awaken our emotions, we are treated 
 with a metaphysical analysis of the emotions themselves. 
 It was Wordsworth who may be said to have introduced the 
 plan of kindly informing the reader of the sentiments which 
 flowers and every object in nature ought to suggest. The 
 true poet is not one who affects to find and point out in 
 nature what other people cannot discover, but who gives us 
 nature as she is, leaving her to awaken in our bosom her 
 thousand unutterable impressions. 
 
 We have thus " Hiawathas," and " Sagas," and " Red 
 Cotton Nightcap Countries," and " Murder cases at Rome," 
 with the verdict of the judge and the pleadings of the fiscal 
 and advocate for the panel, in inspired verse. Yet the 
 generation is pleased, and considers that Tennyson and 
 Browning are an improvement upon the poets of the past. 
 We say nothing as to this at present. But surely the fol- 
 lowing exceptions may be taken to modern poetry. 
 
 One bad quality too often pervading it is quaintness and 
 eccentricity. We shall maintain it to be a rule, eternal as the 
 course of the sun, that nothing of this kind is destined to 
 live. There must be something essentially defective in any 
 poet who has to draw upon this resource. He wants power 
 when he cannot produce effect without resorting to some 
 
72 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 violation of ordinary rules. Poetry is in the decline when 
 we meet with the grotesque. The age no doubt admires this 
 sort of thing. Pyrotechnics is popular. A star is nothing 
 thought of; but every sinner turns out to his door to see the 
 comet. Cowley is lauded to the skies ; Milton nothing 
 thought of; because he does no violence to the rules of taste, 
 and will not turn his imagination into a harlequin. 
 
 Extravagance — the spasmodic — is everywhere abundant. 
 I might instance Browning's celebrated " Abt Vogle." For 
 splendour of artifice it is unrivalled ; but it is false in taste. 
 It is the whole affair of music carried out into sublime 
 fustian. The rising of one note and the sinking of another 
 is thus described: — 
 
 And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, 
 Burrow a while and build, broad on the roots of things, 
 
 Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, 
 Founded it fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. 
 
 And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, 
 Ay, another, and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, 
 
 Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, 
 Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest : 
 
 For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire 
 
 When a great illumination surprises a festal night, 
 Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire), 
 
 Up the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight. 
 
 It is much more easy to get up this kind of meretricious 
 sublimity than our readers have any conception of. The 
 analogy being once caught hold of, one has only to put on 
 his seven-league boots for this sort of undertaking ; and had 
 Browning always got upon a panting Pegasus of this descrip- 
 tion, he would have befooled himself before the public beyond 
 redemption. Or take his "Saul" — a magnificent poem in 
 some respects. Nothing can be finer than the idea of David 
 having expelled the demon of his melancholy, not simply by 
 the tones of his harp, but by the subjects he brings before 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 73 
 
 the mind of the heaven-deserted monarch ; nothing finer than 
 the poet's conception of what might have been the succes- 
 sive subjects he attempted ; nothing more masterly than the 
 execution of them. But the beauty is sadly marred by 
 extravagances. When young David enters the tent, here 
 
 is the spectacle that meets his eye : — 
 
 I discerned 
 A something more black than the blackness — the vast, the upright 
 Main prop which sustains the pavilion ; and slow into sight 
 Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all ; 
 Then a sunbeam that burst through the tent-roof showed Saul. 
 He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide 
 On the great cross support in the centre that goes to each side. 
 He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there, as caught in his pangs 
 And waiting his change, a king serpent all heavily hangs, 
 Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come 
 With the springtime, so agonised Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb. 
 
 The last image is grand enough, though somewhat gro- 
 tesquely drawn, but the lines are defaced by patches of 
 spasmodic prose. Thus — 
 
 He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide 
 On the great cross support in the centre, &c, 
 
 is wretched ; and this straining after effect in bringing Saul's 
 postures picturesquely before us, carried out as it is through- 
 out the poem, produces a ludicrous impression. Thus, when 
 David has in part roused him from his melancholy, can any- 
 thing be droller than the following description ? 
 
 And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered, and sparkles 'gan dart 
 From the jewels that woke in his turban at once with a start, 
 All its lordly male sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. 
 
 Then follows an image which for formidable force and 
 elaborate additions will be a favourite with certain readers. 
 
 Have ye seen when spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim, 
 And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held (he alone, 
 While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone 
 A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, leaves grasp of the sheet ? 
 Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderous down to his feet, 
 
74 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain of old, 
 
 With his rents, the successive bequeathments of ages untold ; 
 
 Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar 
 
 Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest — all hail, there they are ! 
 
 Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest 
 
 Of the dove, tempt the goat with its young to the green on his crest 
 
 For their food in the ardours of summer ! 
 
 A good deal of this sort of writing meets us now-a-days. 
 
 Obscurity is another fault. Whatever defects may have 
 characterised the poetry of Great Britain in former times, 
 the manly intellect of the nation preserved it from this. 
 Distinctness of conception, clearness of expression, logical 
 connection were always studied. To derive an appearance 
 of sublimity from mistiness of idea, to gain a reputation for 
 depth of thought by obscurity of style, was reckoned beneath 
 the dignity of a British writer. It was left to the Germans, 
 who, whatever claims they may have to erudition and genius, 
 have by this means gained a reputation for both which is a 
 hundred and ninety-nine times greater than they deserve. 
 A new phenomenon presents itself to us now in our books of 
 poetry. You take them up, and not a word of sense is 
 apparent upon a first perusal. Of course after study you 
 perceive the author's meaning ; your eye having got accus- 
 tomed to the darkness of the cave, you begin to see what is 
 round you — even such splendours of art as the poet has been 
 able to produce. What a despicable artifice is this ! In 
 some cases the obscurity is the result of mere affectation ; 
 in others, of an awkward style of composition, which defies 
 the ordinary rules of grammar. We trust that there will be a 
 general rise of the public against what may be called the 
 obscure style, and yet there are circumstances making this 
 unlikely. There is the self-conceit leading young men and 
 young ladies to pride themselves on discovering the sense of 
 these obscure authors. There is the sycophancy that sub- 
 mits to be smitten in the face by false apostles. There is 
 the downright toadyism, for example, of such as Carlyle, 
 who gets down upon his knees before the man who has made 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 75 
 
 himself incomprehensible. But if this go on, it is our belief 
 that the only hope of literature is in the French nation. 
 Whatever may be the degradation under which they lie for 
 the moment, through the debasing thraldom of Popery, and 
 the late humiliating despotism of Napoleon, and whatever 
 may have been the mediocrity of poetic genius among them 
 hitherto, there is at least no humbug of obscurity about the 
 French; such ideas as they have, they distinctly express. 
 They despise the affectation of violating the rules of gram- 
 mar. The Revolution itself left this characteristic of the 
 French nation untouched ; and if they have given up Alsace 
 and Lorraine to Germany, they have at least preserved 
 themselves from the degradation of abandoning to it their 
 style of thought and of language. 
 
 Happily, it is the smaller pieces of Browning that are for 
 the most part defaced by the vices of style to which we have 
 referred. If we would have the best display of his genius, 
 we must resort to his larger productions, where the extent 
 of the subject does not afford the same opportunity of indulg- 
 ing in wretched ingenuities. In this essay we would chiefly 
 take up " The Ring and the Book." We shall first consider 
 its literary merits ; but, secondly, and at much larger length, 
 animadvert upon the very peculiar theology of our illustrious 
 poet. 
 
 A word as to the subject of this poem. The author finds 
 a book upon a stall in Florence, containing a famous trial 
 for murder in Rome, 22nd February, 1690. A couple in 
 ordinary rank of life, Pietro and Violante, have no daughter. 
 To supply the defect, Violante carries off an infant, Pom- 
 pilia, from a house of bad fame, and palms her upon Pietro 
 as being her own child. Pompilia, grown up to be a girl 
 of great beauty, is fancied by Guido Francescbino, a noble- 
 man of reduced circumstances, who had in part taken orders 
 in the Church of Rome, but never prosecuted that career, 
 nor been successful in any other. Her beauty was not the 
 only attraction for him, but a small fortune which her father 
 
76 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Pietro expected. He comes to a contract with the parents, 
 marries Pompilia, and sets off along with them all to his 
 country-seat in Arezzo, where her parents are subjected to 
 every privation of aristocratic poverty and humiliation. 
 Eventually they make off from this treatment to Rome. 
 Meanwhile Guido acts with the greatest cruelty to Pom- 
 pilia, who did not at first know, in her girlhood, what the 
 nature of this marriage was, or what it would result in. 
 By and by Violante exasperates him beyond measure, 
 being led, partly from conscience, partly to revenge herself 
 upon him, to make public the fact that Pompilia was not her 
 child at all. Thus he finds that he has no right to the 
 fortune, and that he is married to a prostitute's daughter. 
 He becomes increasingly cruel to his wife. He falls into 
 the diabolic device of trying to entrap her into some amour 
 with Caponsacchi, a young priest. He was a generous young 
 man, had been gay enough in his youth, and was employed 
 by his ecclesiastical superiors in such service among fashion- 
 able lady votaries of religion as he was admirably qualified 
 for. Guido forges letters as from her to him, professing 
 love, and letters much the same as from him to her — the 
 object being to lead her to some reckless step which would 
 entitle him to a divorce. Both the one and the other see 
 through the snare, and are above any such intrigue. At 
 the same time he is greatly impressed with her beauty and 
 touched by the wretchedness of her condition: she, again, has 
 confidence in his virtue. Erelong, feeling that she was soon 
 to be a mother, she resolves, rather for the safety of her 
 infant than herself, to endeavour to effect her escape to 
 Rome. Failing in every other attempt to execute her 
 purpose, whether prudently or not for either party, she gets 
 Caponsacchi to carry her off. Both get near to Rome, but 
 are overtaken by Guido. He has them tried for adultery. 
 The court compromised matters. The young priest was 
 sent to a neighbouring town, where he might live a life 
 of retirement. She was sent to a convent in Rome. After- 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 77 
 
 wards, however, on the plea of bad health, she was erelong 
 allowed to return to her parents' home, a villa near Rome, 
 where her son is born. The jealousy of Guido being 
 increased under these circumstances, he associated himself 
 with four boors of Arezzo, came in the night, and murdered 
 Pietro and Violante, inflicting such wounds also on Pom- 
 pilia as proved fatal, though she survives to give her dying 
 declarations. Then came on Guido's trial, in all the stages 
 of it, forming the subject of the present poem. We have the 
 fiscal's charge for the prosecution, the lawyers' speeches on 
 both sides, Caponsacchi's evidence, Pompilia's declarations, 
 Guido's defence, and the Pope's ultimate deliverance upon 
 the cause, when appealed to him. 
 
 A poet of the last generation, had he chosen such a subject 
 for poetry as this, would have woven it into a romantic tale, 
 or thrown it into the form of a tragedy. But our author has 
 adopted a plan which would have occurred to none but 
 himself. He has transformed the trial bodily into blank 
 verse, including the whole speeches, defences, declarations, 
 and deliverances aforesaid ; giving us, besides, the judgment 
 of "one half of Rome" when the case broke out ; then the 
 judgment of "the other half of Rome;" and next the judg- 
 ment of a third, or middle class in Rome ! One patent 
 disadvantage resulting from this treatment is the endless 
 repetition into which he is led of the facts. No fewer than a 
 dozen of times does he traverse the details. It shows a match- 
 less hardihood of talent that any writer should venture to 
 occupy four volumes of blank verse in ringing the changes 
 upon this old criminal cause. But such is the variety of cha- 
 racters appearing upon the scene, such the novelty of the 
 situations into which the parties are thrown, that, in the hands 
 of this consummately shrewd observer of life and analyser of 
 the human heart, they seem to suggest inexhaustible materials 
 for meditation. The legal intricacies of the case are handled 
 with the dexterity of the subtlest barrister ; we have a world 
 of moral philosophy applied to the motives of the respective 
 
78 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 actors; and Dante himself could not have accumulated 
 images more grotesque, sometimes terrific, than meet us in 
 the description. We were not so much impressed with the 
 splendid endowments of Browning on reading the first two 
 volumes of the work, which are somewhat prosy, and some- 
 what withal in the eccentric and spasmodic strain ; defaced 
 too by obscurities, and the detestable jolting abruptness of 
 old Young, of " Night Thoughts " memory. But when he 
 comes to the speeches of the principal actors, his genius at 
 last shines forth, works itself free from its obscurity, and in 
 some measure from its eccentricities, and takes a majestic 
 sweep through regions of the most impassioned eloquence. 
 The finest of all the poem, in our judgment, is the speech 
 of Caponsacchi. He begins thus, adverting to the very 
 different circumstances in which he was called to address 
 the judges now than on the first occasion, when they had 
 condemned him to retire into the neighbouring city. 
 
 Answer you, sirs ? Do I understand aright ? 
 
 Have patience ! In this sudden smoke of hell 
 
 So things disguise themselves, I cannot see 
 
 My own hand held thus broad before my face, 
 
 And know it again. Answer you ? Then that means 
 
 Tell over twice what I the first time told 
 
 Six months ago ; 'twas here, I do believe, 
 
 Fronting you same three in this very room, 
 
 I stood and told you ; yet now no one laughs 
 
 Who then . . . nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did, 
 
 As good as laugh, what in a judge we style 
 
 Laughter — no levity, nothing indecorous, lords ! 
 
 Only — I think I apprehend the mood — 
 
 There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk, 
 
 The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth, 
 
 The titter stifled in the hollow palm 
 
 Which rubbed the eyebrow, and caressed the nose, 
 
 When I first told my tale ; they meant, you know — 
 
 " The sly one, all this we are bound to believe ! 
 
 Well, he can say no other than what he says ; 
 
 We have been young, too — come, there's greater guilt ! 
 
 Let him but decently disembroil himself, 
 
 Scramble from out the scrape, nor move the mud — 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 79 
 
 We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch ! " 
 
 And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast 
 
 As if I were a phantom — now 'tis — •" Friend, 
 
 Collect yourself" — no laughing matter more — 
 
 " Counsel the court in this extremity. 
 
 Tell us again." . . . For what ? 
 
 Pompilia is only dying while I speak ! 
 
 Why does the mirth hang fire, and miss the smile ? 
 
 My masters, there's an old Book you should con 
 
 For strange adventures, applicable yet, 
 
 'Tis stuffed with. Do you know that there was once 
 
 This thing — a multitude of worthy folk 
 
 Took recreation, watched a certain group 
 
 Of soldiery intent upon a game — 
 
 How first they wrangled, but soon fell to play, 
 
 Threw dice — the best diversion in the world ; 
 
 A word in your ear — they are now casting lots, 
 
 Ay, with that gesture quaint, and cry uncouth, 
 
 For the coat of One murdered an hour ago ! 
 
 This is spirited enough. But the marvel is that this 
 strain lasts through 2,105 lines, in one sustained burst of 
 passion, of tenderness, of withering and scathing moral 
 indignation ; being, in this respect, unparalleled perhaps in 
 the literature of our country. Caponsacchi's description of 
 Pompilia, the perfect image of sadness and purity, is 
 unrivalled. Take the lines where he speaks of them sitting 
 together in the carriage by night, as they fled to Rome — the 
 anomalousness, the strangeness, the questionableness of 
 their position. 
 
 For the first hour 
 We both were silent in the night I know : 
 Sometimes I did not see, nor understand. 
 Blackness engulfed me — partial stupor, say — 
 Then I would break way, breathe through the surprise, 
 And be aware again, and see who sat 
 In the dark vest, with the white face and hands. 
 I said to myself, " I have caught it, I conceive 
 The mind o' the mystery : 'tis the way they wake 
 And wait — two martyrs somewhere in a tomb, 
 Each by each as their blessing was to die ; 
 Some signal they are promised to expect, 
 When to arise before the trumpet scares : 
 
So THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 So through the whole course of the world they wait 
 
 The last day, but so fearless, and so safe ! 
 
 No otherwise in safety and not fear 
 
 I lie, because she lies too by my side." 
 
 You know this is not love, sirs ; it is faith, 
 
 The feeling that there's God — He reigns and rules 
 
 Out of this low world — that is all ; no harm. 
 
 It is thus that he resents the foul charge that Pompilia 
 wrote the sinful letters to him: — 
 
 Learned sir, 
 I told you there's a picture in our church. 
 Well, if a low-browed verger sidled up, 
 Bringing me, like a blotch, on his prod's point 
 A transfixed scorpion, let the reptile writhe, 
 And then said, " See a thing that Raphael made, — 
 This venom issued from Madonna's mouth." 
 I should reply, " Rather the soul of you 
 Has issued from your body, like from like, 
 By way of the ordure-corner ! " 
 
 Then we have Guido's address when his doom was an- 
 nounced to him. This affords Browning an opportunity to 
 express the rage of a low-typed man driven back upon death 
 by the world. This he has done with uncommon power. 
 One had thought that Byron was good at a curse : our 
 modern bard, through an inexhaustible fund of Dante 
 imagery, and a certain vein of defiant satire he has, seems 
 sometimes to outrival him, but he is ever and anon falling 
 into some violation of taste, some wretched jolt in his 
 sentences (for he cannot put them together grammatically), 
 some spasmodic effort, none of which things Byron was ever 
 tempted to commit through the superiority of his genius. 
 
 If intensity of passion, allied with imagination, constitute 
 genius, none can question Robert Browning's claim to it. 
 Many good advices have been given him. We believe that 
 his faults are incorrigible. Although he has the poetic 
 element in his constitution, perhaps his proper mission was 
 rather that of a philosopher or moralist — a sort of Jeremy 
 Taylor seven times heated, than that of a poet. It is 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 amazing how some men who have splendid powers of this 
 description — bordering upon the poetic— but who never 
 were intended to be Singers, and want the perfect faculty of 
 musical expression necessary for it, will persist by a pro- 
 digious effort against nature in producing works which one 
 knows not well how to denominate. Any imaginative fervour 
 they possess is like the fire in the interior of the earth, 
 which will occasionally force its way with much smoke and 
 noise out of the labouring mountain, amazing us by the 
 streams of burning lava it sends forth ; how unlike, mean- 
 while, the electric flash of heaven, born of the cloud, 
 flying fast and free through all nature, a spiritual element, 
 and accompanied with voices of definite grandeur — Jove's 
 own ! 
 
 But it is not with Browning's poetry we have to deal in 
 this essay, but with his theology. 
 
 Like many of our other poets and novelists, he is not 
 satisfied with the end of pleasing the generation, but pro- 
 poses a theology of his own, and aims, as he tells us 
 himself, to " save the soul." Nay, he seeks to carry out 
 a favourite theory of some of our modern thinkers, that 
 religion is to be advanced not so much by the old way of 
 direct dogmatical statement, as by the fine arts. 
 
 Art remains the one way possible 
 Of speaking truth to mouths like mine at least. 
 How look a brother in the face and say, 
 " Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou, yet are blind, 
 Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length, 
 And O the foolishness thou countest faith ! " 
 Say this as silverly as tongue can troll, 
 The anger of the man may be endured, 
 The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him 
 Are not so bad to bear — but here's the plague, 
 That all this trouble comes of telling truth, 
 Which truth, by when it reaches him, looks false, 
 Seems to be just the thing it would supplant, 
 Nor recognisable by whom it left, 
 While falsehood would have done the work of truth. 
 But art, wherein man nowise speaks to man, 
 
 7 
 
82 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Only to mankind, art may tell a truth, 
 
 Obliquely do the thing shall breed the thought, 
 
 Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word. 
 
 So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, 
 
 Beyond mere imagery en the wall ; 
 
 So note by note bring music from your mind, 
 
 Deeper than ever the Andante dived ; 
 
 So write a book shall mean beyond the facts, 
 
 Suffice the eye, and save the soul beside. 
 
 And save the soul ! If this intent save mine, 
 
 If the rough ore be rounded to a ring," &c. 
 
 These lines contain the secret of that mission, inaugurated 
 by Goethe, which our poets have undertaken to propound 
 religion — a new religion I shall soon show it is — and to 
 regenerate our souls. It is a crusade upon which they have 
 entered. It may be advisable for a moment to consider the 
 superior place he here gives to the fine arts as the way of 
 conveying religious truth, and " saving the soul." As he 
 suggests, there are two ways of dealing with a man if you 
 wish to correct his errors or lead him into saving truth. 
 The one is that of dogmatic teaching or controversial 
 statement. In plain language you endeavour to show him 
 he is in error, and in so many propositions you set before 
 him the true doctrine. Our poet doubts the efficacy of 
 this mode, not only because it offends, but because any 
 statement you make doctrinally becomes error in the very 
 attempt to make it. Now this essential defect in words as a 
 vehicle of thought is a mere fiction of his own brain. That, 
 in the case supposed, your statement of the true doctrine 
 should look false to the man, is likely enough, but that it 
 should " not be recognisable by yourself who made it," is of 
 course sheer nonsense. Besides, the reason why it looks 
 false to the man is prejudice on his part. The fault is in 
 him, not in words as a vehicle of communicating ideas or 
 truths. There can be no more perfect vehicle in this world 
 of ours of communicating truths, than direct doctrinal state- 
 ment. Fiction, or art, may be a good way of " obliquely " 
 winning a reception for the truth in unwilling ears, but the 
 
ROBERT -BROWNING. 83 
 
 idea of its being a more correct medium pf communication 
 is one which will not bear to be examined. Indeed, it is 
 ludicrous. Here, let us say, you ,ar,e anxious to communi- 
 cate a truth to a man. It seems .that out of the whole 
 vocabulary of the English language it is impossible for you 
 to find " a mediate word that shall not wrong the thought," 
 but your plan is to get up a fictitious story, 
 
 And falsehood shall have done the work of truth (! !) 
 
 Before this essay is done we hope to show what some of 
 the truths are which Robert Browning has sought to convey 
 " obliquely " into the minds of his readers in fiction of his 
 own. When we shall have stated them in plain words, they 
 will be sufficiently intelligible, and perhaps too much so. 
 They are so subtilely conveyed in his fiction that his readers 
 are apt to imbibe them unconsciously. And this is the true 
 reason why he and others have resorted to fictitious writing 
 as the means of vending their theological crudities ; the 
 very opposite reason to that which the lines quoted above 
 profess. Were they in plain words, and in perspicuous 
 prose to state the doctrines which they propose, these are 
 so untenable and so unsound that they would not obtain 
 reception. As it is, they resort to the system of bringing 
 them in obliquely by fictions which " breed " the heretical 
 thought, and hide it at the same time. 
 
 "And, save the soul! " There is a great deal more necessary 
 to save a soul than most poets are aware of. Let us inquire 
 what is Robert Browning's scheme of theology. 
 
 We shall first summarily state in our own words what we 
 consider this scheme of his to be, after studying his writings. 
 That God is love, is the grand truth with him ; not in the 
 sense, however, understood in the old theology still current 
 among us, and embodied in.the Scriptures ; not in the sense 
 that in His great love he provided His Son to be a redemp- 
 tion for us from the curse of the law by being made a curse 
 for us, and delivering us from the wrath of God due for our 
 
 7* 
 
THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 sins. According to Browning, God is love in the very oppo- 
 site sense — that there is no such thing as wrath in Him. 
 The idea that there is so is an entire mistake, and arises 
 from our considering that God has less love than ourselves. 
 We would not hesitate a moment to step forward and save 
 any man with an everlasting salvation, but unfortunately we 
 consider that God is unwilling to do so. Hence the neces- 
 sity of the truth being discovered to us that God is not 
 different from ourselves in this respect. To discover this 
 was the great end of the incarnation of the Son of God. He 
 was not sent for expiatory purposes at all, but to show that, 
 so far from entertaining any wrath, God sympathises with us 
 under our sufferings. Christ is just the humanity that was 
 originally in the Godhead discovered to us ; that is to say, 
 He has been incarnated to show us that God is no other than 
 man, or one like unto ourselves, in His mode of thinking 
 and feeling ; that, to use a phrase of Browning's own, " He 
 is human at the red-ripe of the heart." 
 
 We shall now proceed to show, by reference to and quota- 
 tions from Mr. Browning's poems, that these are his senti- 
 ments, and consider the positions and arguments by which 
 he seeks to establish them. 
 
 We might take up his lyric upon " Saul," already referred 
 to. He represents David, when comforting the king, as 
 beginning last of all to have longings after his everlasting 
 salvation, but he feels as if he had no warrant to entertain 
 such a loving desire. 
 
 I would give thee new life altogether, as good ages hence 
 
 As this moment, had love but the warrant love's heart to dispense. 
 
 Then he corrects himself for thinking that God did not love 
 as much as he did ; and, in taking a survey of the whole 
 round of creation, finds that " all's love." 
 
 Yet with all this abounding experience, this Deity known, 
 I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own ! 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 85 
 
 Behold ! I could love if I durst, 
 But I sink the pretension in fearing a man may o'ertake 
 God's own speed in the one way of love ! 
 Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, 
 That I doubt His own love can compete with it ? here the parts shift? 
 Here the creature surpass the Creator? the end what began? 
 
 Here David, being dressed up as a modern rationalist, is 
 represented as coming from his own experience of love and 
 desire to save Saul eternally, to conclude that God must 
 have a like desire. In the same way, as the poem advances, 
 he is led from the principles of reason, or from the feelings 
 of his own humanity, to anticipate that God's Son will be 
 sent into the world to save Saul and the rest of us by suf- 
 fering and dying — suffering and dying, of course, merely to 
 
 show His sympathy with us. 
 
 It is by no breath. 
 Turn of the eye, wave of the hand, that salvation joins issue with death. 
 As Thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 
 Thy power that exists with and for it of being beloved. 
 He who did most shall bear most, the strongest stand the most weak ; 
 'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for, my flesh that I seek 
 In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be 
 A face like my face that receives thee — a man like to me. 
 Thou shalt love and be loved for ever. A hand like this hand 
 Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the Christ stand J 
 
 We all know that David had express promises in the 
 Bible that Christ was to come into the world in the fulness 
 of times ; but here, dressed up in the ridiculous garb of a 
 modern rationalist, he is described as working out the con- 
 clusion by a natural syllogism that Christ must make His 
 appearance. We all know, too, that the Christ whom David 
 looked forward to with satisfaction was one who, being made 
 a burnt-offering for his guilt, would atone for those innu- 
 merable sins which pressed him down to the ground. But 
 the Christ whom Robert Browning here represents him as 
 looking forward to is one who, by suffering and dying, should 
 prove that God, whose " love is discovered to be almighty " 
 in the natural world, has the power, in almighty measures, 
 of making Himself beloved. 
 
86 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for, my flesh that I seek 
 In the Godhead ! 
 
 According to the theology of the Scriptures hitherto cur- 
 rent among us, it is " the Godhead in the flesh " appearing to 
 make atonement for our sins that we seek and find comfort 
 from ; but here it is " the flesh in the Godhead " which is 
 represented as the comfortable and desired discovery. In 
 other words, finding that, after all, God, essentially con- 
 sidered, is nowise different from humanity in His mode of 
 loving and feeling. The humanity, even my flesh (according 
 to this new theology), was in the Godhead before the incar- 
 nation of the Son of God took place ; indeed, the great end 
 of that incarnation was just to discover to us that it was 
 there. In the lines I have quoted, the great end of the 
 coming of Christ is set forth to be this — to discover to us 
 that God's love is almighty, and that He would be beloved. 
 What we needed was evidence upon that point. The whole 
 of salvation, according to Robert Browning, as could be 
 proved from his writings passim, is merely a scheme to 
 rectify our mistake regarding the character of God ; a dis- 
 covery to us of the fact, which we had lost sight of, that God 
 loves us and sympathises with us. 
 
 The same doctrine is brought out in his memorable and 
 much - admired Invocation to Lyrical Love in the " Ring 
 and the Book," where I understand him to refer to the 
 incarnation and humiliation of the Son of God in the lines 
 which I have taken the liberty to underscore. 
 
 O Lyric Love, half angel, and half bird, 
 
 And all a wonder and a wild desire, 
 
 Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, 
 
 Took sanctuary within the holier blue, 
 
 And sang a kindred soul out to his face, 
 
 Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart, 
 
 When the first summons from the darkling earth 
 
 Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue, 
 
 And bared them of their glory — to drop down 
 
 To toil for man — to suffer and to di <_ 
 
ROBER T BRO IVNING. 8 7 
 
 This is the same voice ; can thy soul know change ? 
 Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help. 
 Never may I commence my song, my due 
 To God who best taught song by gift of thee, 
 Except with bent head and beseeching hand- 
 That still, despite the distance and the dark, 
 What was again may be ; some interchange 
 Of grace, some splendour once thy very thought, 
 Some benediction anciently thy smile ; 
 Never conclude but raising hand "and head 
 Thither where eyes that cannot reach still yearn 
 For all hope, all sustainment, all reward, 
 Their utmost up and on, so blessing back 
 In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, 
 Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud, 
 Some wanness, where, I think, thy feet may fall. 
 
 Though Lyric Love is here a quality personified, it seems 
 to be so interchangeably with Christ. After addressing it as 
 Lyric Love, and describing it as the boldest of all spirits or 
 inspirations, he represents it as taking " sanctuary within 
 the holier blue" — the third heavens; and as "singing a 
 kindred soul out to His (God's) face, yet human at the red- 
 ripe of the heart " — that is, evoking " a kindred soul," even 
 our flesh' — -our humanity — from the depths of the Godhead, 
 which, though Divine, is yet human at the core — evoking or 
 singing it out " to His face," i.e., into manifestation — at the 
 time when, the Fall having taken place, it felt itself, in the 
 Person of the Son of God, summoned amidst its chambers 
 " to drop down to toil for man, to suffer and to die." 
 
 This is the interpretation we attach to the lines, though we 
 have heard that some interpreters have actually considered 
 them to be addressed to his wife ! If anything could serve 
 to show how preposterous is the obscurity in which he 
 involves himself occasionally, it is to find that intelligent 
 readers should have supposed that these lines addressed to 
 the Saviour (as we understand them) were an Invocation to 
 Mrs. Browning ! If we are right, the lines bring out the idea 
 elsewhere broached passim by our poet that the incarnation 
 of the Son of God was simply the humanity that is essen- 
 
THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 tially in the Godhead, " the soul kindred " with ourselves, 
 sung out or evoked ; that is to say, it was meant to discover 
 to us God's identity with us in His feelings and views. 
 Some simple-minded evangelicals may be disposed to think 
 that Robert Browning in all this is orthodox enough — that 
 when he speaks of Christ, or the gospel, as having brought 
 out the humanity that is in the Godhead, he merely refers 
 to some one phase of redemption-work which has not been 
 sufficiently dwelt upon. But this theory of his plucks up by 
 the roots the whole scheme of redemption commonly re- 
 ceived among us. We do not hesitate to say that the Christ 
 whom he advocates is one of the Antichrists which are now 
 in the world. Instead of being the Son of God made flesh in 
 order to be a sin-offering to deliver us from the wrath to 
 come, He is the Son of God made flesh to discover to us the 
 humanity which was essentially in the Godhead from the 
 beginning — or to show us that God "is human at the red- 
 ripe of the heart." And if Mr. Browning were pressed to tell 
 us what rendered it so necessary that this discovery should 
 be made to us, he would no doubt confess what he is scarcely 
 bold enough to speak out often openly, that it was our mis- 
 taken idea of there being such a thing with God as wrath at 
 all, our delusion regarding everlasting punishments, and the 
 necessity of an expiation. 
 
 Since, according to the imaginative theologians of our day, 
 the great end of the Incarnation was such as we have described 
 — to discover to us the humanity that is in the Godhead (that 
 God, in short, is one like unto ourselves) — it is only. to be 
 thought that they should hold at the same time that 
 humanity, in its natural sentiments, independently of reve- 
 lation, is the standard or test to go by. If God has 
 incarnated His Son for no other reason than to show that 
 He is " human at the red-ripe of the heart " — that the senti- 
 ments of humanity are not different from His own — then, 
 upon the whole, we are not likely to go very far wrong in 
 following the sentiments of humanity. One object with 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 89 
 
 which the " Ring and the Book" is written is to show that 
 these are a surer standard than the Bible itself. There 
 are three illustrious examples set before, us in the poem, 
 Pompilia, Caponsacchi, and the Pope, as he decided the 
 present case ; and it will be found that the main thing in 
 them all entitling them to our admiration is their following 
 the dictates of nature and humanity in preference to any 
 written rule, God's Word not excepted. 
 
 That Pompilia, being the wife of Guido, should fly to 
 Rome with a young priest, was, in one respect, to break the 
 ordinance of God ; but she is to be commended for following 
 the dictates of nature. The poet makes a good deal more of 
 this, to serve his purpose, than needs be. Alluding to the 
 circumstances in which she was then placed, as about to be 
 a mother, he says : — 
 
 How the fine ear felt full the first low word, 
 Value life, and preserve life for my sake ! 
 Thou didst . . . how shall I say? receive so long 
 The standing ordinance of God on earth. 
 What wonder if the novel claim that clashed 
 With old requirement, seemed to supersede 
 Too much the customary law ? But, brave, 
 Thou at the first prompting of what I call God, 
 And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend, 
 Accept the obligation laid on thee, 
 Mother elect, to save the unborn child. 
 
 That Caponsacchi, being a priest, should have accom- 
 panied the young wife of another man to Rome, was con- 
 trary to conventional and ecclesiastical rules, and he too is 
 bold enough to follow the sentiments or impulse of his own 
 heart. Nothing is said of his following the rule of God's 
 Word, although Mr. Browning must have known well 
 enough that the Word of God would have suggested his 
 doing the lady this good turn ; but it is not his way or 
 object to praise Sod's Word, but rather to exalt another 
 standard. He thus enthusiastically describes the peerless 
 pair as they met at the window to plan their Rome-going, 
 
90 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 influenced by what he calls " a new attribute," and Christ 
 Himself. 
 
 Thus stood the wife and priest — a spectacle 
 I doubt not to unseen assemblage there. 
 No lamp will mark that window for a shrine, 
 No tablet signalise the terrace, teach 
 New generations, which succeed the old, 
 The pavement of the street as holy ground ; 
 No bard describe in verse how Christ prevailed, 
 And Satan fell like lightning. 
 
 Here the blot is blanched 
 By God's gift of a purity of soul 
 That will not take pollution, ermine-like, 
 Armed from dishonour by its own soft snow. 
 Such was the gift of God, who showed for once 
 How he would have the world go white ; it seems 
 As a new attribute were born of each, 
 Champion of truth, the priest and wife I praise. 
 
 Next, that the Pope should sanction these doings of 
 Pompilia, who disobeyed the advice of his clerical subor- 
 dinates, and of Caponsacchi, who had acted the gallant 
 rather than the priest; and that he should condemn Guido 
 himself, an ecclesiastic who had appealed to his sacred 
 tribunal, was scarcely to have been expected. But he, too, 
 is represented as holding by the dictates of his inner hu- 
 manity, as superior not only to tradition, but the Bible. 
 
 It is here that Browning's new theology becomes apparent 
 enough. The Pope thinks he finds that in deciding this case 
 he has to walk not only without the guidance, but against 
 the deliverances of the Divine Record; and our bard, dressing 
 him up in the garb of the rationalist, describes him as 
 rejecting the written revelation and following the higher 
 standard. 
 
 What if thyself adventure ? Leave pavement, and mount roof, 
 Look round thee for the light of the upper sky, 
 The fire which lit thy fire which finds default 
 In Guido Franceschini to his cost. 
 
ROBERT BRO WNING. 9 1 
 
 What if above in the domain of light, 
 
 Thou miss the accustomed signs, remark eclipse ? 
 
 Shalt thou still gaze on ground, nor lift a lid 
 
 Steady in thy superb prerogative, 
 
 Thy inch of inkling, nor once face the doubt, 
 
 I' the sphere above thee, darkness to be felt. 
 
 Yet my poor spark had for its source the sun, 
 Thither I send the great looks which compel 
 Light from its fount. 
 
 As I know, 
 I speak ; — what should I know, then, and how speak, 
 Were there a wild mistake of eye or brain 
 In the recorded governance above ? 
 If my own breath, only, blow coal alight, 
 I called celestial, and the morning star, 
 
 Shall I lack courage ? 
 
 There is besides the works, a Tale of thee 
 
 In the world's mouth, which I find credible, 
 
 I love it with my heart ; unsatisfied, 
 
 I try it with my reason, nor discept 
 
 From any point I probe, and pronounce sound. 
 
 Indeed, if man's own mind be what he proceeds to de- 
 cribe, " a convex mirror, wherein are gathered all the 
 scattered points picked out of the immensity of the sky, to 
 reunite there," he could not be very far wrong in holding it 
 to be the place of final appeal. Man, in short, he describes 
 as representing God on earth. 
 
 This is the theology current with our rationalistic poets 
 and moralists of the day. While they hold on the one hand 
 that there is humanity in the Godhead (that God is " human 
 at the red-ripe of the heart "), they hold on the other hand 
 that there is what ' may be called the Godhead in humanity ; 
 they find, in other words, that the sentiments and mind of 
 the Godhead are sufficiently represented in man's own heart. 
 This two-sided theory of theirs is amazingly convenient. 
 
52 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 By their doctrine of the humanity in the Godhead, they 
 hope to convince us that there is nothing like penal wrath 
 with God — nothing of that inflexible justice which requires 
 an atonement for our sins — nothing of those mysterious and 
 unhumanly sentiments which evangelical divines have as- 
 cribed to Him. When, in answer to this, we refer them to 
 the Bible as affirming these tenets, they bring forward their 
 other doctrine of the Godhead in humanity, that man's own 
 heart or mind is the highest declaration of God. As for the 
 • Bible, it is a "Tale in the world's mouth," which they con- 
 descend to believe to be credible, but which they receive only 
 so far as their own reason pronounces it to be sound. As to 
 the human mind, it is a " convex mirror," &c. 
 
 To- such a pitch does Robert Browning carry his faith in 
 the findings of nature, that he bases his acceptance of 
 Christianity altogether upon its ascertained harmony with 
 these findings. He grants that Christianity was at first 
 attested by miracles and apostolic testimony, but he main- 
 tains that these have no place as proofs of the truth of 
 Christianity to us now. We shall proceed to substantiate 
 this charge against him, that it may be seen what kind of 
 theology it is which is being now propagated throughout the 
 land by our illustrious poets. 
 
 His peculiar sentiments upon this point are brought out 
 fully in his poem entitled " A Death in the Desert." In this 
 poem, John the Evangelist is supposed to be dying in a 
 cave, with Pamphylax the Antiochene, Xanthus, &c, as his 
 attendants. He describes in his last words to his disciples 
 how, in the first instance, he produced converts by historic 
 testimony, witnessing what he saw and heard of Christ both 
 by word and writing, also by miracles. But suddenly begin- 
 ning, under Robert Browning's management, to speak as a 
 rationalist, he intimates a time coming when this process of 
 making converts would become obsolete, for men would 
 say, " Was John at all ? Assure us of this, ere we ask 
 what he might see." 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 93 
 
 I cried once, " That ye may believe in Christ, 
 
 Behold the blind man shall receive his sight." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Urgest thou, for I am shrewd, 
 And smile at stories how John's word would cure — 
 Repeat the miracle, and take my faith ? 
 
 The dying Evangelist (that is, Browning's rational- 
 ist) goes on to canvass the question how then Chris- 
 tianity would obtain credence in the latter days, since 
 neither miracles nor apostolic testimony would be available 
 as proofs ? The answer is found in this, that we moderns 
 in the progress of the human mind have become able to 
 know that God is love, love infinite as well as power 
 infinite, and therefore there is no difficulty in apprehending 
 Christ, whom the gospel reveals, to be the true Son and 
 manifestation of God. All life — the whole world as it lies 
 patent to our observation — is full of examples of love or 
 goodness exposed to suffering, crucified in short (witness 
 Pompilia and Caponsacchi), and rising out from the conflict 
 by a species of resurrection, triumphant ? What is this but 
 Christ's life and resurrection illustrated ? As we grow more 
 acquainted with it therefore (which is the case as society 
 advances), we are no more as the little children of the 
 Primitive Church, who needed miracles and historic testi- 
 mony to prove to them that Christ was the Son of God, but 
 are able to apprehend the truth of Christianity without 
 anything of this kind. 
 
 John himself, that is, Robert Browning's John, gives us 
 the following account of his extraordinary experiences as he 
 grew older, and, we must suppose, wiser : — 
 
 To me that story, ay, that life and death 
 Of which I wrote " it was '' — to me, it is — 
 Is here and now : I apprehend nought else. 
 Is not his love at issue still with sin, 
 Closed with and cast and conquered, crucified, 
 Visibly, when a wrong is done on earth ? 
 Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around ? 
 Yea, and the resurrection and uprise 
 
94 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 To the right hand of the throne — what is it beside, 
 When such truth, breaking bounds, o'erflows my soul, 
 And, as I saw the sin and death, even so, 
 See I the need yet transiency of both, 
 The good and glory consummated thence. 
 
 He tells Pamphylax and Xanthus, however, that they 
 cannot yet prove the truth of Christianity in this advanced 
 way, but must be content to receive it upon the baby ground 
 of miracles and historic testimony. 
 
 But ye, the children, his beloved ones too, 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Ye needs must apprehend what truth 
 I see, reduced to plain historic fact ; 
 Then stand before that fact, that life and death, 
 Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread, 
 As though a star should open out on all sides, 
 And grow the world on you, as it is my world. 
 
 That is, the time would come when, living longer, they 
 would come to see, as he had done, Christ to be only what 
 is more widely illustrated in the way already mentioned 
 throughout all the world we live in, which is just a broader 
 display of Christ in His death and resurrection. 
 
 The reader may thus learn somewhat more of Robert 
 Browning's theology. 
 
 It consists of three positions. 
 
 i. He grants the truth of the miracles that were wrought 
 to attest Christianity, and of the apostolic testimony that 
 was borne to it. His judgment is that these were essentially 
 necessary in the first century. 
 
 2. He maintains that a miracle is only a proof when 
 actually wrought before one's eye, so that the miracles 
 cannot be a proof of the truth of Christianity to us now. 
 Neither can historic testimony prove Christianity, for "we 
 are shrewd, and ask, ' Was John at all ? ' " 
 
 3. He holds that we can now establish the truths of 
 Christianity without either miracles or historic testimony. 
 In the progress of the world's history we have had ampler 
 
ROBER T BRO WNING. 95 
 
 opportunity of discovering that the God who governs it is 
 love, at issue with sin, suffering opposition from it, and 
 triumphing eventually, over it. The consequence is that the 
 story of the cross is intuitively recognised by us to be true, 
 because it tallies with our findings in the world around us. 
 The manifestation which the gospel makes to us of God 
 tallies with the manifestation of Him which we have in the 
 world around us, and must therefore be true. 
 
 We shall proceed to consider these positions. 
 
 We are glad to find that our poet grants the truth of the 
 miracles and historic testimony in favour of Christianity. 
 But one would wish to know how, consistently with his second 
 position, he arrived at this conclusion. He there maintains 
 that in the nineteenth century miracles can never be accepted 
 as true, since a miracle to be satisfactory must be actually 
 wrought before our eye ; also he denies that we can ascertain 
 the truth of the historic testimony alleged in behalf of 
 Christianity, or even know whether such men as the apostles 
 ever existed. How then did Mr. Browning, who happens to 
 live in the nineteenth century, find out that miracles were 
 really wrought at the beginning of the Christian era ? and 
 that sufficient historic testimony was afforded to men then of 
 the truth of the gospel ? His two first positions upon the 
 face of them are not consistent. He may hold either the 
 one or the other of them, but it is impossible that he should 
 hold them both. If he holds that Christianity was attested 
 at the beginning by miracles from heaven and by apostolic 
 testimony, and even enlarges, as he does in many parts of 
 his poem, upon the necessity there was for this, then of 
 course he overthrows his second position, which is that we 
 now-a-days cannot tell whether the miracles were true or 
 the historic testimony good. In order to escape the horns 
 of this dilemma, it will not do for him to say that he first 
 establishes the claims of Christianity to reception in the 
 rationalistic way he proposes, and then reaches the belief 
 that the miracles alleged in its favour were actually wrought, 
 
96 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE* 
 
 and that the historic testimony alleged for it was good and 
 sufficient. For, supposing him for a moment to have proved 
 the truth of Christianity in the way he mentions, this would 
 be so far from leading us to believe that miracles were ever 
 wrought at first in support of it, that it would lead us to 
 believe the very reverse. The very fact of our having 
 reached the proof of the truth of Christianity without 
 needing signs or wonders to assist us, would lead us rather 
 to infer that so might others who went before us. Mr. 
 Browning foresaw well enough the pressure of this difficulty 
 in his argument, and tries to make out the point that, 
 though we in these days can prove the truth of Christianity 
 by the rationalistic method, or simply by observational 
 knowledge of the world around us, the men of the first 
 century could not, and needed miracles and historic testi- 
 mony. According to him, we have the advantage of them 
 here. 
 
 How — in what sense ? 
 
 Whether a change were wrought i' the shows of the world, 
 
 Whether the change came from our minds, which see 
 
 Of the shows of the world so much as, and no more, 
 
 Than God wills for His purpose. I know not, 
 
 Such was the effect. 
 
 So faith grew, making void more miracles, 
 
 Because too much : they would compel, not help ; 
 
 I say the acknowledgment of God in Christ, 
 
 Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
 
 All questions in the earth and out of it, 
 
 And has so far advanced thee to be wise. 
 
 Here two reasons are given why a revelation professing to 
 come from heaven can be proved true or false by us now, 
 though it could not by men formerly, without miracles 
 needed, and simply by our judgment accepting Christ as being 
 the true manifestation of God. The first is that in these 
 latter days "a change has been wrought in the shows of 
 the world," that is, in the phenomena it presents to our 
 view. What does he allude to ? He cannot logically refer 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 97 
 
 to any change Christianity has itself impressed upon the 
 world, proving its truth by its fruits ; for to adopt this line 
 of argument were to depart from his famous position, which 
 is to prove Christianity not from the supernatural effects 
 wrought by it or by anything supernatural at all, but by 
 reason. Besides, as any extraordinary effects produced by 
 Christianity in the world have been produced hitherto by 
 those who have held by the whole of the Scriptures, such 
 a line of argument would prove too much for our friend, 
 who " discepts " from a large part of the doctrines contained 
 in our Bible, which have produced these fruits. But indeed 
 every reader of Browning knows that he undertakes to prove 
 the truth of Christianity solely and entirely by the mani- 
 festations of God's being love, which we find so abundantly 
 in the world around us, and which are enough to convince 
 us that the manifestation of God which we have in Christ 
 is true. What new, and peculiar, and changed " shows of 
 the world " they are which he refers to, as now seen by 
 us moderns, affording more satisfactory manifestations of 
 the truth that God is love, who can say, and the likelihood 
 is Mr. Browning could not tell. He only ventures to speak 
 of them in the way of conjecture. The second advantage 
 which we moderns may possess in ascertaining the truth of 
 Christianity, is, according to him, that a change has been 
 wrought in our minds, which see the phenomena of the 
 world around us better than our predecessors did ; for, he 
 adds, " men see so much of the shows of the world and 
 no more than God wills for His purpose." In short, he con- 
 jectures that God in these latter days may have willed to 
 give us a faculty of more clearly discerning the phenomena 
 of the world around us. This of course is a supernatural 
 faculty. We are glad to see a rationalist granting the super- 
 natural at all in these days. One would say that, if it 
 comes to the supernatural being necessary, the best way 
 would have been for God "to have willed that we should 
 see'' the truth of Christianity at once and directly ; but Mr. 
 
oS THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Browning prefers the roundabout way, that God should first 
 " will us to see more of the shows of the world around us," 
 and then by means of this supernatural illumination as to 
 the phenomena around us, enable us to prove the truth of 
 Christianity without anything supernatural being required. 
 
 It must ever remain a secret, then, how Mr. Browning, 
 holding as he did his second position, should have come 
 to believe in his first. And we now go on to observe that it 
 is difficult to see how, holding the first, he should have 
 adopted his second. If the miracles wrought by Christ and 
 His apostles were sufficient to establish the truth of Chris- 
 tianity at first, why not to establish the truth of it to us ? 
 If the historic testimony in favour of Christianity was con- 
 clusive for the men to whom it was first proposed, why not 
 with us ? Does he really attach any force to the idea that a 
 miracle, in order to its being satisfactory, must be wrought 
 before our eyes ? Is he not aware that, were miracles re- 
 peated to every generation, they would cease to be miracles, 
 and no longer serve the purpose for which they were in- 
 tended ? The time for doctrines to be established as doctrines 
 from heaven is surely when they are first promulgated ; and 
 if supernatural fire burned up to heaven from Mount Sinai, 
 for example, when the Law was given to the Jews, was it 
 not enough that a whole nation who witnessed the spectacle 
 should hand down the record of it, or must the mountain be 
 kept blazing down throughout the ages, becoming nothing 
 more than another Vesuvius ? Does Robert Browning 
 think that no amount of historic testimony to the truth of 
 the facts and miracles of Christianity, handed down to us, 
 could be satisfactory proof to the end of the world of their 
 having taken place ? Even David Hume took up no position 
 so preposterous as this. He maintained that no amount of 
 testimony could prove a miracle, and this because we must 
 rather disbelieve any amount of human testimony than credit 
 such an extraordinary event. But Robert Browning grants 
 the miracle. He believes that all the signs and wonders 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 99 
 
 took place at the commencement of Christianity ; he swallows 
 the miracle without difficulty, but he cannot see how any 
 amount of testimony should satisfactorily hand it down when 
 it has taken place ! Hume considered no amount of testi- 
 mony sufficient to prove that a miracle could take place ; 
 Browning considers no amount of testimony sufficient satis- 
 factorily to hand down the record of a miracle which has 
 really taken place. The former position has some show of 
 reason in it, the latter is preposterous. If he once grant, as 
 he does, that miracles took place at the beginning of the 
 Christian era, common sense dictates that the very stupen- 
 dousness of such events must have created a sensation pro- 
 ducing such a body of evidence and such an abundant record 
 as would constitute a foundation for the belief of all future 
 ages. The same remarks apply to the historic evidence in 
 favour of Christianity. In his second position he maintains 
 that it must go for nothing as a proof with us now, and ac- 
 cordingly considers himself forced to have recourse to his 
 novel rationalistic mode of proof. Is it his opinion that 
 nothing which happened 1S00 years ago can be proved to us 
 by historic evidence ? Or is it his opinion that when a 
 miracle has taken place it is impossible to record it ? and, 
 again, that if a man be an apostle, it is impossible ever to 
 establish by historic evidence that he had an existence? He 
 ought to know by this time of day that the historic evidence 
 we have for the miracles and facts of Christianity is a 
 hundredfold stronger than we have for the truth of anything 
 else. But what may well amaze us in Mr. Browning is, nol 
 so much his rejecting what is sufficient and satisfactory, as 
 the shallowness of the credulity with which he accepts the 
 insufficient and unsatisfactory. We saw already that he de- 
 murred to words as a sufficient vehicle of thought, preferring 
 fiction upon the whole ; and now he demurs to receiving 
 historic testimony as a proof of Christianity, and must provs 
 it by his famous third position, which is a curiosity in its 
 way. Let us proceed to consider it. 
 
ioo THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 He thinks then, that, at this advanced stage of time, 
 by observing the phenomena and events of the world around 
 us, we can obtain such discoveries of God being love, and of 
 His love being at issue with sin and suffering, and finally 
 triumphing over them, as enable us (without any miracles or 
 historic testimony being needed) to recognise the God of the 
 gospel to be none other than the God working all round us, 
 and thus to prove the truth of Christianity. 
 
 Now, at the very outset, we defy Mr. Browning to prove 
 the historic truth of Christianity, or of any such person 
 as the Lord Jesus Christ having actually appeared in our 
 world, by these mere analogical findings of his in the world 
 around us. 
 
 Let it be remembered that in his second position he has 
 
 scouted the idea of the facts of Christianity being proved by 
 
 historic testimony at this distant date ; and he is, therefore, 
 
 bound to establish them by this new analogical argument of 
 
 his. It will not do for him merely to show that the Christ of 
 
 the Gospels is just such a manifestation of God's love as 
 
 tallies with what the world's phenomena exhibit. May not 
 
 Christ have been a mere fiction or portraiture of some devout 
 
 imagination ? May not some speculative writers, availing 
 
 themselves of those very findings regarding God in the 
 
 natural world which Mr. Browning speaks of, have drawn 
 
 this Christ from the fancy ? Mr. Browning himself has felt 
 
 this weak point in his argument, and the indignation with 
 
 which he speaks of any man who would be sceptic enough 
 
 to make the supposition we have now made, shows how 
 
 much he feels the force of it. He maintains that this is 
 
 nothing less than the unpardonable sin — the sin that is unto 
 
 death. 
 
 When, beholding that love everywhere, 
 
 He reasons, " Since such love is everywhere, 
 
 And since ourselves make the love, and would be loved, 
 
 Y/e ourselves make the love, and Christ was not," 
 
 How shall ye help this man who knows himself 
 
 That he must love, and would be loved again, 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 Yet owning his own love that proveth Christ, 
 Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him ? 
 The lamp o'erswims with oil — that man dies ! " 
 
 Good; but it is impossible, nevertheless, for our author to 
 meet or rebut the supposition which we have already stated, 
 and which he so much reprobates. It is vain for him to 
 think that he has proved the historical existence of Christ by 
 merely finding that the Christ described in the Gospels 
 answers to certain manifestations of God he thinks he finds 
 in the world around him. There is no way of proving the 
 historical existence of any one except by historic testimony. 
 If you have first proved, by sufficient historical testimony, 
 that Christ appeared in our earth and did the things we read 
 of, it may be competent enough, perhaps, as a side confir- 
 mation of our faith, to show that the manifestation of God, 
 made by and in Him, tallies with that which we have of God 
 in the world around us ; but when Mr. Browning would en- 
 deavour to prove a historical Christ exclusively from these 
 analogical findings, he makes an attempt both hopeless and 
 absurd. He is led to make the attempt from a desire to 
 humour the infidelity of the age, which will not submit to the 
 ordinary probations of Christianity. But God frowns upon 
 all this, and he must just be humble enough to accept the 
 testimony of the Almighty. 
 
 What is the argument of Mr. Browning, we ask again ? It 
 is of this sort, if we understand it. He finds in the Gospel 
 story that God is said to have sent His Son into the world 
 in our nature, that He wrought works of beneficence and 
 mercy, that He combated with sin, suffered, died, and rose 
 again. His position is — I have no need of the truth of all 
 this being proved to me by historic testimony or miracles. 
 To me it bears intuitive evidence of being true ; or, rather, is 
 proved true by my observations of the world on every side of 
 me, which is full of evidences that God is love, and that He 
 is at issue with sin in the very way this Gospel represents 
 Him. Now to this it is enough to reply that such a line of 
 
102 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 argument can never prove that the things represented in 
 the Gospel actually took place. Just to give an illustration 
 in point. We shall say that the fact to be proved is that A 
 came forward in behalf of a man who was beset by some 
 twenty or thirty assailants at once, and saved his life at the 
 risk of his own. The fact is called in question. Some 
 propose to produce the testimony of eye-witnesses. But 
 here comes forward one who says, " There is no necessity for 
 testimony on the matter; I can prove the fact without tes- 
 timony of any description, and this from having had reason 
 to know so much of A otherwise- — his muscular strength, and 
 generosity of character, always at issue with wrong wherever 
 it exists, so that this is the very thing he would have done." 
 What would be said to this wiseacre ? Would he not be 
 told that what was wanted was not to know whether A 
 would have done it, but whether he did it ? 
 
 Thus Mr. Browning can never by this new and boasted 
 test of his prove the historical truth of Christianity. 
 
 Besides, the Christianity which he professes to be able to 
 prove true, is not that Christianity which we profess in 
 evangelical Christendom, and which is contained in our 
 Scriptures. 
 
 He starts by finding " a tale of Christ in the world's 
 mouth," that is, by finding Christianity professed in the 
 world, and proceeds to prove whether it be true or not by 
 his test. But the question is, what is " this tale of Christ in 
 the world's mouth," this professed Christianity, which he is 
 about to proceed to test ? Is it that which is contained in 
 our Scriptures, received in their entirety ? Is it the story 
 that proclaims Jesus Christ sent to be a redemption for us 
 from the eternal wrath to come by being made a curse for 
 us ? Not so. He goes to the Scriptures indeed, but (as he 
 has told us already) he claims a right to " discept " from 
 what his reason disapproves in them. In other words he 
 concocts out of the Scriptures his own scheme of Chris- 
 tianity, which is that the Son of God was sent into the 
 
ROBER T BRO WNJNG. 103 
 
 world simply to discover to us the humanity that is essen- 
 tially in the Godhead — that God is " human at the red-ripe 
 of the heart " — and that all such unhuman sentiments as 
 judicial wrath, inflexible justice, and vindicating of the 
 broken law by satisfaction or atonement rendered for sin, are 
 quite alien from him. And then he proceeds to put this 
 Christianity of his own to the test of his third position. 
 No wonder that he seems to find the truth of it in what he 
 observes of God by his own reason in the world around him, 
 for the Christianity he is testing has first been moulded by 
 his own reason, guided by these very observations. He first 
 starts by accepting nothing as Christianity but what tallies 
 with his own rationalistic observation of things in the world, 
 and then exclaims in triumph that he needs no miracles nor 
 historic testimony to prove the truth of Christianity, seeing 
 that it tallies perfectly with his observation of things in the 
 world ! We dare swear it does. 
 
 It thus turns out that Mr. Browning takes his own find- 
 ings in the department of natural religion — what he has 
 observed of God from reason exercised upon the phenomena 
 without — as the standard by which to judge whether any 
 revelation professing to come from God is to be received, or 
 how much of it is to be received. 
 
 How unsafe and absurd a method is this ! 
 
 Limited in our faculties at best, most of all unable to judge 
 of God, His perfections and administration, and blinded by 
 sin, what trust is to be placed in our findings regarding Him 
 from a survey of the world we live in ? We see what these 
 findings have amounted to in any land where the Bible has 
 not come. They are grossly erroneous, and if the various 
 lands, our own among the rest, when Christianity was first 
 subjected to their faith, had proceeded to adopt cur senti- 
 mental friend's rule, and rejected whatever was contrary to 
 their own findings and conclusions drawn from the world 
 around them, they would all have been idolaters to this day. 
 It would be a very extraordinary thing if human reason, after 
 
104 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 having made such a blundering commencement, and having 
 been thus found to be indebted to the Bible for its deliver- 
 ance from the most hideous mistakes, should presume to set 
 up its judgment above the Bible in other and far higher and 
 profounder points. If it erred in its findings even with 
 regard to the nature of God altogether, His unity, His 
 majesty, His immateriality (the Bible requiring to set it 
 right there), can there be an absurder arrogation than that it 
 should set itself up in opposition to the teachings of the same 
 Book upon the very highest points of the Divine administra- 
 tion ? Of course Mr. Browning would protest against the 
 idea of opposing his conclusions to the deliverances of what 
 was proved to be a Divine revelation, and will remind us 
 that the very question to be settled at present is — what is to 
 be considered as proved really to be a Divine revelation. 
 Exactly ; but if he make his- reason the test of what is to 
 be received as a Divine revelation — refusing to receive that 
 as a Divine revelation which his own reason " discepts " 
 from, or denying certain parts of our Bible, for example, 
 simply because his own reason discepts — then he has set up 
 his reason as higher than God Himself. 
 
 He probably thinks that he cannot be wrong in going to 
 God's own world in order to find what God is, and that he 
 can thus ascertain what is to be received or rejected in the 
 revelation contained in our Scriptures. Now, no doubt the 
 scheme of redemption, which he would thus proceed to sit in 
 judgment upon, proceeds from the same God whose works 
 are before our eyes ; but the work of redemption must, of 
 course, be entirely different in its nature from God's other 
 works. Let us suppose that Mr. Browning has, by a series 
 of the most profound investigations, discovered what is that 
 manifestation of God which the world round us makes. This 
 will not necessarily enable him to pronounce judgment upon 
 another manifestation which God has made of Himself to 
 man now that he is a sinner ; nor will the manifestation 
 God has made of Himself to fallen men in His common 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 105 
 
 providence (which is a mere dispensation of forbearance and 
 preparation) enable him to sit in judgment upon a revelation 
 which sets forth God's final dealings with fallen men. In 
 the world around us wehave a display of His infinite power, but 
 we have not a display of the infinity of His justice, because 
 His justice has not yet received its full manifestation. What 
 if, in the scheme of redemption set forth in the Scriptures we 
 find that it, like all God's other perfections, is infinite, and 
 demands that an awful satisfaction should be forthcoming to 
 the violated law in the extension of mercy — are we to reject 
 the Scriptures which declare this because we find nothing like 
 this manifestation of God in the world around us? These re- 
 marks may show that Mr. Browning has vastly over-estimated 
 not only the capacity of human reason, but the materials for 
 forming a judgment which the theatre of this world presents. 
 Last of all, when we come to examine what are the 
 findings and conclusions he has reached with regard to the 
 display God has made of Himself in the world before our 
 eyes, they turn out to be most superficial and shallow. He 
 seems to have found nothing, in fact, but that God is love. 
 This is much too simple a finding upon the face of it to be 
 true. The world is full also of very awful proofs of God's 
 wrath against sin. Take the universal prevalence of death — 
 its prevalence even over such as Pompilia, who, although she 
 had never fallen by the hands of Guido, must have been sub- 
 jected to this awful visitation in which God setteth our secret 
 sins in the light of His countenance. When we think that 
 the whole human family in its successive generations has 
 been swept into the tomb, this is surely a finding that should 
 lead us to say, "Who knoweth the power of thine anger?" 
 Had Mr. Browning, instead of following his one-sided and 
 shallow philosophy, kept this finding in view, he would 
 have applied his test somewhat differently. If, again, per- 
 ceiving from his observation of this world's phenomena that 
 all God's other perfections which met his eye were infinite, 
 he had come to the analogical finding that God's justice also 
 
106 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 must be infinite, he might have been so far on his way 
 to qualify him for judging of the revelation he was about to 
 test. Bearing as this revelation must needs do upon the 
 mode in which the Judge of the universe has proposed to 
 save and redeem sinners, plainly one attribute of God con- 
 cerned there was His justice ; and had he been led by the 
 analogy already referred to to conclude that the mode of 
 procedure would be consistent with infinite justice, and 
 therefore abundantly formidable, he would have been nearer 
 the mark in this presumptuous and hazardous line of testing 
 Divine revelation. But it is a remarkable fact that while our 
 sentimental theologians and rationalists are always talking 
 of infinite power, and infinite love, and infinite wisdom, they 
 never breathe a syllable of infinite justice, in the sense of 
 God's determination not to clear the guilty but vindicate 
 His broken law being inflexible; nor do they once speak of 
 His infinite holiness, in the sense of His detestation of sin 
 being such as to lead Him to visit it with marks of His 
 indignation inconceivable by us. By these remarks we must 
 not be understood to blame Mr. Browning for his erroneous 
 findings from the works of God. The truth is that it is a 
 matter too high either for him or any other to think to test 
 Christianity by findings from that quarter. If the argument 
 had been one affecting the administrations of a creature like 
 ourselves, the case would have been different; but to endea- 
 vour to judge beforehand as to what will be or ought to be 
 the administrations of God, or even to endeavour from one 
 of His administrations given us to judge what may or ought 
 to be His administration in another department, is too high 
 a thing for us. " Who can by searching find out God ? " 
 
 We have thus terminated our examination of Mr. 
 Browning's theology. One object we have had in view is 
 to convince those of our readers who are themselves of 
 evangelical sentiments that it is most dangerous, and wholly 
 subversive of the Scriptures. There is so much of the 
 insidious in it, that they are apt to be carried away by the 
 
ROBER T BRO WNING. 1 07 
 
 charitable belief that after all there is nothing essentially 
 bad in it, and no need to sound the trumpet of alarm against 
 this theology which is now poured forth in the land, in prose 
 and verse, by laymen and clergymen. 
 
 First, when he talks of proving the truth of Christianity 
 exclusively by the grand manifestation it makes of God's 
 being love, they smile at this as being no more than an 
 exaggerated importance attached to one of the internal 
 evidences of the truth of the gospel — such an amiable 
 exaggeration, in short, as may be forgiven a poet. But have 
 they understood what Mr. Browning means by the mani- 
 festation which the gospel makes of God's being love ? He 
 does not refer at all to the manifestation He made of it in 
 sending His only begotten Son to be an atonement for our 
 sins, and deliver us from eternal wrath by being made a 
 curse for us. He understands the reverse. He refers to the 
 discovery which the gospel has made to us of God's being 
 only love, with no such thing in Him as a judicial wrath 
 which requires propitiation. His scheme, as we have shown 
 and demonstrated, is that God's Son was sent into the world 
 solely to discover to us what we are ignorant of, and our 
 ignorance of which leads us to speak of atonement or satis- 
 faction for sin ; that God is love — that He is " human at the 
 red-ripe of the heart "■ — -having no such unhumanly senti- 
 ments as we Evangelicals or Calvinists have supposed. The 
 Son of God was made flesh, and became one like unto 
 ourselves, simply to discover to us this humanity which 
 from the beginning and essentially was in the Godhead. 
 Accordingly, while we are accustomed to speak of "God 
 in the flesh," this school speak of " the flesh in God." 
 For their theology is that the Son of God was made flesh 
 to discover to us this flesh or humanity which was in the 
 Godhead — in other words, to discover to us that God is one 
 like unto ourselves in His sentiments and judgments of 
 things. This is one of the Antichrists abroad in the land, 
 and Mr. Browning is its poetical apostle. 
 
108 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Secondly, when he maintains that Christianity cannot be 
 proved to us now by miracles or historic testimony, our 
 evangelical friends grant that this is outrageous enough, but 
 remind us that after all he considers Christianity may be 
 proved true in another way of his own ; and, if it be proved 
 at all, what great matter is it ? Besides, they say, is it not 
 well that he grants Christianity to have been proved true at 
 the first by miracles and apostolic testimony ? But do they 
 understand what Christianity it is which Mr. Browning 
 grants to be proved true ? It is not that which is contained 
 in our Scriptures. We have shown that he first claims the 
 right to cut out from the Scriptures what his own reason 
 discepts from, the result of which is to leave that peculiar 
 Christianity of his own, already described, and it is this he 
 professes to establish. But, indeed, though all this had not 
 been true, is it any apology for his attempting to throw down 
 the main pillars of the Christian evidences, miracles and 
 historic testimony, that he should profess to mount to a 
 conclusion in favour of the truth of Christianity by a few 
 rotten planks of his own ? 
 
 We believe Mr. Browning to be one of our most illustrious 
 poets, and one of our shallowest theologians. His qualifi- 
 cations as a poet are undeniable. He excels in passionate 
 dialogue. In grim humour, in a certain hyena laugh of 
 withering scorn, he has no rival; his imagery is original, 
 sometimes terrible ; but no sooner does he begin to sing his 
 rationalistic sermons, than he is weak beyond belief. 
 
 When he enters upon the regions of theology he loses 
 himself immediately, as might be expected of one who has 
 abandoned the absolute guidance of God's Word. He be- 
 comes confused and feeble, as always happens with those 
 who have assumed a calling that does not belong to them. 
 But, besides this, he leads us to wonder at what university 
 he has learned the science of logic. He has written his 
 poems, as he tells us, with the intention of " saving the 
 soul." But if we have carried the convictions of our readers 
 
ROBERT BROWNING. 109 
 
 along with us, they will be of the opinion that he has taken 
 the most effectual way of defeating his purpose by withdraw- 
 ing it from the blessed rock of revealed truth to the quick- 
 sands of speculation. One thing we have reason to be 
 thankful for. Such is the obscurity of his style,* that we 
 do not believe half of his admirers have understood the 
 errors he vends. There are some men, such as David 
 Hume, who have unfortunately made even their Atheism 
 attractive by an admirable perspicuity. Fortunately Mr. 
 Browning has made his Christianity unpopular by a compo- 
 sition which needs hard study to be intelligible. 
 
III. 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 IN a previous essay we have touched upon the new religion 
 current amongst us, characterised by the earnestness of 
 scepticism, and resulting in the adoption of a Christianity 
 not very much better than natural religion. Without inquir- 
 ing at present into its mischievous effects, it must be granted 
 that it has proved in one sense a godsend to the poets of 
 this generation. Anything that begets earnestness is of' the 
 nature of a stock-in-trade to poets. The help in this way 
 was the more seasonable, as other generators of steam had 
 been used up. Several poets in the beginning of the century 
 had exemplified all that can be done in creating poetry out of 
 the passions of the human heart, idolatrously going forth 
 with the imagination upon nature and the world. The due 
 demand had been made upon the chivalry of the middle ages. 
 The classical mythology and model had been made amply 
 available. But the new turn of religious thought has en- 
 gendered an earnestness of quite a novel description. Our 
 men of imagination, having lifted the landmarks of revela- 
 tion, and refused to accept the dogmas of the Bible, find 
 themselves in contact with the mysteries of the universe, 
 and burdened with the high and sacred mission of solving 
 the riddle of life which of course perplexes them on every 
 side. Samuel Johnson doubted whether the holy themes of 
 religion were suitable for poetry. He considered that there 
 was a restraint laid upon the imagination by the very sacred- 
 ness of the subjects. But of course the great lexicographer, 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. in 
 
 whose own character was marked by an incorruptible in- 
 tegrity, took for granted that the poet would start with a firm 
 belief in the dogmas of revelation, and a firm determination 
 to be circumscribed by them. This was a very groundless 
 supposition as regards our new school of poets. Religion 
 has become with them a region of clouds, and sublime 
 mystery, and interesting uncertainty. His remark might 
 apply to such as Cowper, who strung his harp to the acknow- 
 ledged verities of the gospel ; but our foolhardy bards who 
 " ring in the Christ that is to come," are animated with 
 the fervour of new apostles, bring with them the burden of 
 another revelation which they have found within them- 
 selves, and are inspired by the agonies of an intense scep- 
 ticism. 
 
 The remarks now made apply to Robert Browning and to 
 Tennyson, though in a somewhat different degree. The 
 former being a man of more robust understanding, comes for- 
 ward to advocate the new Christianity with all the ardour of 
 a poetical polemic. He casts his coat, and fights for it in 
 good earnest. The latter, though his whole works are per- 
 vaded by its spirit, only occasionally introduces it in a direct 
 form. He has said of himself: — 
 
 And my Melpomene replies, 
 
 A touch of shame upon her cheek, 
 " I am not worthy even to speak 
 
 Of thy prevailing mysteries ; 
 
 For I am but an earthly muse, 
 And owning but a little art, 
 To lull with song an aching heart, 
 
 And render human love his dues." 
 
 Still it cannot be denied that his poems are written under 
 the afflatus of the new religion, 'and that much of the 
 charm they have for the present generation lies in the sin- 
 gular mixture they present of love and sentimentality on the 
 one hand, with mystic philosophisings upon life and man's 
 eternal destiny. 
 
H2 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 He murmurs, as he comes along, 
 
 Of comfort clasped in truth revealed, 
 
 And loiters in the master's field, 
 And darkens sanctities with song. 
 
 We might refer to another circumstance which has given an 
 advantage to our modern poets, and this, not like the former, 
 an illegitimate one. The great discoveries made in science 
 have given a stimulus to the public mind, and could not fail 
 to impart it to our poets. It was almost impossible that in 
 such an age of intellectual excitement they could surrender 
 themselves to any tame type of excellence. Indeed it is 
 wonderful that, in one department of science at least, they 
 have not found an available and altogether new theme. I 
 refer to geology. Subjects for the muse having been ex- 
 hausted in this hackneyed world of ours, why have they not 
 taken flight to the pre-Adamic ? The awful and sublime 
 part of the earth's history for the first time revealed to our 
 view, might be thought to have been an inviting region. 
 There may be something ominously prosaic in the old red, 
 the carboniferous, and the oolitic ; but when we convey 
 ourselves in imagination to this primeval, and unhistorical, 
 and even preternatural world, as it stood in solitary 
 grandeur, a spectacle to angels and not to man, its strange 
 vegetations, and its unrestrained wars of bestial dynas- 
 ties, there is surely scope for a Shiggi^noth strain. The 
 absence of man and of human associations might seem 
 to make it a subject unfit for poetic treatment, and it is this 
 which has probably deterred any from adopting it. Indeed 
 the author of such a poem would land himself in a miser- 
 able failure, should he content himself with transferring 
 to verse the mere botany or zoology of the periods. He 
 would need to clothe the whole with some spiritual interest of 
 his own creation. The magnificently wild visions of Hia- 
 watha have shown that no difficulty is too great for genius to 
 overcome, and its author is perhaps the only man living 
 who was able to be the poet of these creation cycles. Crav- 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 113 
 
 ing pardon of the reader for this passing suggestion, it will 
 be granted, at any rate, that the scientific discoveries of our 
 age have been favourable to the development of the. imagi- 
 nation. Our increased acquaintance, too, with the literature 
 of Germany, while it has done an essential damage to the 
 theology of our poets, has been of advantage in other respects. 
 The English mind is apt to go in tracks. We want plas- 
 ticity and boldness of originality. In the department of 
 theology, where God Himself has made the track, following 
 is all that is necessary. It is impossible to improve upon 
 Deity. What can the man do who cometh after the King ? 
 Religion being a matter of eternal importance, where to err 
 is to perish, Infinite Wisdom has itself marked out the line. 
 But we have an absurd tendency in England to walk in 
 beaten places, where no responsibility lies upon us. Con- 
 versance with Germany has thrown us loose from some self- 
 imposed restraints. Again, it cannot be denied that so far 
 as mere style of language or composition is concerned, our 
 modern poets start with a great advantage. Owing to 
 various causes, our language has come to partake of a rich- 
 ness and variety and freedom formerly unknown. The full 
 powers of it seem only now to have been discovered. In 
 times like these, when every editor and even sub-editor of a 
 Daily wields a style of no common brilliancy, and there is 
 scarcely a private circle in society without its writer of 
 creditable verses, it may be expected that the author who 
 claims to rank as one of the poets of the age will possess no 
 ordinary merit. 
 
 In this essay upon Alfred Tennyson we would, First, 
 make some general observations upon him as a poet ; 
 Secondly, as mere general criticism is unsatisfactory, take up 
 his larger works seriatim ; and, Thirdly, consider the new 
 religion which he preaches to the age. 
 
 A GENERAL CRITICISM. 
 
 Is Alfred Tennyson an original poet ? Before this can be 
 answered in the affirmative, more is necessary than merely 
 
 o 
 
U4 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 to show that he has founded a new school, and h, as na cl his 
 many imitators. So much will be granted, and seems to be 
 referred to by himself in the " Flower." 
 
 Once in a golden hour 
 
 I cast to earth a seed, 
 Up there came a flower, 
 
 The people said, a weed. 
 
 To and fro they went 
 
 Through my garden bower, 
 And muttering discontent, 
 
 Cursed me and my flower. 
 
 Then it grew so tall 
 
 It wore a crown of light, 
 But thieves from o'er the wall 
 
 Stole the seed by night. 
 
 Sowed it far and wide, 
 
 By every town and tower, 
 Till all the people cried, 
 
 Splendid is the flower ! 
 
 One may establish for himself a reputation quite distinct 
 from any other poet, while this is owing merely to a certain 
 style he has adopted, and which may be followed by a host 
 of imitators. This does not prove him to have originality of 
 genius. He may have adopted a false style. He may have 
 violated the rules of taste — the general rules that ought to 
 be observed by all — classic, let us call them. In failing to 
 keep these, he is like the competitor who has leapt the 
 course, and is justly considered as out of the race. You 
 may call such a rider original. He has brought his horse 
 to the goal by a peculiar route, certainly, and so have all 
 that followed him, but every one knows that it is owing to 
 a certain weakness which incapacitated him from reaching 
 it in the ordinary way. A poet may make himself original, 
 again, by elaborate artifice. He may resolve never to 
 express anything as others have expressed it — never to 
 word a sentence in the same way as others would word it 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 115 
 
 — to search out in the remote distance for his images — so 
 that we shall recognise not only an originality, but a strange- 
 ness in his poetry ; experiencing a kind of distress on this 
 very account, as if we would be thankful, in this superabun- 
 dance of dainties, to get common bread to eat, or in this 
 gorgeousness of stained windows to see the light coming 
 through plain glass again ; feeling, in a word, as if we would 
 be thankful provided the author would only contemplate 
 nature with eyes of the same construction as our own. For 
 some such peculiarities was Cowley, for example, universally 
 considered in his day to be the most original poet alive — 
 much more so than John Milton. Indeed the modest Puritan 
 seems to have been bewitched and befooled into the same 
 belief, and declared that " the three greatest English poets 
 were Spenser, Shakespeare, and Cowley." He himself had 
 only described Satan's flight from hell to earth, and drawn 
 in plain, unvarnished language sundry other scenes in Para- 
 dise and heaven, but had no pretensions to rival the poet 
 who thus describes the dress of Gabriel : — 
 
 He took for a skin a cloud most soft and bright, 
 That e'er the midday sun pierced through with light ; 
 Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, 
 Washed from the morning beauties' deepest red ; 
 A harmless fluttering meteor shone for hair, 
 And fell adown his shoulders with loose care ; 
 He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, 
 Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes ; 
 This he with starry vapours sprinkles, all, 
 Took in their prime, ere they grow ripe and fall ; 
 Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade, 
 The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made. 
 
 Time, I need not say, has reversed this judgment. The 
 originality of the man who trafficked in this kind of celestial 
 millinery is seen now to have been a thing itself made and 
 manufactured. That of the Puritan is seen to have been 
 ■made without hands, belonging to the essential constitution 
 of the man's genius. He is original without violating any 
 
 9* 
 
n6 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 law of taste, or adopting any elaboration of artifice. Having 
 appeared, he is recognised to be a new creature in the poeti- 
 cal kingdom — not merely different from Horace or from 
 Pindar, but different from Homer, and Virgil, and Tasso, 
 different from them without having followed,. different rules, 
 or outraged any proprieties. It is not the same wine spiced, 
 but another vintage. In the same sense was Robert Burns 
 original. It was not by uttering things so strange, as to 
 seem something which we had never heard before ; rather 
 by uttering things so simple, as to make us wonder that they 
 had not been said before. It was not by departing from 
 nature, but from his peculiar power of touching her chords. 
 Other writers who preceded him having been simple and 
 natural in their style, he did not affect the opposite qualities, 
 but he uttered something that had escaped them. The in- 
 strument was the same, but when they laid it down, he 
 brought music out of it which was not forthcoming from their 
 hands. Lord Byron was original. It was in a legitimate 
 way. He did not adopt rhythms and measures unheard of. 
 It was not an imposition upon the eye by using more brilliant 
 colours, nor was it an imposition upon the ear by using 
 artificial melodies. The peculiarity for which he stood, and 
 stands aloft, was a peculiarity not of dress, but of the man ; 
 not in the application of faculties, but in the kind of faculties 
 he possessed. And so with Scott. If he was different from 
 all other poets, ancient and modern, it was by the inheritance 
 of essential qualities, entirely original, entirely natural. It 
 was no mere word spell, but a new power over all nature, to 
 conjure her up before our eyes, to all our senses, to the very 
 smell of the ground we tread upon. 
 
 Is Tennyson, then, entitled to rank among those great men 
 who have borne the stamp of a genius essentially original-? 
 
 It is a question somewhat difficult to decide. 
 
 We are not prepared to agree with those who would 
 deny his title in a very absolute way, and hold rather a 
 disparaging view of his high claims. They are disposed 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 117 
 
 to grant him nothing more than artistic skill and power 
 of embellishment. According to them he is only possessed 
 of a second-rate poetical faculty, but endued with immense 
 powers of application and self-control, enabling him patiently 
 to call up all that is necessary to complete and perfect 
 his picture, excluding whatever is common-place, or ex- 
 pressing whatever is common in a new and striking form. 
 Even his " In Memoriam" they reckon to be merely an ex- 
 traordinary Chinese expenditure of manual skill, and a 
 triumph of exquisite taste and polish. They would have us 
 believe that this of itself is high praise. That any man in 
 so imaginative and cultivated an age should reach the pre- 
 eminence he has gained., is a high achievement. But while 
 they grant him to be the fit representative of the taste and 
 poetic feeling of the nineteenth century, they would repudiate 
 his claim to be considered as one of the great typical poets 
 of this country. 
 
 We are not prepared to endorse the steps by which they 
 reach this verdict. 
 
 They must surely grant, for one thing, that Tennyson is 
 not an imitator. He elaborates and ornaments, let us say ; 
 but what is it that he elaborates and adorns \ Is he a mere 
 reproduction of some preceding poet bedizened with jewel- 
 lery ? If so, of whom ? We know no poet to whom he 
 bears the slightest resemblance. If they have any sus- 
 picions, let them observe him narrowly at any time when he 
 has laid aside his ornaments. Does he walk like any pre- 
 ceding poet ? We are not asking if he walks in other men's 
 clothes, but when, in his easy moments, he throws open 
 what is alleged to be his laced waistcoat, and we get a view 
 of his nude muscular build and conformation, is it the same 
 with any of his illustrious fraternity ? We know no poet 
 more free from the challenge of imitation. This is surely ,a 
 good sign. 
 
 Again, do these parties mean to .assert that he wants the 
 fervidum ingenium ? Do they mean to say that he perpe- 
 
THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 trates a cold-blooded system of building up his poems by 
 square and rule, that he carries on a trade as carver and 
 gilder of materials for the public market, and prosecutes a 
 sort of poetical upholstery business ? I think they would 
 come nearer the truth were they to consider that his genius 
 is generally at a white heat. For ourselves, after reading 
 through his works to write an essay upon them, we feel that 
 we shall have enough to do in the way of condemning his 
 extravagances, but the idea of his being a mere artistic 
 elaborator will not stand examination for a moment. No; 
 , these exquisite vases they speak of must have come out of 
 some fires. 
 
 Once more — do they deny him the possession of ideality ? 
 This is the faculty of a true poet. It consists in the power 
 not only of giving 
 
 to airy nothings 
 A local habitation and a name, 
 
 but of converting what has a local habitation and a name 
 into something ethereal and imaginative — not only of making 
 the ideal a reality, but a reality ideal. From the want of 
 this magic power many a subject, handled skilfully enough 
 otherwise by a poet, is seen too much, as it were, under day- 
 light, or as belonging to this every -day world. But take 
 some of Tennyson's smaller pieces, such as the " Lotos 
 Eaters," the " Lady of Shalott," " Marianne ; or, the Moated 
 Grange," &c, into what gorgeous shadows of an ideal back- 
 ground are they thrown! In the "Lotos Eaters" the 
 cardinal difficulty was to get the island where these " mild- 
 eyed melancholy " dreamers dwelt so transferred into the 
 realm of the imagination as to be distinct from any of the 
 thousand and one islands which are to be found actually in 
 our seas. This is done in the very first lines : — 
 
 " Courage ! " he said, and pointed t'ward the land, 
 " This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.'' 
 
 In the afternoon they came unto a land 
 In which it seemed always afternoon. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 119 
 
 The lines which follow are surely in a fine vein of poetry. 
 
 Hateful is the dark blue sky, * 
 
 Vaulted o'er the dark blue sea. 
 Death is the end of life ; ah ! why 
 
 Should life all labour be ? 
 Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, 
 
 And in a little while our lips are dumb. 
 Let us alone. What is it that will last ? 
 
 All things are taken from us, and become 
 Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. 
 
 Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 
 To war with evil ? Is there any peace 
 
 In ever climbing up the climbing wave ? 
 All things have rest, and ripen t'ward the grave 
 
 In silence ; ripen, fall, and cease ; 
 Give us long rest or death, dark death or dreamless ease. 
 
 Hearken next how ingeniously these slumber-lovers dis- 
 pose of the suggestion that they should trouble themselves 
 to return home : — 
 
 We should but come like ghosts to trouble joy, 
 
 Or else the island princes over-bold 
 Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings 
 
 Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, 
 And our great deeds as half-forgotten things. 
 
 Is there confusion in the little isle ? 
 Let what is broken so remain. 
 
 The gods are hard to reconcile : 
 'Tis hard to settle order once again. 
 
 There is confusion worse than death, 
 Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, 
 
 Long labour unto aged breath, 
 Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars, 
 And eyes grow dim with gazing on the pilot stars. 
 
 Hearken once again (for there is surely grandeur in the 
 lines) how they justify slumber by the gods themselves : — 
 
 Let us swear an oath and keep it with an equal mind, 
 In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined 
 On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind. 
 
120 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled 
 
 Far below them in the valley, and the clouds are lightly curled 
 
 Round their golden tresses, girdled with the gleaming world, 
 
 Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands ; 
 
 Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, 
 
 Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. 
 
 But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song 
 
 Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, 
 
 Like a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong ; 
 
 Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, 
 
 Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil ; 
 
 Till they perish and they suffer — some, 'tis whispered, down in hell — 
 
 Suffer endless anguish ; others in Elysian valleys dwell, 
 
 Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 
 
 Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore 
 
 Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar, 
 
 Oh, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. 
 
 The " Lady of Shalott " illustrates the same remark. The 
 whole proves the powerful ideality of its author, thrown, as 
 the subject is, into the deep rich shadows of the purely 
 imaginative. We are left with the dreamiest conception 
 possible of the many -towered Camelot, and the island of 
 Shalott as well. 
 
 On either side the river lie 
 Long fields of barley and of rye, 
 That clothe the wold, and meet the sky, 
 And through the fields the road runs by 
 
 To many-towered Camelot ; 
 And up and down the people go, 
 Gazing where the lilies blow, 
 Round an island there below, 
 
 The island of Shalott. 
 
 Willows whiten, aspens quiver, 
 Little breezes dusk and shiver 
 Through the wave that runs for ever 
 By the island in the river 
 
 Flowing down to Camelot. 
 Four gray walls and four gray towers 
 Overlook a space of flowers, 
 And the silent isle embowers 
 
 The Lady of Shalott, 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 This is a good specimen of the difference between a poet's 
 description of places and a common guide-book. Are any of 
 our readers the wiser after reading it with regard to the 
 topography of Camelot or Shalott? We hope not. Nay, 
 when the Lady, in her unchained boat, after winding "the 
 willowy hills and fields among," effects her landing at Came- 
 lot, the same blessed and delightful obscurity hangs over her 
 entrance. 
 
 Under tower and balcony, 
 
 By garden wall and gallery, 
 
 A gleaming shape she floated by, 
 
 Dead-pale between the houses high, 
 
 Silent into Camelot. 
 Out upon the wharfs they came, 
 Knight and burgher, lord and dame, 
 And round the prow they read her name. 
 
 The Lady of Shalott. 
 
 The parties from whose flat and absolute undervaluation 
 of the Laureate we are now dissenting, may call upon us to 
 note the circumstance that he seldom rises easily and 
 naturally to the lofty in thought or conception, and that, on 
 the other hand, he never can say anything that is common in 
 a common way. From this they would argue that any ex- 
 cellence he has is achieved by mechanical means and effort ; 
 that the soil is thin, only cultivated with amazing pains, and 
 covered with splendid buildings. Now, it is granted that 
 Tennyson is not characterised by sublimity. This is no 
 reason why we should deprive him of his claim to beauty. 
 The question is whether such luxuriant vegetation as meets 
 us upon those lower grounds of his, could come from any but 
 the richest soil and the warmest climate. The question is, 
 moreover, whether the palaces that cover them could be 
 reared without much wealth of mental endowment ? In fact 
 the mode of argument they employ would condemn not only 
 Tennyson, but the southern part of the island to which he 
 belongs, because it does not present us, like Scotland, with 
 the Grampians and other mountain ranges, interspersed 
 
122 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 with wild heathery muirland. No doubt the traveller to 
 our highlands is delighted with the spectacle of nature in 
 her rude magnificence and mountain altitudes, which it 
 would be profanity to adorn, and her ravines as savagely 
 steep again ; and he may feel that all this is only set off to 
 greater advantage by the turf-shiels that send up their 
 smoke, as of an humble sacrifice to the great Creator. But 
 may he not experience another charm of its own kind when 
 he wanders south the Tweed, where the lowlands are covered 
 with the glory of a soft vegetation, where the streams, if 
 they do not leap impetuous over the linn, are embosomed in 
 overhanging woods, and are not the less romantic because 
 they wind by aristocratic mansions standing on their smooth- 
 shaven terraces ; while farther down their course they trail 
 through flowers so abundant as to be rotting in their prodi- 
 gality, or anon silently glide past rose-crowned gateways of 
 orchards, on the top of which 
 
 Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost? 
 
 What then ? We have defended Tennyson from these 
 Vandals. We have especially scouted the idea that a poet 
 whose every page bears the impress of passion is only a 
 master in ornamentation. At the same time we have to crave 
 the indulgence of some of our readers when we venture to 
 show cause why he can scarcely rank with the highest order 
 of genius. 
 
 In the highest order of genius, as we understand it, passion 
 is allied with a certain intuition which enables its possessor 
 to make such a selection of the essential features of a land- 
 scape, and of human character, as produces an indelible im- 
 pression, and weds itself to immortality. Such a poet 
 having at once struck the chord that is required, does not 
 need to give us any lengthened, confused, and tumultuous 
 symphony as a substitute, and it will be generally found that 
 his style of poetry is quiet and subdued. The intensity of 
 the passion has expressed itself in the master-stroke which 
 has overwhelmed us, and there is no need why it should show 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 123 
 
 itself in any illegitimate way. The poet again who has pas- 
 sion, but wants this higher intuition, while he fails to produce 
 the immortal result, puts forth displays of power which may 
 be much more demonstrative and imposing to superficial 
 judgments. The steam when doing its proper work, and 
 most exerting its formidable momentum, is silent ; mean- 
 while the tremendous sound it issues when escaping by the 
 valve affects the crowd most. To change the figure, you 
 go abroad some night when there is wild fire illumining the 
 whole heavens, and there is something imposing no doubt in 
 those broad, loose, far-spreading lightnings ; but the triumph 
 of electricity is when the splendid long summer heats have 
 accumulated, and it concentrates itself into the few heart- 
 shaped flashes which overawe whatever they illuminate, and 
 consume whatever they strike. This illustrates the difference, 
 as we venture to think, between our modern poets, like 
 Tennyson and Browning, and those greater masters in the 
 art who have gone before them. We have certainly more 
 imposing displays of power in their productions than in 
 those of their predecessors. The passion, concentrated in 
 the latter, spreads in more formidable and diffused demon- 
 strations in the other. 
 
 Let us give one or two specific instances of what we mean. 
 We might refer to Tennyson's " Charge of the Light Brigade." 
 It runs in such strains as the following : — 
 
 Half a league, half a league, 
 Half a league onward, 
 All in the valley of death, 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 " Forward, the Light Brigade ! 
 Charge for the guns ! " he said ; 
 Into the valley of death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon in front of them, 
 Volleyed and thundered. 
 
124 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Stormed at with shot and shell, 
 Boldly they rode, and well, 
 Into the jaws of death, 
 Into the mouth of hell, 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 Flashed all their sabres bare, 
 Flashed as they turned in air, 
 Sabring the gunners there, 
 Charging an army, while 
 
 All the world wondered. 
 Plunged in the battery-smoke, 
 Right through the line they broke, 
 Cossack and Russian 
 Reeled from the sabre-stroke 
 
 Shattered and sundered ; 
 Then they rode back ; but 
 
 Not the six hundred. 
 
 I say nothing of the feebler lines. The failure lies in the 
 strongest. What have we here but the high-pitched tone 
 of martial words, such as we find ad libitum in Macaulay's 
 " Lays of Rome." The author enters, of course, into the spirit 
 of the hopeless charge, but his description evaporates in strong 
 opposition of words : " Cannon to right of them ;" "Cannon 
 to left of them;" " Flashed all their sabres bare," &c; also 
 in declamatory appeals to admiration: "All the world won- 
 dered ;" " Oh, the wild charge they made !" &c. How dif- 
 ferent Thomas Campbell, in his " Battle of the Baltic " ! 
 No noise of words. 
 
 Like leviathans afloat 
 
 Lay their bulwarks on the brine ; 
 
 this is all that is said to convey to us the order of the 
 battle, and it is enough. One stroke of the imagination has 
 conjured up the spectacle. Another follows, and leaves 
 nothing necessary behind it to convey the horror of the 
 battle down to all posterity : — 
 
 Each gun 
 From its adamantine lips 
 Shed a death shade round the ships, 
 Like the hurricane eclipse 
 Of the sun. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 125 
 
 The "feeble cheer of the Dane," sent back to ours, is an- 
 other touch of the higher and intuitive genius, as distin- 
 guished from mere passion venting itself in words, however 
 spirited and forcible. Such was Campbell ! When his first 
 juvenile performance appeared, there was nothing in the 
 mere mode of it to affect originality: it was in the old 
 measure, it was in the old style. But the chords of nature 
 were struck once more. That was it. We all felt that 
 whether he described woman's first appearance in Paradise, 
 or Warsaw's last champion, or Hope lighting her torch at 
 Nature's funeral pile, we had amongst us another inspired 
 man. 
 
 What we desiderate in our modern poets is the power of 
 representing nature by selecting a few catholic features of 
 the landscape. Wanting the eye for this, they seek to make 
 amends by introducing ever so many particulars to give de- 
 finiteness to the picture. Unable to conjure up the one or 
 two points that would suggest the whole beauty of the land- 
 scape, they feel themselves under the obligation to ornament 
 the details which should have been left to the imagination. 
 If they would speak the creative word, we would paint the 
 details for ourselves. The scene where Burns had his last 
 meeting with his Highland Mary will stand green and fra- 
 grant in his song so long as summer unfolds her robes ; and 
 yet it would defy us all to tell by what intuition he trans- 
 ferred it there, for he says very little. 
 
 Ye banks and braes, and streams around 
 The castle o' Montgomery— 
 
 that is all. That is the foundation of the whole landscape 
 in two lines. Having created it, he blesses it. 
 
 Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 
 
 Your waters never drumly ! 
 There simmer first unfauld her robes, 
 
 And there the langest tarry ; 
 For there I took the last fareweel 
 
 O' my sweet Highland Mary. 
 
126 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 So with " Afton Water," by the margin of which his other 
 Mary slept, and will sleep for ever, for who will awaken her 
 after that tender adjuration of the poet ? The scenery is a 
 perfect thing, according to the grand secret of poetical 
 creation — " the glen resounding with the echo of the stock- 
 dove," " the thorny den with its wild whistling blackbirds," 
 
 and the 
 
 neighbouring hills 
 Far marked with the courses of clear winding rills. 
 
 It may be said that by admitting none to the order of the 
 highest poetical genius but those who can thus represent 
 nature by a few creative touches, and who can intuitively 
 strike the chords of the human heart, we seem to exclude 
 some who by general consent belong to it. What, for ex- 
 ample, it may be objected, of Shelley or Byron ? In Shelley 
 do we not see everything rather under an etherealised and 
 unearthly aspect, as through a stellar mist or lunar radiance ? 
 In the pages of Byron do not humanity and nature seem to 
 be irradiated only by lightnings out of the cloud ? Grant- 
 ing this, it does not follow that both of them had not the 
 highest poetical insight into nature. It only proves that 
 they were led, the one by his singular disembodied fancy, 
 the other by his passionate and scorpion-stung genius, to 
 dwell upon those phases of humanity and those aspects of 
 nature that are removed from the eye of common contempla- 
 tion. In reading them we may say, " This is uncommon," 
 and yet we feel and acknowledge it to be natural ; just as 
 we are still in the natural world, although at one time we 
 may stand among the weird phenomena and aurora-borealises 
 of an arctic latitude, or at another climb in awe-struck 
 wonder among the Alpine solitudes, where the chamois 
 leaps graceful on the precipices, and there are it may be 
 so many voices of thunder that speak to the ear of the 
 Almighty. 
 
 One thing is certain, that we never find Byron or Shelley 
 diverging into the unnatural. But the same cannot be said 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 127 
 
 of Tennyson. For I now go on to notice that there are 
 many extravagances which it must be confessed disgrace 
 his productions. Amongst these we would specify an exces- 
 sive sentimentality. This appears in various forms, especially 
 in connection with the amatory, which occupies a large 
 place in his writings. He has without controversy intro- 
 duced a new description of lovers to our notice, whose 
 wailings and ravings under love-disappointment are suf- 
 ficiently sickening. We have reason to be thankful that 
 he has seldom if ever prostituted his muse to licentious- 
 ness. But the love he describes exhibits itself often in that 
 ultra-sentimental form which degenerates into silliness. The 
 lovers of Alfred Tennyson are the victims of a fiery frenzy. 
 
 It is— 
 
 O Love, Love, Love ! O withering might ! 
 
 sun, that from thy noonday height 
 Shudderest when I strain my sight, 
 Throbbing through all thy heat and light ; 
 Lo, falling from my constant mind, 
 
 Lo, parched and withered, deaf and blind, 
 
 1 whirl like leaves in roaring wind. 
 
 Last night, when some one spoke his name, 
 
 From my swift blood that went and came, 
 
 A thousand little shafts of flame 
 
 Were shivered in my narrow frame. 
 
 O love, O fire, once he drew 
 
 With one long kiss my whole soul through 
 
 My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. 
 
 One would not wonder that they should express themselves 
 in this way, but they actually die off in the issue, and their 
 dead bodies, clothed in white, are carried by boat down 
 rivers, with their last letter in their dead hands, for the 
 inspection of the knight who has murdered them with his 
 grace and valour. Let any one look at the figures with 
 which the artist has illustrated certain editions of our poet's 
 works, and he will find a just representation in woodcut of 
 his inamoratos. Such swooning and hideously-sentimental 
 shapes of humanity were never beheld. This sort of thing 
 
128 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 has done an essential damage to the generation. The worst 
 is that his male lovers make as egregious fools of themselves. 
 Was there ever such a rejected lover as he of " Locksley 
 Hall" ? Even had he perpetrated no other crime than telling 
 us that in the days of his love he 
 
 Many a night saw the Pleiads rising through their mellow shade, 
 Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid, 
 
 he ought to have been hanged by the neck with a rope of 
 stars. But he actually begins to detail to us the philosophic 
 and cosmopolitan visions he had in his younger days, and 
 which were all blasted by Amy's infidelity. Next he enter- 
 tains the project of setting off — where ? Not to some cold 
 country or scene of Lapland desolation suited to his hopeless ' 
 state, but to some happy clime where " hangs the heavy- 
 fruited tree ; " and this not to remain a sighing hermit all the 
 days of his life, but to marry a black woman, who 
 
 Shall rear his dusky race, 
 Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive, and they shall run, 
 Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun, &c. 
 
 Upon second thoughts he rejects this project, and resolves 
 to remain in Europe. 
 
 Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 
 Mother-age (for mine 1 know not) help me as when life began ; 
 Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the sun. 
 Oh, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set, 
 Ancient founts of inspiration well through all my fancy yet. 
 
 This is assuredly bad enough ; but these blemishes, which 
 will meet us when we come to consider his larger produc- 
 tions, must not blind us to the exalted gifts of our Laureate. 
 Before drawing our general criticism to a close, a word 
 might be said upon the somewhat invidious theme of the 
 comparative rank he holds among the poets of our own 
 country. The only other name which is naturally suggested 
 to us in rival connection with Tennyson is Robert Browning. 
 They are both possessed of pre-eminent endowments, and 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 129 
 
 have both split upon the rock of extravagance. In many 
 respects the last is the more powerful genius. His images 
 have an originality and terrible force, reminding us of the 
 author of the " Inferno." He can remain much longer upon 
 the wing. For reasons that are obvious enough he is not 
 fully appreciated by the general public. He lies under a , 
 triple curse of obscurity. He constructs sentences that 
 admit of a great many more meanings than the one he 
 would convey. He burrows into the moral philosophy of 
 human nature, and he propagates a new theology not under- 
 stood by three-fourths of his poetical constituency, and it is 
 in the interior of all this labyrinth that the Rosamond of his 
 royal genius is concealed. There is the formidable length, 
 too, of his poetical productions. Many who would gladly 
 take a pleasure trip to France or Germany, have no inclina- 
 tion to relax themselves by a voyage to Valparaiso, especially 
 if many parts of it are to be described under fogs and 
 deep-sea mists. On the other hand, it is little to say that 
 Tennyson is popular. Even where he has shown himself 
 untrue, if we may presume so far, to his proper mission, he 
 has secured popularity. If he had followed out the more 
 serious and reflective strain in which he began when he 
 wrote his " In Memoriam," we may question whether he 
 would have surrounded himself with the constituency he 
 now possesses. Rising from the solemn orisons of friendship, 
 he suddenly diverged into the regions of love-sentimentalism, 
 and " multiplied the nation " of his readers, if he did not 
 " increase the joy " of first admirers. If his productions 
 are slighter than those of Browning, they have the perfect 
 polish and melody necessary to possess the fastidious ear of 
 the times. There is abundance of sentimentalism in his 
 poetry to attract the one sex, and just as much of the spirit 
 of modern science as is fitted to captivate the other. He 
 would not have been the seer or poet for this generation if he 
 had had any dogmatic faith — and he has none. Tennyson, 
 then, is unquestionably the most popular poet of the age. 
 
 10 
 
130 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 A CRITICISM OF HIS LARGER POEMS. 
 
 Let us begin with the " Idylls of the King." 
 Arthur of the Round Table is a great subject. John 
 Milton hesitated between it and Paradise Lost. If he had 
 not chosen the Fall of Man he would have fixed upon the 
 Wars with the Saxons. The scene instead of being Eden 
 would have been Wales, and for Adam and Eve we should 
 have had Arthur and Guinevere. We are called in the 
 name of all humanity to rejoice that the heavenly muse, 
 whether she came from the secret top of Sinai or from 
 
 Sion hill, 
 
 And Siloah's brook that flowed 
 Fast by the oracle of God, 
 
 guided him to select the first of these topics, for next to the 
 loss of Paradise would have been the loss of" Paradise Lost." 
 And yet the very greatness of that production must convince 
 us what an epic poem " Arthur " would have proved in his 
 hands. Who that reads the few verses in Genesis recording 
 the Fall could have supposed any man able to compose an 
 epic out of them as diversified in its scenes and incidents, 
 and introducing as many actors as the Iliad itself? Let 
 none of us doubt that out of the scanty historical records 
 of Arthur, assisted by monkish legends and ancient song, 
 Milton would have constructed a poem worthy of the ages. 
 The twelve wars of Arthur would have outrivalled those 
 of Greece and Troy ; his sixty knights would have been 
 invested with distinctive characters, and their names 
 would have been made more familiar to our ears and 
 more renowned than Hector, Ajax, or Achilles. Guinevere 
 would have had some tragic interest thrown around her in 
 connection with these wars, and been illustrious as ever was 
 Helen of Troy. What warlike broils and rude merriment 
 would have immortalised the feasts of the Round Table, to 
 say nothing of national songs of the past from the harp of 
 Thaliessen ; and if he had carried the king to the fairy 
 island to be cured of his wounds, we should have seen what 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 131 
 
 a poet, of all others the most ideal and creative, could 
 accomplish in an episode scene of Elfdom. 
 
 With Alfred Tennyson the subject takes a slenderer form. 
 One has no reason to complain of this. He did not propose 
 an epic. He has at the same time taken unwarrantable 
 liberties when he represents the Round Table as having 
 been an order of chivalry, and Arthur as having gathered 
 round him a band of knights-errant, sworn to fight for their 
 lady-loves, and spending in gay jousts the time that was 
 spared from redressing the wrongs of captive maidens. Is 
 not this a gross anachronism ? The age of chivalry was 
 surely a great many centuries later than the times of the 
 Ancient Britons. We say nothing at present of the absurd 
 attempt which our poet has made to impart to Arthur the 
 character of a modern rationalistic Christian, and the op- 
 portunity he has taken in the " Holy Grail " to vend his 
 peculiar theology. This will be duly exposed when we come 
 to animadvert upon Tennyson's religious sentiments. Mean- 
 while it is surely to be regretted that, under his treatment, 
 the Round Table degenerates into a mere partnership of 
 gallantries. Instead of the twelve wars we have five love in- 
 trigues. No lances are broken, but hearts enough. Arthur's 
 heroic struggles to save the land from Saxon invasion we 
 read nothing of : it is his struggles with the infidelity of his 
 spouse. 
 
 Well, let us take the matter as we find it, and judge by 
 the rules to which the lighter theme is subject. He has 
 well called these poems Idylls, for they come not exactly 
 under any category of productions with which we are 
 acquainted. This, as we have stated already, is one thing 
 we like about the Laureate. He never imitates : what he 
 does is done in his own style. They are for the most part 
 narrative poems, where the interest depends upon the inci- 
 dents introduced. Invention was, therefore, indispensable, 
 and although our author has not the faculty of forming a 
 connected plot or a thrilling drama, he does not want a 
 
 10 * 
 
132 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 power of introducing by-incidents and circumstances suf- 
 ficiently piquante to enliven the story. Yet here, if we 
 mistake not, lies the essential defect of the Idylls. Since 
 he does not possess in any high degree the power of invent- 
 ing a plot or conducting a story, he would require to have 
 made up for the want of this by exerting that faculty of 
 descriptive painting known to be possessed by him to an 
 extraordinary extent. His is a mind which requires to dwell 
 with concentration upon its theme, and his most successful 
 attempts have been those where the limited nature of the 
 subject admits of this. Instead of attending to this rule he 
 runs on with an unfortunate facility in his narrative, never 
 dwelling upon any part so as to become great or splendid : 
 the result is a mere series of sketchy paintings. Sir Walter 
 Scott had not the splendid bursts of passion which abound 
 in Byron, but won his laurels by the transcendent beauty 
 of his plot and story. Byron, again, had not his rival's 
 faculty of invention, but established his reputation in the 
 other way. In the Idylls we have neither what charms us 
 in the story of "The Lady of the Lake," nor what astonishes 
 and appals us in the powerful passages of " The Giaour." 
 They go forward in a sort of epic prattle, which neither 
 degenerates to common-place nor rises to the extraordinary. 
 
 While we consider this to be a well - founded general 
 criticism upon them, there are some exceptions that must 
 be made to it. There are some passages, as may well be 
 supposed, of great beauty, and there are others betraying a 
 deplorable want of taste. 
 
 Among the former might be mentioned Arthur's dream 
 before his last battle, in which he sees the ghost of Gawain, 
 one of the lightest and vainest of all his knights. 
 
 Before that last weird battle in the west 
 There came on Arthur sleeping Gawain killed 
 In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown 
 Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
 Went shrilling, " Hollow, hollow, all delight ! 
 Hail, king ! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 133 
 
 Farewell ! there is an isle of rest for thee, 
 
 And I am blown along a wandering wind, 
 
 And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." 
 
 And fainter onwards, like wild birds that change 
 
 Their season in the night and wail their way 
 
 From could to cloud down the long wind, the dream 
 
 Shrilled ; but in going mingled with dim cries 
 
 Far in the moonlight haze among the hills, 
 
 As of some lonely city sacked by night, 
 
 When all is lost, and wife and child with wail 
 
 Pass to new lords ; and Arthur woke and called, 
 
 " Who spake ? A dream. O light upon the wind 
 
 Thine, Gawain, was the voice — are those dim cries 
 
 Thine ? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild 
 
 Mourn, knowing it will go along with me ?" 
 
 We think it right to give the only description we have of 
 any of Arthur's battles. 
 
 On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed, 
 
 Nor ever yet had Arthur fought in fight 
 
 Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west. 
 
 A deathlike mist slept over sand and sea ; 
 
 Whereof the chill, to him that breathed it, drew 
 
 Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 
 
 With formless fear ; and even on Arthur fell 
 
 Confusion, since he saw not where he fought, 
 
 For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 
 
 And friend slew friend, not knowing whom he slew. 
 
 And some had visions out of golden youth, 
 
 And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 
 
 Look in upon the battle, and in the mist 
 
 Was many a noble deed, many a base, 
 
 And chance and craft and strength in single fights, 
 
 And ever and anon with host to host 
 
 Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn, 
 
 Shield breaking, and the clash of brands, the crash 
 
 Of battle-axes on shattered helms, and shrieks 
 
 After the Christ, and those who falling down 
 
 Looked up for heaven, and only saw the mist ; 
 
 And shouts of heathen, and the traitor knights, 
 
 Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies, 
 
 Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs 
 
 In that close mist, and cryings for the light, 
 
 Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead. 
 
134 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Last, as by some one death-bed, after wail 
 Of suffering, silence follows, or thro' death 
 Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, 
 Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 
 A dead hush fell ; but when the dolorous day 
 Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 
 A bitter wind, clear from the north, and blew 
 The mist aside, and with that wind the tide 
 Rose, and the pale king glanced across the field 
 Of battle, but no man was moving there ; 
 Nor any cry of Christian heard therein, 
 Nor yet of heathen ; only the wan wave 
 Brake in among dead faces, to and fro 
 Swaying the hollow helmets of the fallen, 
 And shivered brands that once had fought with Rome, 
 And rolling far along the gloomy shores 
 The voice of days of old and days to be. 
 
 The very excellence of this description leads us to regret 
 that, instead of regaling us with so many idle gallantries, 
 the Laureate had not girt himself to sing Arthur's battles. 
 After reading it, we feel disposed to say to him, like Mer- 
 cutio, " Why is not this better now than groaning for love ?" 
 and to remind him of his own words elsewhere : — 
 
 But great is song, 
 Used to great ends : ourself have often tried 
 Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dashed 
 The passion of the prophetess ; for song 
 Is duer unto freedom, force, and growth 
 Of spirit, than to junketing and love. 
 
 In his " Guinevere," the flight of the unhappy queen to 
 the holy house at Almesbury, after her disgrace, and the in- 
 terview between her and Arthur, afforded him a high theme 
 for poetry. The conqueror of the Saxon hordes, agonizing 
 under this wound in the only part where he was vulnerable, 
 and come on his way to his last battle to upbraid the wife 
 of his bosom for her infidelity; she again called to see the 
 frown that was the terror of armies on the brow of an injured 
 husband ; this was a subject which, to be perfectly painted, 
 would have required much time and study ; and if he has. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 135 
 
 failed altogether to reach the mark, it is owing to the hurry 
 and precipitation too visible here and elsewhere in the 
 Idylls. 
 
 The worst of them, in point of taste, is " Geraint and 
 Enid." A more grotesque and ridiculous story was never 
 made the subject of poetical description. This Geraint had 
 been led by sensitive jealousy of his wife to withdraw from 
 the Round Table, where scandals had become notorious, to 
 his possessions in the country. She, on the other hand, is 
 grieved that his arms should rust in inglorious ease. One 
 night, as fate would have it, in the restlessness of his bed he 
 
 had 
 
 cast the coverlet aside, 
 And bared the knotted column of his throat, 
 The massive square of his heroic breast, 
 And arms on which the standing muscle sloped 
 As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone. 
 
 The inspection of her husband's bust leads her to soliloquise 
 aloud and upbraid herself with being the cause of so sturdy 
 a warrior remaining at home inactive. The soliloquy un- 
 fortunately ended — 
 
 O me, I fear that T am no true wife. 
 
 This was quite enough for the jealous knight, who, 
 awaking at the moment, considers that all his worst sus- 
 picions of her fidelity have been justified. She is ordered 
 to prepare herself for riding forth with him straightway to 
 the wilderness. Off they set accordingly on this strange 
 expedition, she having peremptory orders to ride before on 
 her palfrey. Various encounters take place with knights- 
 errant upon the journey, and when these are overthrown, it 
 is poor Enid's office to tie the reins of their horses together, 
 and drive them with their suits of armour before her. After 
 a deal of this adventure carried forward without a word of 
 explanation from this madcap husband, he gets at last a 
 sharp cut which lays him low, and affords her an oppor- 
 tunity of showing him her affection. They are found upon 
 
136 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 the road in this condition " at the point of noon," that is, 
 twelve of the clock, by one Earl Doorm, 
 
 Broad faced, with under-fringe of russet beard, 
 Bound on a foray, rolling eyes of prey. 
 
 This formidable peer, having conveyed them both to his hall, 
 begins during the carousals in his mansion to wax merry, 
 and use some familiarities with her, when Geraint, recover- 
 ing from his swoon, delivers him of his head, and is delivered 
 himself eventually from his jealousy. 
 
 No skill in the execution could make a story like this 
 tolerable. But the execution in many parts is as bad as the 
 plan. What do our readers think of the following descrip- 
 tion of Geraint's first love for Enid, as she waited upon him 
 at table in her father's hall ? 
 
 Geraint had longing in him evermore 
 To stoop and kiss her tender little thumb, 
 That crossed the trencher as she laid it down. 
 
 Nay, his glances of affection are compared to those of a 
 robin redbreast : — 
 
 Never man rejoiced 
 More than Geraint to greet her thus attired, 
 And glancing all at once as keenly at her 
 As careful robin's eye the delver's toil, 
 Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall ; &c. 
 
 But that we may not be thought to show things to a disad- 
 vantage, here, then, is about the best of the verses. They 
 describe her when she was first told by a friend, before retir- 
 ing to rest, of the fact that Geraint loved her. 
 
 But never light and shade 
 Coursed one another more on open ground 
 Beneath a troubled heaven, than red and pale 
 Across the face of Enid, hearing her ; 
 While slowly falling as a scale that falls, 
 When weight is added only grain by grain, 
 Sank her sweet head upon her gentle breast ; 
 Nor did she lift an eye, nor speak a word, 
 Rapt in the fear and in the wonder of it — 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 137 
 
 So, moving without answer to her rest, 
 She found no rest, and ever failed to draw 
 The quiet night into her blood, but lay 
 Contemplating her own unworthiness. 
 
 The gradual falling of her head to her breast, as grain by 
 grain goes into the scale (he does not say whether troy or 
 avoirdupois), is of the worst taste surely in the art ; and the 
 same may be said of " her failing to draw the quiet night 
 into her blood." 
 
 " Merlin and Vivien " lies open to objection from another 
 quarter. As if it were not enough to stain the fame of the 
 Round Table by such an example of an insane knight as we 
 have just contemplated, he conveys us to the " wild woods 
 of Brocelland," to witness a wanton intrigue between the 
 sage of Arthur's camp and this flirt of the sixth century. 
 Whether he thought to confer a benefit upon our drawing- 
 rooms by bringing such an unseemly picture before us, we 
 cannot tell : it is in every respect unworthy of the author 
 of " In Memoriam," and the less needs be said of it, as it is 
 nearly the one instance in all his writings where he has 
 violated the rules of propriety. He probably imagined that 
 this generation of ours stood less in need of being stirred up 
 to high deeds by the attempts of the Ancient Britons to drive 
 back Saxony from their shores, than to be instructed by the 
 attempts of a light girl upon the virtue of old age. Instead 
 of bringing a warrior from that old epoch to arouse our 
 effeminate and enervated souls, he takes a young lady, who 
 might be the subject of a modern sensational novel, and 
 gives her the advantage of the background of an ancient 
 British forest to practise her flirtations before our eyes. 
 
 One turns with pleasure from this idyll to that of " Lancelot 
 
 and Elaine ; " 
 
 Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, 
 Elaine the lily maid of Astolat ! 
 
 There is an indescribable charm of purity and world ignor- 
 ance, and thorough devotion of heart, in this heroine. The 
 
138 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 very forwardness and impatience of her love for Lancelot, 
 leading her to take the initiative always in its advances, 
 although, as described by the poet, it might seem to be 
 untrue to the nature of woman, is felt to answer to the en- 
 thusiasm of this untaught girl. She casts her soul at 
 once upon the venture of her first and last speculation. 
 And this simple demonstrative love is more beautiful by 
 contrast as felt for one who was himself familiar with the 
 arts and even the seductions of a court. This child-love 
 accuses him by its innocence ; and when, on recovering from 
 his wound, he finds her watching over his sick-bed with the 
 eyes that betrayed what he never could return, he strives in 
 all good conscience to quench the fire which he had kindled 
 
 by short and cold answers. 
 
 She knew right well 
 What the rough sickness meant, but what this meant 
 She knew not, and the sorrow dimmed her sight, 
 And drave her ere her time across the fields 
 Far into the rich city, where alone 
 She murmured, " Vain, in vain : it cannot be : 
 He cannot love me : how then, must I die ? " 
 Then as a little helpless innocent bird, 
 That has but one plain passage of few notes, 
 Will sing the simple passage o'er and o'er 
 For all an April morning, till the ear 
 Wearies to hear it, so the simple maid 
 Went half the night repeating, " Must I die ? " 
 And now to right she turned, and now to left, 
 And found no ease in turning or in rest ; 
 And, " Him or death," she muttered, " Death or him," 
 Again, and like a burthen, " Him or death." 
 
 Here is the denouement — upon Lancelot's announcing his 
 departure : — 
 
 " Going ? and we shall never see you more. 
 And I must die for want of one bold word." 
 ' " Speak : that I live to hear," he said, " is yours." 
 Then suddenly and passionately she spoke : 
 " I have gone mad. I love you : let me die." 
 "Ah, sister," answered Lancelot, "what is this ?" 
 And innocently extending her white arms, 
 " Your love," she said, " your love — to be your wife." 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 139 
 
 Who will ever forget these, or the lines that follow, 'in 
 which he offered every consolation for not giving her what 
 he never could bestow ? 
 
 While he spoke 
 She neither blushed nor shook, but deadly pale 
 Stood grasping what was nearest, then replied : 
 " Of all this will I nothing ! " and so fell. 
 
 There can be but one opinion of the beauty of these 
 passages. But it is the fate of our modern school of poets 
 not to know the boundary line of good taste. The story 
 ends by this young lady not only dying of love, and singing 
 a song in which death is declared to be sweeter than love, 
 but giving directions for a sentimental burial. 
 
 Upon the whole, the reputation of Tennyson has not been 
 greatly advanced by the Idylls. 
 
 " The Princess," on the contrary, is a magnificent poem. 
 Its theme being woman's rights, or rather her claim to uni- 
 versity privileges and intellectual equality with man, it might 
 have been judged one far less promising than the Round 
 Table. But the Laureate's genius has shone inversely to 
 the greatness of his subjects. While Arthur degenerates 
 into a few rapidly-sketched pictures of knightly amours, 
 this poem swells into the dimensions of a great painting, 
 every part of which testifies to the fullest application and 
 the happiest exertion of his faculties. It shows the most 
 exuberant fancy, and is full of the most beautiful passages. 
 In the Idylls we have as it were extended but thinly- 
 planted lines of trees — these besides rather poles after all, or 
 only leaves atop ; in " The Princess " we have the luxuriant 
 forest, close-embowering shades, the warmth of every variety 
 of fairy vegetation, and the songs of life and music from the 
 warblers in the midst of it. 
 
 Another poet, without studying the advantage of an ideal 
 perspective, would at once have proceeded to describe the 
 wonders or the monstrosities of a female university ; but our 
 poet, while he makes his heroine a princess, plants his uni- 
 
I4Q THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 versity in the border of her kingdom, where its environs are 
 made attractive by all the embellishments of fancy. Here 
 she has retired with her attendant train of young ladies, 
 having brought them under a solemn vow not to go beyond 
 these liberties for three years, nor hold any communication 
 with the inferior sex of mankind, who, by the inscription 
 upon the gate, are forbidden to enter upon pain of death. 
 The young prince of an adjacent territory having been be- 
 trothed to her from childhood, and entertaining the most 
 devoted attachment for her, can only obtain access for him- 
 self and two of his young companions by being disguised in 
 woman's garments. Once introduced, we have them in the 
 interior of this mystic college, 
 
 With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, 
 And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
 
 The prince, in his disguise, has abundant opportunities 
 in conversation of drawing from the lips of his mistress 
 the peculiar doctrines of which she was the patroness, and 
 her high-minded contempt especially for the passion of which 
 he was himself the fond votary and slave. Can anything 
 be better than the following withering ridicule which he 
 entailed upon his head by singing in her presence a love- 
 madrigal ? 
 
 " Not for thee/' she said, 
 O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 
 Shall burst her veil : marsh-divers, rather, maid, 
 Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
 Grate her harsh kindred in the grass ; and this 
 A mere love-poem ! O for such, my friend, 
 We hold them slight ; they mind us of the time 
 When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, 
 That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, 
 And dress the victim to the offering up, 
 And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 
 And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 
 Poor soul ! I had a maid of honour once, 
 She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 
 A rogue of canzonets and serenades. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 141 
 
 I loved her, Peace be with her. She is dead, 
 So they blaspheme the more ! But great is song, 
 Used to great ends : ourself have often tried 
 Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dashed 
 The passion of the prophetess ; for song 
 Is duer unto freedom, force, and growth 
 Of spirit, than to junketing and love." 
 
 The prince and his companions having been eventually 
 discovered to be of the wrong sex, he has now to resort to 
 entreaties with a view to melt the heart of the princess, but 
 is doomed to find that a prince at her feet is no temptation 
 with her to abandon the grand sentiment which has taken 
 possession of her soul. 
 
 I wed with thee ! I bound by precontract, 
 
 Your bride, your bondslave ! not though all the gold 
 
 That veins the world were packed to make your crown, 
 
 And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
 
 Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us. 
 
 I trample on your offers and on you : 
 
 Begone ! we will not look upon you more. 
 
 Here, push them out at gates. 
 
 The reader will notice that our poet has been fortunate 
 enough, owing to his subject, which is modern, to fall upon 
 an entirely original heroine, for no poet had ever described a 
 young lady animated by the pride of female intellectualism, 
 and appearing as the advocate of woman's superiority to 
 love. Neither had any lover except this prince ever en- 
 countered such a strange obstacle to his suit. Tennyson 
 has admirably availed himself of this advantage. As the 
 plot advances, another rare opportunity for poetical descrip- 
 tion is afforded. The prince's father, imagining his son to 
 be in danger in the other kingdom, comes with an army for 
 his rescue, while an army appears in her father's kingdom 
 to oppose it. A melee takes place, in which the princess's 
 troops are successful, and the prince is wounded. The 
 triumph of her arms proves the overthrow of her heart. 
 She now compassionates him when wounded, and, waiting 
 upon him on his sick couch, gives him eventually her hand. 
 
H2 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 The prince at the same time gallantly meets the claims of 
 the other sex half way, nor could there be anything finer in 
 poetry, nor more perfect as a settlement of the great woman- 
 question, than the following lines with which the poem con- 
 cludes, spoken by the prince. 
 
 The woman's cause is man's, they rise or sink 
 Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Let her make herself her own, 
 To give or keep, to live and learn, and be 
 All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
 ' For woman is not undeveloped man, 
 
 But diverse : could we make her as the man, 
 
 Sweet love were slain ; his dearest bond is this, 
 
 Not like to like, but like in difference. 
 
 Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 
 
 The man be more of woman, she of man ; 
 
 He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 
 
 Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 
 
 She mental breadth, nor fail in childhood care, 
 
 Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 
 
 Till at the last she set herself to man, 
 
 Like perfect music set to noble words ; 
 
 And so these twain upon the skirts of time 
 
 Sit side by side, full summed in all their powers, 
 
 Dispensing harvest, serving the To-be. 
 
 Self-reverent each, and reverencing each, 
 
 Distinct in individualities. 
 
 " The Princess '' is in various respects a counterpart to 
 " Love's Labour Lost." There King Ferdinand and his 
 three companions in their zeal for study enter into the 
 same seclusion of themselves as men which the princess 
 and her companions did as women. In the one case all 
 intercourse with ladies, in the other all intercourse with 
 gentlemen, was forbidden, and the interval the same, 
 for three years. In both cases love proved mightier than 
 philosophy. We have only to read Shakespeare's play 
 (and it is by no means his best), to see the difference be- 
 tween the highest order of genius and poets such as 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 143 
 
 Tennyson, however they may abound in beautiful description 
 and talent and sentimentality. The object of both being 
 to show that love will triumph over all attempts after 
 such a pursuit of philosophy as would ignore its power, how 
 simply does the intuitive genius of Shakespeare accomplish 
 his end! Ere the resolution of Ferdinand is well formed, 
 the Princess of France with her three beauties chance to 
 come on an embassy to his court. No sooner do the sove- 
 reign and his three lords see them, than their intellectual 
 determinations melt away. The four are hopelessly in love. 
 Byron, having gone to a retired place in the royal park to 
 bemoan his fate, recognises the king approaching, climbs a 
 tree, and overhears his confession — who again steps aside on 
 the approach of Longueville, to obtain ear-witness of his con- 
 dition. In short, they discover to their confusion that they 
 are all already perjured men. Upon which Byron truly 
 observes :— 
 
 Have at you then, affection's men-at-arms ; 
 Consider what you first did swear unto, 
 To fast, to study, and to see no woman — 
 Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth. 
 Say, can you fast ? your stomachs are too young, 
 And abstinence engenders maladies. 
 And where that you have vowed to study, lords, 
 In that each of you hath forsworn his book, 
 Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look ? 
 For when would you, my lord, or you, or you 
 Have found the ground of study, excellence, 
 Without the beauty of a woman's face ; &c. 
 
 So the immortal dramatist ; and how true is all this to 
 nature ! Now let us see how our Laureate manages it. He 
 represents the princess, who with her followers had made 
 her rash vow, as having been precontracted with a foreign 
 prince. This prince, in order to gain access to her, has to 
 form the expedient of dressing himself and attendants in 
 women's clothes. By-the-bye, it is noticeable that though 
 Shakespeare often makes his heroines don man's attire, he 
 
144 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 does not adopt the other expedient, because it makes the 
 parties ridiculous. But, passing that, as a discovery takes 
 place, the princess is reasonably enough offended with 
 this direct infringement upon the rules of her institu- 
 tion, and therefore it is not to be expected that love would 
 triumph. So our author has to hunt about for another way 
 of it. He brings two armies into the field, and gets the 
 prince wounded ; his wound excites compassion, and love, 
 being akin to pity, is at last produced. What a deal of 
 clumsy machinery is here ! 
 
 " Enoch Arden " has found many admirers. A certain 
 simple beauty characterises it, and none will deny the 
 pathos of its close. It lies exposed, at the same time, to 
 many exceptions. These are partly connected with the 
 treatment of the subject, and partly with the subject itself. 
 Our author has fallen into the common snare of supposing 
 that the description of a scene in humble life is not subject 
 to the same rules as the description of incidents connected 
 with the upper ranks of society. He imagines that in this 
 case there is no necessity of putting forth the whole power 
 of the imagination, and that a plain bald narrative of events 
 is enough. The result is prosiness, which is supposed to be 
 naturalness. This is a mistake into which poets who have 
 been born in the upper ranks are apt to fall. You will never 
 find the Ayrshire ploughman guilty of such an error. First, 
 he knew that it is only what is poetical in humble life that 
 admits of poetical treatment ; and he was divinely gifted in 
 his selection of such incidents and scenes. Next, he knew 
 that, human nature being the same great thing in one rank 
 of life as in another, he must employ the same exalted ex- 
 pression and perfect style in dealing with both. 
 
 The subject itself was an unfortunate one. The case of a 
 young wife marrying a second time, under the impression 
 that her husband is dead — when, in point of fact, he makes 
 his appearance again — is in one sense terrible, but in 
 another allied with a feeling least of all akin to the serious. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 145 
 
 No doubt we have a pathetic description of poor Annie's 
 vague fear, after she had formed the new alliance, of some- 
 thing that might occur ; but this wicked heart of ours will 
 somehow experience another feeling than the tragical in the 
 apprehension of a husband turning up, who, if he was not 
 dead, ought to have been so. How long a woman whose 
 husband has disappeared from the field of vision, whether 
 by land or sea, but whose death cannot exactly be proved, 
 is bound to wait before she marry again, is a nice piece 
 of casuistry; but to marry at all is a very questionable 
 step. But what shall we say of Enoch's return ? There 
 can be nothing more distressing than for a man to find, 
 when coming home from a distant voyage, that another has 
 filled the situation he left vacant, even supposing this to 
 have been nothing other than a business situation; how 
 much more to find that some cuckoo has taken possession 
 of his marital nest — that some idiot lover, not knowing the 
 difference between a wife whose husband is still within the 
 possibilities of existence, and a widow, has quietly taken pos- 
 session of a doubtful territory. Enoch, we should say, on 
 discovering the awful fact, if he did not immediately institute 
 an action for damages, ought to have absconded from the 
 neighbourhood and from the country, if not from the con- 
 tinent. But nothing would satisfy him except to have one 
 look, at any rate, into the interior of the house, and to mount 
 a tree for the better inspection of his family. We are told, 
 too, by our Laureate, that it was a yew-tree (which shows 
 how careful he is in authenticating his facts), and it was in 
 the middle of March that the ascent was made ; and we are 
 further informed that Philip's house was the last house in 
 the street ! 
 
 In " Maud " we find Tennyson for once adopting some- 
 thing like the spirit and strain of Lord Byron. We have the 
 gloomy and passionate and egotistical ravings of one who in 
 the beginning of his career had been stung by the world, 
 and contemned it ; and who, being equally unfortunate in his 
 
 11 
 
146 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 after-love, from having slain in a duel the brother of his mis- 
 tress, is haunted by her spectre. The misanthropy of Lord 
 Byron's heroes was always rendered interesting by the trans- 
 cendent qualities they personally possessed, and not a little 
 by the belief we all had that they reflected the gloom of his 
 lordship's own spirit. That of Maud's lover cannot be said 
 to possess such claims upon our romantic consideration, 
 being only known to us as the son of one who had been led 
 on to ruin by a designing money speculator, and who had 
 committed suicide in a neighbouring quarry. This is an 
 ugly subject to begin with. The speculator whose villainy 
 had thus darkened his youthful soul was none other than 
 Maud's father ; and yet, since they had played together 
 in their childhood, he yields himself up to a fatal attach- 
 ment, which is reciprocated. The first part of the poem, 
 which describes the rise and progress of this singular 
 courtship, is remarkable chiefly from the absolute nothing- 
 ness of the incidents around which so many highly me- 
 lodious but rather namby-pamby measures are strung. He 
 meets her at the head of the village, when " the sunset 
 burned on the blossomed gable-ends," and this forms the 
 subject of one distich. He meets her in the village church, 
 and his heart beat so loud that he "could not hear the 
 snowy-handed, dilettante, delicate-handed priest intone." 
 She waves her hand one day to him on horseback, when 
 he was a mile, and, as he avers, more than a mile, from 
 the shore : — 
 
 I was walking a mile, 
 
 More than a mile from the shore ; 
 
 The sun looked out with a smile 
 Betwixt the cloud and the moor ; 
 
 And riding at set of day 
 Over the dark moorland, 
 
 Rapidly riding far away, 
 She waved to me her hand. 
 
 Most of this part of the poem is written in the very worst 
 taste. Take even the best of it : — 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 147 
 
 1. 
 Maud has a garden of roses 
 And lilies fair on a lawn ; 
 There she walks in her state, 
 And tends upon bed and bower ; 
 And thither I climbed at dawn, 
 And stood by her garden gate. 
 A lion ramps at the top ; 
 He is claspt by a passion-flower. 
 
 11. 
 
 Maud's own little oak room 
 
 (Which Maud, like a precious stone 
 Set in the heart of the carven gloom, 
 
 Lights with herself, when alone 
 She sits with her music and books, 
 
 And her brother lingers late 
 With a roystering company) looks 
 
 Upon Maud's own garden gate ; 
 And I thought, as I stood, if a hand as white 
 
 As ocean foam in the moon were laid 
 On the hasp of the window, and my Delight 
 
 Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to glide 
 
 Like a beam of the seventh heaven down to my side, 
 
 There were but a step to be made. 
 
 Some may think that it showed no small measure of cool- 
 ness on the part of the lover to notice that there was a lion 
 perched upon the top of the gate, but they will please observe 
 that it was claspt by a passion-flower. He has taken special 
 note too that Maud's room is oak-panelled, and the idea sug- 
 gested to him is a pretty one, that she is the gem, and that 
 the four carved walls are the frame. He was of course right 
 in his conjecture that the window, being a low one, there was 
 but a step to be made in order to her being at his side ; 
 though, with very proper caution, he adds that this was 
 upon the supposition that her hand were laid on the hasp. 
 The whole is as sorry verse as can well be conceived. 
 
 The poetry in the second part is in a higher strain. Some 
 readers may think that it is as high as Byron's — others may 
 think still higher. But the question is what judgment those 
 
 11* 
 
148 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 may arrive at who have read the pages three times over. 
 We are afraid such will find that in those wailings, tender 
 and passionate as they are, there is little but tragical sound 
 and pretty sentimentalities. Here, for example, is an average 
 specimen : he is referring to the spectre that haunted him 
 in the crowded city. 
 
 A shadow flits before me, 
 
 Not thou, but like to thee ; 
 
 Ah, Christ, that it were possible 
 
 For one short hour to see 
 
 The souls we loved, that they might tell us 
 
 What and where they be. 
 
 It leads me forth at evening, 
 
 It lightly winds and steals 
 
 In a cold white robe before me, 
 
 When all my spirit reels 
 
 At the shouts, the leagues of lights, 
 
 And the roaring of the wheels. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Do I hear her sing as of old, 
 
 My bird with the shining head, 
 
 My own dove with the tender eye ? 
 
 But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry, 
 
 There is some one dying or dead, 
 
 And a sullen thunder is rolled ; 
 
 For a tumult shakes the city 
 
 And I wake, my dream is fled. 
 
 In the shuddering dawn, behold, 
 
 Without knowledge, without pity, 
 
 By the curtains of my bed, 
 
 That abiding phantom cold. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Would the happy spirit descend 
 From the realms of light and song, 
 In the chamber or the street, 
 As she looks among the blest, 
 Should I fear to greet my friend, 
 Or to say, " Forgive the wrong," 
 Or to ask her, " Take me, sweet, 
 To the regions of thy rest " ? 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 149 
 
 But the broad light glares and beats, 
 
 And the shadow flits and fleets, 
 
 And will not let me be ; 
 
 And I loathe the squares and streets, 
 
 And the faces that one meets, 
 
 Hearts with no love 'for me ; 
 
 Alway I long to creep 
 
 Into some still cavern deep, 
 
 There to weep, and weep, and weep 
 
 My whole soul out to thee. 
 
 The whole poem is full of extravagances. Oddity seems 
 one of the characteristics of our present bards. Maud's lover 
 is eventually advised by her in a dream to enlist for the 
 Crimean war ; and the poem ends by telling us all what we 
 had been unable for the life of us to discover, the good 
 effected by that war, which it seems was that it delivered us 
 from the evils of peace. 
 
 It is refreshing to leave a poem of this description, and 
 come to " In Memoriam," justly looked upon as the chief 
 work of Tennyson, the most condensed in thought, and as 
 to its execution, perfect. 
 
 As a tribute to the dead it stands unrivalled. That was 
 a sublime and eternal crag of a monument which Milton 
 reared above the sea to him who sank in 
 
 That fatal and perfidious bark, 
 Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark ; 
 
 but never surely did art and genius together rear anything 
 so exquisitely ornamental as the thousand-mansioned mau- 
 soleum of Hallam. The very length of the elegy overwhelms 
 us, for it seems as if this procession of draped chariots of the 
 Muses, and flaming torches, and innumerable pall-bearers 
 from the realms of fancy, and thousands upon thousands of 
 embodied forms of the imagination conjured up as accompa- 
 nying representatives from every quarter of the world and of 
 nature herself, would never pass by in conveying the remains 
 of this youth to a distant posterity. It is the intensity of 
 
150 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 ( passion evinced by this fixed and long gaze after his departed 
 friend that indicates the extraordinary character of the 
 author's mind: The only parallel that suggests itself to us 
 is Dante, who in his endless Canzoniere persists in kindling 
 the flame again and again on the altar of the inexorable 
 Beatrice, as if he were bound never to let it die there. Her 
 charms had awakened an hour's admiration in many a heart, 
 or caused a month's unrest to others ; but it was in the great 
 Florentine that they awoke the passion which poured itself 
 forth in these inexhaustible songs. 
 
 The circling year's cold point I have attained 
 
 When the horizon gives the sun repose, 
 
 And in the east brings forth the heavenly twins. 
 
 The star of love remains removed from view, 
 
 Hid by the lucid ray across it thrown, 
 
 So widely as to form for it a veil ; 
 
 The planet also which gives strength to frost 
 
 Moves full disclosed through the capacious arch, 
 
 In which each of the seven cast little shade : 
 
 And yet no thought of love, 
 
 With which I am loaded, ever quits my mind, 
 
 That harder is than agate to retain 
 
 The image of a lady formed of stone ! 
 
 In Ethiopia's sands the pilgrim wind 
 
 Arises and the lurid air disturbs, 
 
 That burns beneath the scorching solar ray ; 
 
 Then, the sea passing, draws from it a mist 
 
 So thick, that if no other wind disturb, 
 
 It covers and shuts up this hemisphere, 
 
 And then dissolves, and falls in whitened flakes 
 
 Of chilling snow, or showers of noisome rain, 
 
 Whence saddened is the air, and nature mourns. 
 
 Yet Love, who all his nets 
 
 Withdraws to heaven as the tempest swells, 
 
 Never abandons me, beauty so great 
 
 Adorns this cruel lady whom I serve. 
 
 The marvel in the case before us is that friendship, com- 
 monly reckoned the weaker sentiment, should have burned 
 with a flame intenser than love itself. Nothing can reflect 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 151 
 
 more honour upon the heart of Tennyson, than that Hallam 
 should have inspired as deep a passion as Beatrice. 
 
 In star and flower 
 He feels him some diffusive power ; 
 
 he has no joy more in " the herald melodies of spring; " and, 
 gazing on the old yew that " nets his dreamless head " in the 
 grave, and thinking of its thousand years of gloom, he seems 
 " to fail from out his blood and grow incorporate " into its 
 stem. This is his blessing upon the ship that brought " the 
 dark freight — his veiled life." 
 
 Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, 
 
 My blessing, like a line of light, 
 
 Is on the waters day and night, 
 And like a beacon guards thee home. 
 
 So may whatever tempest mars 
 
 Mid ocean, spare thee, sacred bark ; 
 
 And balmy drops in summer dark 
 Slide from the bosom of the stars. 
 
 So kind an office hath been done, 
 Such precious relics brought by thee, 
 The dust of him I shall not see 
 
 Till all my widowed race be run. 
 
 And this is his description of the hideous dreams which now 
 haunted his soul, mingled with the appearance of his friend. 
 
 I cannot see the features right 
 When on the gloom I strive to paint 
 The face I know ; the hues are faint, 
 
 And mix with hollow masks of night. 
 
 Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, 
 A gulf that ever shuts and gapes, 
 A hand that points, and pallid shapes 
 
 In shadowy thoroughfares of thought ; 
 
 And crowds that stream from yawning doors, 
 
 And shoals of puckered faces drive, 
 
 Dark bulks that tumble half alive, 
 And lazy lengths on boundless shores ; 
 
152 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Till all at once beyond the will 
 
 I hear a wizard music roll, 
 
 And thro' a lattice of the soul 
 Looks thy fair face and makes it still. 
 
 If Dante possessed an advantage over Tennyson in having 
 female beauty to apostrophize, and not merely an accom- 
 plished fellow-student, so also had he the benefit of an in- 
 finitely melodious language. He lived in a country where, 
 as if by way of some small compensation for the incubus 
 of popery, God has driven every cloud from the sky and all 
 dissonance from the language. Our poet in writing his "In 
 Memoriam " not only laboured under the disadvantage of 
 our rugged English, but unfortunately adopted the most 
 wretched measure known in this country. Even had he 
 chosen the metre of the psalms of David, he would at least 
 have pleased the ear by a constant musical descent. As 
 it is, we are deprived of this gratification, and there is 
 nothing but an eternal revolution of these monotonous 
 muffled cylinders. It must ever be considered as a miracle 
 that he escaped ruining the poem by subjecting himself to 
 this gratuitous source of annoyance. 
 
 All the disadvantages have not yet been mentioned which 
 he has triumphed over in this singular production. Bereave- 
 ment may be granted to be a good theme for poetry, but 
 might have been judged to be thoroughly exhausted in a 
 world where death has reigned so long. Besides, it is in 
 some respects a narrow theme, suggesting to ordinary minds 
 only a few materials for verse, and these as obvious as they 
 are transcendently solemn and important. These have been 
 so infinitely diversified, however, in the poetical descrip- 
 tion, that the " In Memoriam " may be compared to the 
 wonderful' instrument of Sir David Brewster. Just as the 
 few bits of glass turned round undergo every metamorphosis 
 that can entrance the wondering eye of childhood, so 
 were it impossible to tell the different forms of beauty 
 which strike the eye as the subject revolves in the endless 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 153 
 
 parts of this immortal kaleidoscope. At one time, in 
 
 thinking of his exalted friend, he compares himself to 
 
 some village maiden, victim of a hopeless love for one in 
 high station. 
 
 He past ; a soul of nobler tone : 
 My spirit loved and loves him yet, 
 Like some poor girl whose love is set 
 
 On one whose rank exceeds her own. 
 
 He mixing with his proper sphere, 
 
 She finds the baseness of her lot, 
 
 Half jealous of she knows not what, 
 And envying all that meet him there. 
 
 The little village looks forlorn ; 
 
 She sighs amid her narrow days, 
 
 Moving about in household ways, 
 In that dark house where she was born. 
 
 The foolish neighbours come and go, 
 And tease her till the day draws by : 
 At night she weeps, " How vain am I ! 
 
 How should he love a thing so low ? " 
 
 The poet turns the subject round in his hands, and now 
 his friend looks down upon this world, as one who has risen 
 from humble birth to be prime minister of his country may- 
 think of the fields where he played in childhood, and where 
 some school companion of his may even now be following 
 
 the plough. 
 
 Dost thou look back on what hath been, 
 As some divinely gifted man, 
 Whose life in low estate began, 
 And on a simple village green ; 
 
 Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
 And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
 And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
 
 And grapples with his evil star ; 
 
 Who makes by force his merit known, 
 
 And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
 
 To mould a mighty state's decrees, 
 And shape the whisper of the throne ; 
 
1 54 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 And moving up from high to higher, 
 
 Becomes on fortune's crowning slope 
 
 The pillar of a people's hope, 
 The centre of a world's desire. 
 
 Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, 
 
 When all his active powers are still, 
 
 A distant dearness in the hill, 
 A secret sweetness in the stream, 
 
 The limit of his narrower fate, 
 
 While yet beside its vocal springs, 
 
 He played at counsellors and kings, 
 With one that was his earliest mate, 
 
 Who ploughs with pain his native lea, 
 
 And reaps the labour of his hands, 
 
 Or in the furrow musing stands ; 
 Does my old friend remember me ? 
 
 Once again the magical instrument revolves, and the hope- 
 less elevation of the glorified one changes into the possibility 
 of his being advantaged even in heaven by remembrance of 
 his early friend. 
 
 Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt, 
 I lull a fancy trouble-tost 
 With, "Love's too precious to be lost, 
 
 A little grain shall not be spilt." 
 
 And in that solace I can sing, 
 
 Till out of painful phases wrought, 
 
 There flutters up a happy thought, 
 Self-balanced on a lightsome wing : 
 
 Since we deserved the name of friends, 
 
 And thine effect so lives in me, 
 
 A part of mine may live in thee, 
 And move thee on to noble ends. 
 
 As the elegiac strain flows on we find him in one place ex- 
 ulting in the blessed fellowship he shall have with the loved 
 one in heaven; when, again, suddenly he is struck dumb 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 155 
 
 with the reflection that his friend having had the start of him 
 hy a lifetime, he may never overtake him throughout eternity. 
 What wealth of fancy meets us in this poem ! what pro- 
 digality of thought ! what felicities of expression ! We are 
 conducted through innumerable chambers of imagery ; we 
 walk through a thousand and one dim-lighted corridors ; we 
 step out into ever so many gardens of flowers ; we are in the 
 night always, more or less, but it is through all kinds of 
 darkness we pass, of the wood, of the sky, now starless, now 
 full-mooned ; but when all nature has been ransacked, not 
 even then does the poet seem able to discover considerations 
 enough to heal the great wound that death had made in his 
 soul. The following verses, in which he is fain to discover 
 one consolation in its being better to have lost his friend 
 than never to have known and loved him, have been always 
 admired for the exquisiteness of their expression. 
 
 I envy not in any moods 
 
 The captive void of noble rage, 
 
 The linnet born within the cage, 
 That never knew the summer woods. 
 
 I envy not the beast that takes 
 
 His license in the field of time, 
 
 Unfettered by the sense of crime, 
 To whom a conscience never wakes ; 
 
 Nor what may count itself as blest, 
 The heart that never plighted troth, 
 But stagnates in the weeds of sloth, 
 
 Nor any want-begotten rest. 
 
 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. 
 
 We venture to suggest that the second verse mars the rest. 
 We are not sure if the illustration it contains logically ap- 
 plies ; it is an ugly one at any rate, and perhaps the least 
 fitted to carry our assent of any he could have produced. 
 
1 5 6 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 In so long a poem many mediocre and poor passages maybe 
 expected to occur. Referring to the consolation that might 
 be suggested to him of bereavement being something com- 
 mon to all, he considers it necessary to insist upon the wide 
 prevalence of that calamity in such verses as the following, 
 some of which are doggrel enough. 
 
 O father, wheresoe'er thou be, 
 
 Who pledgest now thy gallant son, 
 A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 
 
 Hath stilled the life that beat from thee. 
 
 O mother, praying God will save 
 Thy sailor, while thy head is bowed, 
 His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 
 
 Drops in his vast and wandering grave. 
 * * * * 
 
 O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, 
 
 Thou 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 ribbon 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 turned, the curse 
 Had fallen, and her future lord 
 Was drowned in passing through the ford, 
 
 Or killed in falling from his horse. 
 
 Our readers will agree with us that what Tennyson says 
 of this argument itself for consolation, is applicable to his 
 own verses upon it. 
 
 And common is the common-place, 
 And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 157 
 
 Sometimes we have an elaborate attempt to ornament 
 nothing. Instead of saying "that if ever he was sinful 
 enough to become indifferent to his friend, he hoped God, 
 who saw such a thing likely to happen, might kill him," he 
 
 writes : — 
 
 And if that Eye which watches guilt 
 And goodness, and hath power to see 
 Within the green, the mouldered tree, 
 
 And towers fall'n as soon as built ; 
 
 Oh ! if indeed that eye foresee, 
 
 Or see (in Him is no before) 
 
 In more of life true life no more, 
 And love the indifference to be ; 
 
 Then might I find, ere yet the morn 
 
 Breaks hither over Indian seas, 
 
 That shadow waiting for the keys, 
 To shroud me from my proper scorn. 
 
 Nay, there are whole hundreds of lines together not very 
 much above mediocrity. But these blemishes, what are they 
 but as the dull spots on the face of the shining Orb that 
 rules and will never cease to rule the night ; and when they 
 have been pointed out, it remains true that seldom has there 
 been written a more marvellous work than the " In Memo- 
 riam ;" elaboration and passion both combined in it ; not an 
 elegy, but one hundred and thirty-one elegies, sustaining the 
 interest of the reader throughout without plot or connection ; 
 any one of them enough to have done credit to a poet, but 
 when taken together well entitling him to the Laureate 
 crown. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF TENNYSON. 
 
 If we proceed now to close a criticism which has been 
 largely laudatory, with unmingled censure, it is because 
 Tennyson, not satisfied with being a poet, has considered it 
 necessary to broach those dangerous religious sentiments of 
 which he is a neophyte. 
 
 The views he holds upon religion are largely those of 
 Browning and of Carlyle, and we must refer our readers there- 
 
158 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 fore to the essays upon these writers in the preceding part of 
 this volume. We have shown there what is their theory of 
 the history of all true, vital religion in the soul of any man. 
 
 First, there is a season of distress, almost despair, arising 
 from scepticism not merely with regard to the truth of 
 Christianity, but the very existence and personality of God 
 Himself. This is so far, according to them, from being 
 a wrong, and a dangerous and a criminal experience, that 
 it is represented as a desirable and salutary process to begin 
 with. It is with them the first sign of life, and in many 
 respects the best regenerator. The way in which they 
 emerge from this salutary despair into the faith both of God 
 and of Christianity is equally novel. They come to faith in 
 God's existence again, but it is not by the old way of coming 
 to be satisfied by evidences of Divine power and wisdom in 
 His works around them. They maintain that all such in- 
 tellectual arguments are unsatisfactory, and they rest ex- 
 clusively upon that apprehension they have of His existence 
 partly intuitive and partly gathered from the law written 
 within our hearts. So with Christianity. They come back 
 to the faith of it. But it is not in the old way, not in the 
 way of being convinced by evidence of the truth of the his- 
 torical Record, or of the miracles. They judge all such evi- 
 dence to be unsatisfactory ; and, besides, they reckon it to 
 be unnecessary. They profess to reach faith in Christianity 
 by the law within, and the light of nature. Looking there, 
 they have found God to be a God of love, and therefore 
 Christ, who is the incarnation of love, is commended to 
 them to be really and truly the Son of God, without any 
 other evidences being required. 
 
 If Tennyson hold this theory, then, we may expect to find 
 him in his poetry showing and commending that noble agony 
 of soul which consists in doubting ; for another thing, we 
 may expect to find him ignoring the Bible, and striving to 
 solve the mysteries of life in the same melancholy way in 
 which a heathen philosopher would do, who had nothing but 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 159 
 
 the light of human reason to work by ; once again, we may- 
 expect to find that when he comes to speak of Christ it will 
 be with a vague uncertainty of belief. How far our readers 
 can testify from their own experience to his poetry as being 
 thus characterized we cannot tell. But we shall proceed to 
 state our proof from his writings that he holds by the strange 
 and pernicious theory to which reference has been made. 
 
 In proof of his maintaining the doctrine that a sceptical 
 distress or despair is what forms the effective turning point 
 for a man in religion, let us refer to his poem entitled 
 
 " THE PALACE OF ART." 
 
 Evidently the object of this poem is'to show that the ten- 
 dency of man is to seek his satisfaction, in the first instance, 
 in a proud, selfish, isolated cultivation of his intellect, and 
 enjoyment of all that is beautiful in art and in nature. This 
 the poet sets forth figuratively when he represents himself 
 as having built this lordly palace for his soul, which contained 
 emblematically within it whatever was great in art, nature, 
 and philosophy. At this stage of his experience he had no 
 sympathy with, and took no interest in, suffering humanity 
 around him, and the painful riddle which it exhibits, though 
 sometimes glanced at superficially, did not disturb his happi- 
 ness at all. 
 
 My soul would live alone unto herself 
 In her high palace there. 
 
 Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 
 Flashed through her as she sat alone, 
 
 Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth 
 And intellectual throne. 
 
 He was able, under the influence of such teachings and 
 tastes as he had in this isolated palace, to look down upon the 
 low profligacies of the sensual, but it was with a certain 
 pride and complacency. 
 
 O godlike isolation which art mine, 
 I can but count thee perfect gain, 
 What time I watch the darkening drove of swine 
 That range on yonder plain ; 
 
160 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, 
 They graze and wallow, breed and sleep, 
 
 And oft some brainless devil enters in 
 And drives them to the deep. 
 
 He had, moreover, a proud self-sufficient belief of a future 
 state, and that all would be well with him hereafter ; and, 
 stored as he was with the knowledge of all that was great in 
 mental acquirement, and all that was great in human achieve- 
 ment, he had no regard to one religious creed more than 
 another. 
 
 Then of the moral instinct would she prate, 
 And of the rising from the dead, 
 
 As hers by right of full-accomplished fate ; 
 And at the last she said — 
 
 "I take possession of man's mind and deed, 
 I care not what the sects may brawl ; 
 
 I sit as God, holding no form of creed, 
 But contemplating all." 
 
 Let us stop here for a moment. Such then is the repre- 
 sentation Tennyson gives us, so far as we have gone, of his 
 first — shall we call it his unconverted state ? For if he 
 means anything by the description he presents us with in 
 this poem, it is to set forth a great change which he 
 experienced, and which we must all experience. The poem 
 contains, if it contains anything, the view of our friends 
 of the new school of theology (since our poets are standing 
 forth now as theological teachers) with regard to the great 
 change which our souls must undergo — shall we call it a 
 saving change ? 
 
 Let us notice that the description he gives us of the first 
 state of his soul exactly answers to the doctrine of Carlyle, 
 who grants that the mere cultivation of the intellect and of 
 the arts is not enough ; also that there is a certain selfish- 
 ness which is natural to us, and a proud self-sufficiency, 
 which must be knocked out of us. 
 
 Well — to go on with the poem — next comes the great 
 change which took place, Tennyson's account of his own 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 161 
 
 conversion in short, for if it does not mean that, what other 
 great change is it that he refers to — it being of sin and purga- 
 tion from it that he speaks so explicitly at the close. Here 
 it is ; speaking of his soul : — 
 
 And so she throve and prospered ; so three years 
 
 She prospered ; on the fourth she fell, 
 Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, 
 
 Struck thro' with pangs of hell. 
 
 Lest she should fail and perish utterly, 
 
 God, before whom ever lie bare 
 The abysmal deeps of personality, 
 
 Plagued her with sore despair. 
 
 When she would think, where'er she turned her sight, 
 
 The airy hand confusion wrought, 
 Wrote " Mene, mene," and divided quite 
 
 The kingdom of her thought. 
 
 Further on he still describes the state of his soul. 
 
 A spot of dull stagnation, without light 
 
 Or power of movement, seemed my soul, 
 Mid onward-sloping movements infinite, 
 
 Making for one sure goal. 
 
 A star that with the choral starry dance 
 
 Joined not, but stood, and standing saw 
 The hollow orb of moving circumstance 
 
 Rolled round by one fixed law. 
 
 " No voice," she shrieked, in that lone hall ; 
 " No voice breaks through the stillness of this world : 
 One deep, deep silence all ! " 
 
 Thus his soul certainly went through an experience of dis- 
 tress, and almost of despair, which he describes as having 
 been necessary, and without which it would have " failed and 
 perished." When Tennyson and his companions Carlyle and 
 Browning come before the nation to detail the processes of 
 conviction and sore agony by which they reached salvation 
 at last, they are 4 entitled to expect that we shall seriously and 
 reverentially consider them. How was this distress or des- 
 
 12 
 
1 62 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 pair then produced ? We may in part gather this from the 
 title he gives to God, who produced it : — 
 
 God, before whom ever lie bare 
 The abysmal deeps of personality. 
 
 It seems to have been then " the abysmal deeps of personality " 
 into which he was plunged. The language is obscure, and 
 may refer either to the author's own personality — that, in 
 short, he was plunged into such deep questions as Carlyle 
 represents to suggest themselves to one who has begun to 
 think seriously — connected all with the Ego, " Whence did 
 I come ? whither am I going ?" &c; or it may refer to God's 
 personality — the deep perplexing question whether there be 
 a personal God. But whether it mean the one thing or the 
 other, it comes out distinctly enough in the verses I have 
 quoted that this distress by which he was seized was not 
 
 i caused by a sense of guilt brought home to his conscience 
 by the Word of God. This is what has generally been under- 
 stood by all Christendom to be the distress out of which any 
 good eventually comes. But that which Tennyson here 
 speaks of, so far from arising out of any such quarter, arose 
 from his being plunged into the "abysmal deeps" of specu- 
 
 > lation with regard to whether there be a God at all. It is 
 not that he hears God's voice thundering against him for 
 sins he has done, but it is that there is no voice breaking 
 through the stillness of this world : — 
 
 " No voice," she shrieked, in that lone hall, 
 " No voice breaks through the silence of this world : 
 One deep, deep silence all ; " 
 
 or, as he expresses it in a previous verse, that there is 
 nothing to be seen but 
 
 The hollow orb of moving circumstance 
 Rolled round by one fixed law. 
 
 Again, the distress and despair arises from this, that in 
 looking round him upon the natural world he sees an infinite 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 163 
 
 number of things all accomplishing surely their ends, while 
 he cannot understand for what end he himself was made. 
 
 A spot of dull stagnation, without light 
 Or power of movement, seemed my soul ; 
 
 Mid onward-sloping movements infinite, 
 Making for one sure goal. 
 
 All this distress and despair of his, in one word, is nothing 
 but an experience of doubt and perplexity connected with the 
 existence of a personal God, and with regard to his own 
 place physically in this mysterious system of the universe. 
 This is quite of a piece with Carlyle's teaching, which would 
 have us consider that there is no hope of a man till he 
 comes into a state of agonizing doubt with regard to such 
 subjects. A wonderful virtue is attached by it to this dis- 
 tress. So in this poem. The author describes his soul, 
 when thus led down into " the abysmal deeps of personality," 
 as being thereby led into the knowledge of her sins. The 
 sense of solitude into which she is brought in part product j 
 
 this. 
 
 Deep dread and loathing of her solitude 
 Fell on her, from which mood was born 
 Scorn of herself. 
 
 In his soul he now feels he is a sinner. 
 
 She howled aloud, " I am on fire within, 
 
 There comes no murmur of reply. 
 What is it that will take away my sin, 
 
 And save me lest I die V 
 
 In other words, Tennyson was led to see that he was a 
 sinner, and to cry out, "What shall I do to be saved?" 
 But how ? Not by the Word of God at all — but by this 
 doubt and darkness process, which by the very torment and 
 despair it caused made him seriously to think. Nay, it is 
 described, in the end of the poem, as being the means of 
 humbling him, and commencing a new life of penitence and 
 prayer, 
 
 12 * 
 
1 64 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 So when four years were wholly finished, 
 
 She threw her royal robes away. 
 " Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, 
 
 " Where I may mourn and pray. 
 
 "Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 
 
 So lightly, beautifully built ; 
 Perchance I may return with others there 
 
 When I have purged my guilt." 
 
 After this humiliation, undergone through scepticism, and the 
 blessed despairs connected with it have had their full work, 
 in short, he will speedily be all right, and mount his Rock 
 again. 
 
 Now there cannot be a more erroneous or a more dange- 
 rous doctrine than this, that all true religion in the soul 
 begins with scepticism and speculative perplexity, and that 
 the distresses connected with these are of the nature of a 
 wholesome humiliation, ending in salvation. It is the more 
 necessary to speak decisively upon this point, as the effect 
 of this deplorable teaching has been to produce in our 
 country, judging by the countless doggrel verses that infest 
 our higher periodicals, a host of young men who confound 
 the wailings of scepticism with earnestness in religion. What 
 is begotten of pride never can produce true humility. Nothing 
 but what is evil' can come out of scepticism. Its distresses 
 are the just punishment for the rejection of evidence. The 
 only good that can come out of them is that the party who 
 suffers under them be led thereby to see the error of his 
 having ever yielded to scepticism, and to reverse his exercise 
 and retrace his steps. When, on the contrary, such men as 
 Tennyson and Carlyle and Browning glory in this sceptical 
 distress of theirs, and count it to have been, in fact, their 
 baptism of fire, it will be found that they have come out of 
 it having parted with truths far more valuable than can ever 
 be compensated by the spurious humility and earnestness 
 with which they think that they now hold the miserably few 
 truths which they retain. 
 
 In proof that Tennyson dishonours the Bible by ignoring 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 165 
 
 . — i -"^ 
 
 it in the most elemental points of religion that require to 
 be settled, take 
 
 "the two voices." 
 In this poem he describes a contest he has with a despe- 
 rate temptation to commit suicide, and at once rid himself 
 of a miserable existence — a temptation which he meets by 
 a variety of arguments shown why he should still live on. 
 The one of the two Voices is that which tempts him to des- 
 pair. The other, with which the author identifies himself, 
 argues upon the side of hope, and of continuing to war on 
 in the battle of existence. Let it be noticed that this better 
 Voice, as appears from all the arguments adduced by it, 
 is the author's own reason. Never once does he refer to 
 a third Voice, that of God Himself speaking in His Word, 
 and which settles (as one would surely say) this whole 
 question. Tennyson might have found the decisive settle- 
 ment of the question there — and for him to seek the solution 
 of it from this croaking voice of his own reason, suggesting 
 some thirty and four arguments why he should not cut his 
 carotid, is abundantly ridiculous. If from the poem it ap- 
 peared that he was merely endeavouring as a holiday exercise 
 to show how the question could be settled by human reason,' 
 .^condemned him for that. But he is evidently in earnest, 
 without referring to positive revelation/we would not have > 
 Nay, he absolutely cries and weeps. Thus, reasoning with 
 the ugly voice that would lead him to commit suicide — 
 
 I would have said, " Thou canst not know;" 
 But my full heart, that worked below, 
 Rained thro' my sight its overflow. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 I wept, " Tho' I should die, I know 
 That;"&c. 
 
 He thus evidently writes as one who felt that the only satis- 
 factory settlement of this question was to be found in such 
 ridiculous argumentation as this of his own reason, and that 
 if it failed his hope and comfort were gone ! " The Two 
 
1 66 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Voices " is a production showing that its author belongs to 
 a school of writers who have surrendered their faith in the 
 Bible as in itself satisfactory even for determining whether 
 suicide be a virtue, or man have any higher and better 
 destiny. He sighs and groans under agonies of soul upon 
 these points, all the same as if he lived in a heathen land, 
 where he had to solve the mysteries of existence ; and he 
 expects besides that we are to sympathise with the maudling 
 distress of such an experience as he describes. 
 
 Let it not be said that we have exaggerated the constructive 
 dishonour put upon the Bible by this poem. He no doubt 
 in one passage of it refers the foul tempting Voice to Stephen 
 the martyr : — 
 
 I cannot hide that some have striven, 
 Achieving calm, to whom was given 
 The joy that mixes man with heaven. 
 
 Who, rowing hard against the stream, 
 Sa\v distant gates of Eden< gleam, 
 And did not dream it was a dream ; 
 
 But heard, by secret transport led, 
 E'en in the charnels of the dead, 
 The murmur of the fountain-head — 
 
 Which did accomplish their desire, 
 Bore arid forbore, and did not tire, 
 Like Stephen, an unquenche'd fire. 
 
 He heeded not reviling tones, 
 
 Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 
 
 Though cursed and scorn'd and bruised with stones. 
 
 But (i) the foul Voice having objected to this, that Stephen 
 had no fixed grounds for that hope of his, but was merely a 
 man of a kindlier nature than the commonalty of men — 
 
 Not that the grounds- of hope were fix'd, 
 The elements were kindlier mix'd — 
 
 does Tennyson immediately resent the insinuation by averring 
 that the grounds of his hope were God's infallible Word ? 
 Not he : he goes on maundering with his philosophical 
 arguments. The very way, then, in which this reference 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 167 
 
 to Stephen is disposed of is an additional dishonour cast 
 upon the Bible. (2) The way in which the reference to 
 Stephen is introduced, shows that in mentioning him Tenny- 
 son does not mean to fortify himself by the authority of the 
 Bible, or of the Christian creed or faith, but only by the 
 example of good men in general ; for he introduces it by a 
 contemptuous slight cast upon all creeds : — 
 
 I know that age to age succeeds, 
 Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, 
 A dust of systems and of creeds. 
 
 Then comes in the passage I have quoted above : — 
 
 I cannot hide that some have striven, 
 Achieving calm, &c. ; 
 
 among whom he mentions Stephen, but only as one of the 
 great men of any creed as well as another, upon whom we 
 know that Carlyle builds his confidence more than the Bible 
 or any written record. 
 
 Next, we may be reminded, in his defence, of the way by 
 which at the close of the poem he represents himself as being 
 relieved from his temptation. Well, what is that ? Hechances, 
 it being Sabbath morning, to hear the church bells ringing, 
 and to see the country people with their families walking to 
 the sanctuary. This is represented as restoring his drooping 
 hope regarding man's destinies. And how ? By suggesting 
 a sentimental, intuitive conviction of there being something 
 in religion, as indefinite, however, as may be. He calls it 
 
 A little hint to solace woe, 
 
 A hint, a whisper breathing low, 
 
 " I may not speak of what I know." 
 
 Like an ^Eolian harp that wakes 
 
 No certain air, but overtakes 
 
 Far thought with music that it makes ; 
 
 Such seem'd the whisper at my side ; 
 
 " What is it thou knowest, sweet voice ?" I cried. 
 
 " A hidden hope," the voice replied. 
 
 It is enough to make one smile to see how willingly this 
 
1 63 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 writer renounces the infallible certainty of the Bible for this 
 sweet little hope of his, begotten of church bells and the 
 sight of people going to church, though he does not go to 
 the church himself; for the best of the joke is that, instead 
 of joining this goodly company, he adds : — 
 
 And forth into the fields I went, 
 
 And nature's living motion lent 
 
 The pulse of hope to discontent ! &c. 
 
 We have only to add that the whole of this production, 
 judged by the rules of art, is not of the highest ; a half-way 
 halt between prose and poetry, so that any man having 
 Tennyson's abilities might drive three lines in hand of this 
 quality to the end of time, without deserving much praise 
 after all. 
 
 I have shown at length in the essays upon Carlyle and 
 Browning, that, according to them, the essential design of 
 Christianity was to show us that God is love — in the sense 
 that there is no such thing as wrath in Kim. They con- 
 sider that the Son of God became Flesh, not to make an 
 atonement for our sins by His blood-shedding, but, on the 
 contrary, to show that there is no necessity for any such 
 atonement being made — that there is nothing in God of 
 this peculiarity of wrath or inflexibility of justice — to 
 show, in short, that God is one like unto ourselves, or (to 
 use their own language) to show " the flesh that is in God." 
 Hence they renounce the phraseology we have been accus- 
 tomed to, and instead of talking of " God in the flesh," are 
 fond of using the other expression, " the flesh in God." 
 Having thus changed Christianity altogether, and represented 
 the object of Christ's mission and incarnation as having been 
 simply to convince or inform us that God is love — they are 
 prepared, secondly, to maintain that miracles and the written 
 Record are quite unnecessary to prove the truth of Chris- 
 tianity, since the law within our own hearts, and observations 
 of the natural world around us, tell us that God is love. They 
 begin in the pride of their understanding with the rejection 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 169 
 
 of miracles and all that is supernatural and distasteful in 
 the contents of the Bible. Having presumptuously changed 
 Christianity into the system I have mentioned above, they 
 judge this to be one great recommendation of it, that it is 
 a Christianity which can be proved by the indigenous sen- 
 timents of our own heart, and from the light of nature 
 herself. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson has adopted these views. His faith, too, 
 as he expresses it in his " Enoch Arden," is 
 
 In that mystery 
 Where God-in-man is one with man-in-God. 
 
 In proof that he looks upon Christianity as being nothing 
 more after all than what is written naturally upon our hearts, 
 let us look to his 
 
 " IN MEMORIAM." 
 
 In sections xxxi. and xxxii. Christmas Eve suggests the 
 subject of his friend's resurrection and continued existence in 
 another world, and starts the question as to whether friends 
 there may recognise one another. Notice is taken of Lazarus's 
 resurrection, and that nothing is said in Scripture of Mary 
 having interrogated her risen brother regarding his experi- 
 ences after death. Both subtile questions and " curious fears " 
 are represented in her case as swallowed up in joy and love. 
 
 All subtile thought, all curious fears, 
 Borne down by gladness so complete, 
 She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 
 
 With costly spikenard and with tears. 
 
 Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
 Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
 • What souls possess themselves so pure, 
 Or is there blessedness like theirs ? 
 
 "What does Tennyson mean by her " curious fears " being 
 borne down ? He can only mean such fears as curiosity 
 might have suggested to another, as to whether a death 
 and resurrection had really taken place at all. Let it be 
 noticed, then, that our poet has passed from the trifling sub- 
 ject of her not having asked her brother of his experiences 
 
170 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 after death to the very different and much graver point of 
 her not having entertained " curious fears " about the whole 
 subject of this miracle of a resurrection. He would have us 
 believe that these were banished from her mind, not by the 
 indisputable evidence of her own eyes, which saw him rise 
 from the grave after four days' interment, but by gladness 
 and love. And he considers her as being blest in this sim- 
 plicity of hers. 
 
 That this is his view of the matter comes out by his pro- 
 ceeding, in the section (xxxiii.) which follows, to counsel those 
 who may " seem to have reached a purer air " by taking the 
 law within as the rule of their faith, not to vex their sisters 
 — poor things ! — who, in their simplicity, accept without 
 doubting all that is miraculous in the Record. 
 
 O thou, that after toil and storm, 
 
 May'st seem to have reached a purer air, 
 Whose faith has centre everywhere, 
 
 Nor cares to fix itself in form. 
 
 Leave thou thy sister when she prays, 
 
 Her early heaven, her happy views ; 
 
 Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse 
 A life that lends melodious days. 
 
 Her faith, thro' form, is pure as thine, 
 
 Her hands are quicker unto good ; 
 
 Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 
 To which she links a truth divine. 
 
 See thou, that countest reason ripe 
 
 In holding by the law within, 
 
 Thou fail not in a world of sin, 
 And e'en for want of such a type. 
 
 Let us examine this. The party he counsels is he who 
 "counts reason ripe in holding by the law within;" that is, 
 who thinks the most advanced stage of enlightenment is 
 reached when, instead of making a positive revelation like 
 that of the Bible the ultimate rule of faith, we prefer the law 
 written indelibly and universally upon our hearts. This is 
 the idea of our more thorough and radical modern rationalists. 
 They consider that Voltaire and others at the period of the 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 171 
 
 French Revolution did no essential damage when they over- 
 threw all faith in the Christian Record or in Christ Himself ; 
 for they profess to discover that God is a God of love, and 
 willing to save us all, from the natural world around them, 
 and the sentiments originally engraven upon humanity. They 
 are well described in this section as they 
 
 Whose faith is centred everywhere, 
 Nor cares to fix itself to form ; 
 
 — that is, to any one formulated and embodied system, such 
 
 as Christianity is. 
 
 Now. of these out-and-out, or more radical rationalists, 
 
 Tennyson affirms their faith to be " pure." Indeed, with 
 
 regard to the sister, all he claims for her is — 
 
 Her faith, thro' form, is pure as thine. 
 
 These rationalists, according to him, possess the " truth 
 
 divine ; " the only difference is that she links the truth 
 
 divine to " flesh and blood ; " 
 
 Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 
 To which she links a truth divine. 
 
 No doubt he warns them lest, in holding by " the law 
 within," they should fail in such a world as this, " even for 
 want of such a type " — meaning such a type or embodied 
 manifestation as Christ or Christianity affords of the Divine 
 truth (that God is love) engraven upon the heart. 
 
 But in going thus far, Tennyson goes no farther than 
 Carlyle and Robert Browning, who are Christian rationalists. 
 With him Christianity is only a "type" or "form" of that 
 Divine truth which is written upon the hearts of us all by 
 nature. We learn by " the law within," and observation of 
 the world around us, that God is love, or willing to pardon 
 and save us all, and that there is a blessed future before us ; 
 only it was necessary that this Divine truth should be taught 
 us in a " typal," " flesh and blood " way, which it is in what 
 they are pleased to call " the tale that is abroad in the 
 world " of Christ, or the Son of God incarnate. He accord- 
 ingly proceeds to show in sections xxxiv. and xxxv. that all 
 
172 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 the essential truth regarding man's eternal well-being in a 
 future world can be discovered and reasoned out by Nature's 
 light. Then in section xxxvi. he shows that the service done 
 by Christianity is merely in having made the truth more 
 patent, especially to humbler and meaner capacities. 
 
 Though truths in manhood darkly join, 
 
 Deep seated in our mystic frame, 
 
 We yield all blessing to the name 
 Of Him who made them current coin ; 
 
 For wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
 Where truth in closer words shall fail, 
 When truth embodied in a tale 
 
 Shall enter in at lowly doors. 
 
 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. 
 
 Thus the only truth that is necessary unto salvation — the 
 truth that God is love, and willing to save us all — is one 
 which can be known by human reason and the light of 
 nature ; and all that Christianity has done is to make it 
 patent to field-labourers, masons, and grave-diggers. 
 
 We have not space nor leisure to show the utter fallacy 
 of this view of Christianity, which resolves it into nothing 
 more than what natural religion, after all, can teach. Our 
 end has been gained when we have established what it is that 
 Tennyson means by Christianity — what an entirely new re- 
 ligion it is which he and other singing apostles of our day 
 are propagating in the land, and what it is they mean when 
 
 they say — 
 
 Ring in the Christ that is to come. 
 
 Not only is Christianity, as understood by Tennyson and 
 his school, something entirely different from what all evan- 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 173 
 
 gelical Christians understand by the term ; but having re- 
 jected the evidence of miracles and of the historical Record, 
 they have no proof even of the existence of Christ. All they 
 can say is that nature testifies that God is love, and Christ, 
 as manifested in the gospel, is such a manifestation of love 
 as we might expect. Our readers will observe that in the 
 above quotation Tennyson calls the gospel a "tale." So 
 does Browning — " a tale that is abroad." Accordingly, was 
 there ever such a miserable exhibition of scepticism as 
 Tennyson exhibits in the very exordium of his " In 
 
 Memoriam " ? — 
 
 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. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 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. 
 
 In the first of these verses, while he professes to embrace 
 Christ by faith, he acknowledges that he cannot prove His 
 existence. He is perfectly right there. I have shown to 
 demonstration, in the essay upon Browning, that none of 
 their school who have rejected miracles and the Record can 
 prove the historical existence of Christ. But I had not 
 thought that Tennyson would have had the simplicity to 
 confess so much before the face of his fellow-countrymen. 
 " Thou seemest human and divine " is the very bathos of 
 religious confession — the very getting down upon his knees 
 in the humiliation of rationalistic helplessness. He cannot 
 tell for his part whether Christ be both human and divine, 
 but he rather thinks so ! See to what a wretched pass of 
 uncertainty those are reduced who have left the sure and 
 divinely- attested Record, and who have adopted a Chris- 
 tianity which has to be groped after through the light of 
 nature ! 
 
 To give another illustration of it farther on in this poem. 
 
174 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Instead of grounding his hope in an everlasting salvation 
 upon the sure ground of the Bible, he persists in arguing for 
 it from the light of nature. He thinks that he finds a 
 conviction in his own heart that all men will be saved — that 
 not one will perish — 
 
 That not one life shall be destroyed, 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
 When God hath made the pile complete. 
 * * * * 
 
 The wish that of the living whole 
 
 No life may fail beyond the grave, 
 
 Derives it not from what we have 
 The likest God within the soul." 
 
 But, alas! looking abroad, he shortly finds that God in 
 the natural world seems careless of -individual life at least. 
 This staggers him. 
 
 But I, considering everywhere 
 
 Her secret meaning in her deeds, 
 
 And finding that of fifty seeds 
 She often brings but one to bear ; 
 
 I falter where I firmly trod, &c. 
 
 Down he falls accordingly 
 
 Upon the great world's altar-stairs 
 That slope through 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. 
 
 When he has thus got a faint hope again, however, it is 
 doomed to a speedy extinction. He suddenly bethinks him- 
 self next of geological discoveries, and finds that God is 
 careless not merely of individual life — types and genera of the 
 animal creation have disappeared. This throws him into 
 new convulsions. 
 
 " So careful of the type ! " but no, 
 
 From scarped cliff and quarried stone, 
 She cries, " A thousand types are gone ; 
 I care for nothing, all shall go. 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 175 
 
 " Thou makest thine appeal to me ; 
 
 I bring to life, I bring to death ; 
 
 The spirit does but mean the breath : 
 I know no more.'' And he, shall he, — 
 
 Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, 
 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 
 Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, 
 Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer ; 
 
 Who trusted God was love indeed, 
 
 And love creation's final law ; 
 
 Though nature, red in tooth and claw 
 With ravine, shrieked against his creed ; 
 
 Who loved, who suffered countless ills, 
 
 Who battled for the true, the just, 
 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 Or sealed within the iron hills ? 
 
 No more ? A monster then, a dream, 
 
 A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
 
 That tear each other in their slime, 
 Were mellow music matched with him. 
 
 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. 
 
 The above verses are magnificent poetry. As I have said 
 at the beginning of the present essay, we are indebted for 
 the most splendid passages of modern poetry to the fearful 
 struggles which these infant Herculeses "crying in the 
 night " of noonday revelation have imposed upon themselves 
 by choosing to disbelieve their Bible. But the question is 
 whether this be a legitimate and praiseworthy source of the 
 sublime ? The highest bursts of genius to be found in Byron 
 were inspired by the agonies he drew down upon himself 
 through his erratic career, and the collision into which 
 this brought him with the world. The irregularity of his 
 passions was not the less to be condemned because it 
 added to his verses, and we decidedly object to the 
 gratuitous agonies to which some of our modern poets are 
 
176 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 indebted for their inspiration. In this respect we place this 
 last quotation from Tennyson alongside of Byron's famous 
 forgiveness-curse in the last canto of his " Childe Harold." 
 
 The limits of this essay warn us that it is high time to 
 close our remarks upon the peculiar religious sentiments of 
 Tennyson ; but we cannot do this without adverting to the 
 opportunity he has embraced of introducing them into his 
 Arthur and 
 
 " THE HOLY GRAIL." 
 
 The opinion has sometimes been expressed that our author 
 in the "Idylls of the King" intended to convey some 
 religious instruction — nobody exactly knows what. We 
 are surprised at this. Those who are acquainted with the 
 theological school to which he belongs must be familiar 
 with the plan adopted by its poets and literary men in order 
 to spread its doctrines. They fix upon some marked character 
 in past history, whom for the nonce they adopt for their 
 hero, representing him as having been above the religious 
 prejudices of the times when he lived — influenced in his 
 conduct, not by the dogmas of the Church or of the Bible, 
 but by the law within his own heart — and arriving at 
 their kind of Christianity by the way they speak of, not by 
 being satisfied with miracles or the truth of the Record, 
 but by the intuition of reason. Thus Robert Browning in his 
 "Ring and the Book" finds the Pope who gave decision in 
 his famous murder case at Rome to have been one of these 
 lights of the world — a man whose Christianity was entirely 
 after his taste, being derived not from councils or decrees of 
 the Church, nay, not from the Bible itself, but from " the 
 law within " — the only Christianity which he accepted being 
 that which this " law within him " approved. The more 
 eccentric Carlyle selects one Sampson, an abbot of the 
 twelfth century, as his model, one whose " Catholicism was 
 something like the ism of all true men in all centuries, I fancy." 
 Now Tennyson with the same object in view has selected 
 Arthur of the Round Table. Nothing, to be sure, can be 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 177 
 
 more ridiculous than to have chosen the formidable warrior 
 and enemy of the Saxons as an example of the rationalistic 
 Christianity of the nineteenth century. But we know how men 
 of this school worship heroes of all sorts, and consider that 
 they were as truly God-raised and inspired as the prophet- 
 kings of the Bible. 
 
 That he looked upon Arthur as having established, in 
 " The Round Table," a most important Order in the world, 
 bearing upon the interests of religion as well as of society in 
 general, must have struck every reader of the Idylls. Thus 
 at the close he represents the king, when he dies, as com- 
 forting one of his followers under the breaking up of this 
 establishment ; 
 
 The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
 
 And when the king, in his phantom bark, becomes a speck 
 in the distance on his way to the Fairy Isle, the whole poem 
 ends with the enigmatical line, — 
 
 And the new sun rose, bringing the new year. 
 
 What does this "new sun" and "new year" mean? 
 Those only who are acquainted with the peculiar views of 
 the school will know this. It evidently refers to the new 
 development which religion in its onward progress was now 
 about to take in the peculiar phase of what we condemn as 
 popery, but what they consider to have been, and call, 
 the " Christianism" of the Middle Ages. I have shown at 
 length, in the essay upon Carlyle, that they consider this 
 " Christianism " to have been one grand stage in the onward 
 development of the human reason after Christ's coming ; 
 the Reformation being the second stage, and the French 
 Revolution being the third. Popery with its visions (such 
 as " The Holy Grail," which indicated its approach), its 
 miracles, its transubstantiation, its purgatory, &c, they hoi I 
 of course to be a thing now exploded, but they consider it to 
 
 13 
 
1 78 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 have been good at the time ; to have been the best which 
 the human reason, after the teaching of that " divine man " 
 Christ, could make of religion during these centuries. 
 Carlyle does not hesitate to call it " a sublime embodiment 
 of Christianity." Then came the Reformation, when that 
 blessed thing, the human reason, in its onward march, 
 exploded what was false in the forms of religion during 
 popery ; but it was still too weak to shake off credence 
 in apostolic miracles, in the plenary inspiration of the 
 Bible, and in such odious doctrines as the inflexible justice 
 of God and the necessity of an atonement. Next came 
 the French Revolution with its apostle Voltaire, whom they 
 commend and consider to have done good service in his \, 
 attempts to invalidate miracles and the Record, since the 
 true evidence for Christianity and test of what it is (according 
 to them) is to be found not in these, but in "the law 
 within." 
 
 Let these remarks be considered, and our readers will not 
 only see what Tennyson meant by " the new sun " and " new 
 year " coming in upon Arthur's death, but a flood of light 
 will be cast upon that mysterious episode in the Idylls, " The 
 Holy Grail." 
 
 Arthur is represented throughout as one of those tall 
 men of the past who were ahead of their age, and antici- 
 pated the boasted rationalistic Christianity of the nineteenth 
 century. His poor knights again are more behind in their 
 theology. Belonging to the common mass of men, they 
 must come under the influence of that popery of the Middle 
 Ages which was drawing near, and which, though it dealt in 
 visions and superstitions, was one stage in the advancing 
 development. Influenced by a holy nun, sister to one of the 
 knights, they show a determination accordingly to set out 
 in pursuit of " The Holy Grail," under the firm belief that 
 if they get a vision of this famous sacramental cup used by 
 our Lord Himself at the first communion, and which had 
 been brought by Joseph of Arimathea to Glastonbury, they 
 
ALFRED TENNYSON. 179 
 
 will be saved. Tennyson hereby represents the new era 
 that was coming in. 
 
 Meanwhile all this is described as distressing Arthur. He 
 considers this vision of " The Holy Grail " 
 
 A sign to maim the Order which I made. 
 
 He considers that the knights would have been better em- 
 ployed had they kept to their own vocation, as — 
 
 Men 
 With strength and will to right the wronged — of power 
 To lay the sudden heads of violence flat ; 
 Knights that in twelve great battles splashed and dyed 
 The strong White Horse in his own heathen blood. 
 
 He was of the same opinion in short as Carlyle advocates 
 in his " Sartor Resartus," that action is the main thing, and 
 to set ourselves to duty is all. Not that Arthur disapproves 
 of this expedition in quest of the " Grail." He is repre- 
 sented as being quite as enlightened as Carlyle or Tennyson, 
 who hold that the visions and superstitions of the Middle 
 Ages were all good and profitable to those that believed in 
 them. Speaking of his knights, accordingly, who thought 
 they had seen this same cup, he says, — 
 
 Blessed are Bors, Lancelot, and Percival, 
 For these have seen according to their sight ; 
 # # # # 
 
 And as they saw it, they have spoken truth. 
 
 What then ? Is Arthur ready to go in pursuit of the 
 
 " Grail " himself — is he led away by these visions of the 
 
 popish sort? No. He is represented as ahead of all this. 
 
 So far from being weak enough to see supernatural visions, 
 
 he is described, in true Goethe style, as recognising nature 
 
 and all material things round him to be only a vision, while 
 
 the glorious Ego (of which our rationalistic school speak so 
 
 much) is the only reality, and God, and Christ, of whom he 
 
 is represented as having an intuitional discovery. It is as 
 
 follows that this rationalistic divine of the sixth century, 
 
 made for the occasion, expresses himself: — 
 
 13* 
 
180 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 And some among you held, that if the king 
 
 Had seen the sight, he would have sworn the vow : 
 
 Not easily, seeing that the king must guard 
 
 That which he rules, and is but as the hind 
 
 To whom a space of land is given to plough, 
 
 Who may not wander from the allotted field 
 
 Before his work be done ; but, being done, 
 
 Let visions of the night, or of the day 
 
 Come, as they will ; and many a time they come, 
 
 Until this earth he walks on seems not earth, 
 
 This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, 
 
 This air that smites his forehead is not air 
 
 But vision — yea his very hand and foot — 
 
 In moments when he feels he cannot die, 
 
 And knows himself no vision to himself, 
 
 Nor the high God a vision, nor that One 
 
 Who rose again : ye have seen what ye have seen. 
 
 No wonder if Sir Percival, after hearing this, utters the 
 line with which " The Holy Grail " concludes : — 
 So spake the king : I knew not all he meant. 
 
 I dare believe he did not, nor any of the dear society of 
 stalwart knights who surrounded him. But if they had read 
 Carlyle they would, who says, in his "Sartor Resartus" — 
 " So that this world after all is but an air-image — our Me 
 the only reality, and nature with its thousand-fold production 
 and destruction but the reflex of our own inward force, the 
 phantasy of our dream, or what the Earth-spirit in Faust 
 names it, 'the living visible garment of God.' " 
 
 I feel, however, that it is high time to close these remarks 
 upon the religious tenets of Tennyson. From the last 
 instance adduced, it must appear that he cannot even write 
 Idylls upon a British warrior but he must propagate them. 
 And if our modern writers of this school did the thing 
 openly, a man would not blame them. It is this hiding of 
 their views behind historical personages that disgusts frank 
 and true men ; and that the nation should submit to be 
 befooled by such obscure drivel of poetical theology is a 
 lamentable proof that if men smite us on the face, we will 
 suffer them. 
 
i8l 
 
 IV. 
 
 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 
 '"T^HAT this poet occupies a very high place in the admi- 
 JL ration of our country will not be denied. If we succeed 
 in accomplishing the object of our present essay, we hope to 
 convince our readers that he ought to occupy a place still 
 higher; that, in fact, he is the truest, and, in that sense, the 
 greatest poet of our age. 
 
 The reputation he enjoys as yet amongst us is rather 
 founded upon his smaller poems. These are widely read, 
 universally known, and universally appreciated. They have 
 even taken deeper hold of the community than the minor 
 poems of our national bards, being both more easily under- 
 stood, and coming more home to the heart. They have 
 certainly exercised at least a more healthy influence. The 
 " Psalm of Life," and kindred verses of his, have made 
 themselves heard with a clarion sound in the conscience. 
 " Excelsior" has been written upon all our souls. There is 
 not a haberdasher's apprentice but walks now with a deeper 
 and prouder sense of the importance of human life, as one 
 who would wish to leave behind him " footprints on the 
 sands of time." This is surely a better state of things than 
 prevailed under the old dogstar of Passion, when a young man 
 was trained to be a corsair by Byron, or too apt to become 
 a child of reckless whim with Burns. 
 
 So far, then, as usefulness is concerned, there may be less 
 reason to lament that his reputation should hitherto have 
 rested largely in this country upon his smaller poems. But 
 as we have come, under a later study of his larger produc- 
 
182 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 tions, to the conclusion that they entitle him to rank highest, 
 perhaps, of all in our literature, we shall make it our chief 
 object in this essay to establish that position. 
 
 One reason why he has not hitherto been accepted 
 according to his full worth is his having dispensed with 
 rhyme. He has employed blank verse not only of the heroic 
 measures, but of all measures from five to fifteen feet. This 
 proceeds from no want on his part of the rhyming faculty, 
 which is developed in him as largely as in any other poet. 
 He can command music of this description to any amount. 
 We need not say that in refusing to avail himself of it in 
 most of his larger works, he did a very adventurous and 
 hazardous thing. One who may have the humblest genius 
 can hope, so long as he uses rhyme, that what he writes 
 will be accepted as poetry. If, on the other hand, there is 
 to be no rhyme, what is to distinguish his composition 
 from prose, unless he possess a poetical genius of the very 
 highest order? First of all, his conceptions and descrip- 
 tions must be so essentially imaginative as of themselves to 
 entitle him to claim being inspired. Again, there must be 
 that rhythmical music in the lines, as a whole, which will 
 console the ear for the want of a terminating chime. The 
 highest poetic faculty is demanded, and this is not enough 
 unless he be endowed with an extraordinary facility and 
 flexibility of language. In short, no poet can dispense with 
 the adventitious helps of art unless he have great resources 
 of nature to fall back upon. A small man must put on high- 
 heeled shoes ; the girl who was not born under the star of 
 beauty must multiply the rings upon her fingers, and have 
 tinkling ornaments on her ankles. If any poet have, the 
 higher qualifications we have referred to, we do not see for 
 our part why he should not dispense with rhyme. We are 
 not competent to deal with the historical origin of the 
 practice — when it began to be introduced, and why it was 
 ever thought of. It was not practised in Israel. The inim- 
 itable poems of the Bible do not come to us " making a 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 183 
 
 tinkling with their feet." The great poets of Greece and 
 Rome would have thought themselves encumbered and dis- 
 graced by the custom. Why then has rhyme claimed 
 dominion over us in modern times ? Is it that the ear has 
 become fastidious in the latter days ? or is it something in 
 the construction of our modern languages ? or is it simply a 
 prejudice ? Can it be possible that our poets have all this 
 time been vexing themselves in vain ? not only contorting 
 the last foot of every other line by an application of artificial 
 Chinese bandages, but subjecting their own genius to a 
 torture worse than that of the Inquisition, by forcing it in 
 successive lines to invent chimes innumerable ? We believe 
 that it has been left to Longfellow to burst for ever these 
 fetters, and that in doing so he has conferred what is equi- 
 valent to an emancipation upon the whole singing fraternity. 
 Meanwhile, like all men who have made discoveries, he has 
 been for a time a martyr to his own invention. 
 
 Another thing has stood considerably in his way. His 
 productions want the perfect finish and exquisite polish 
 necessary to please* the ear of this nation. The whole con- 
 dition and situation of our friends on the other side of the 
 Atlantic tends to make them regard things rather than words. 
 They don't like the sham of artifice of any kind ; in contact 
 with the new, they have no patience to polish up the old. 
 The genius of their writers is affected by and reflects the 
 state of their continent. Where there is such extent of 
 territory, there is no need of excessive cultivation ; the city 
 goes up with more respect to hasty grandeur than exact rule. 
 It is not for those who walk by great rivers artificially to 
 terrace the banks of them, or carefully to adorn the dwelling 
 that hangs over the fall. But not to speak of his country, 
 look at Wadsworth Longfellow's countenance, as we have 
 it in the frontispiece of his works. Patience is not the 
 characteristic of it. If you wish to see that grace, contem- 
 plate the profile of our own Laureate, where the pain and 
 even the exhaustion of deep thought are apparent enough. 
 
1 84 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Haste, the impetuosity of inspiration, are marked upon the 
 visage of the other. It is fire that has consumed him, and 
 not labour. Such a temperament is favourable in one sense, 
 but against a man's way to reputation in another ; and so 
 with Longfellow. He rushes up a precipice to get some wild 
 flower that has caught his fancy. His more scientific brother 
 gathers up some rare plants which grow below, and had 
 escaped him in his haste, patiently putting them into his 
 herbarium. He himself, meanwhile, seated upon the high 
 cliff, is dreaming over the sweet thought of God he finds in 
 the apparently wild and worthless thing he holds in his 
 hands. One who has acquired a fortune by hard application 
 spends it to great advantage ; another, born to an estate, is 
 apt to have a spendthrift disposition. It must be owned that 
 there are marks of a prodigal negligence in the works of 
 Longfellow. What meets the eye is extensive and enchant- 
 ing forests of natural self-sown birch, small-leafed, beautiful, 
 silver-rinded; glades innumerable, which the deer loves to 
 haunt ; and the very fantastic sport nature has made with 
 the branches that have never seen the axe is worth admir- 
 ing. At the same time there is not the strength of stem and 
 the luxuriousness of vegetation which is represented in the 
 woods where there has been something of man's hand as 
 well as of God's operation. 
 
 The reader will discern the scope of these remarks. We 
 grant that he falls short in perfectness of style ; and the ob- 
 servation applies not only to his poetry in detail, but to his 
 larger poems viewed as a whole. They may not be able to 
 compete with the more elaborate and finished productions 
 of our two greatest national poets. All we assert, and hope 
 to prove is, that there are possibly more of the elements 
 of true poetry in them. 
 
 There is in them more of nature, we venture to think. 
 In reading the others we still have a feeling somehow that 
 we are not brought into direct contact with her ; it is her 
 gloved hand, and not her naked hand, that we shake ; she is 
 
HENR V WADS WOR TH LONGFELLO IV. 185 
 
 there, but there is a veil over her face ; if her fields are 
 spread out before us, the grass is unnaturally coloured, and 
 the flowers with which they are gorgeously enamelled have 
 no smell. It may be a mere idea of our own. It strikes us as 
 if our bards were self-conscious that other poets going before 
 have won her affections ; that it is hopeless for them there- 
 fore to think to win her heart. Still, from admiration of her 
 beauty, they hang on, but always too proud to make pro- 
 posals, lest they should be rejected ; hence they are never 
 wedded to her (for Nature will marry none who do not place 
 full confidence in her), although it cannot be denied that they 
 are upon a footing of intimacy. Of Longfellow, again, we 
 may say, as he says himself of Walter of the Vogelweide : — 
 
 His song was of the summer time, 
 The very birds sang in his rhyme, 
 The sunshine, the delicious air, 
 The fragrance of the flowers was there. 
 
 Should you ask him where he found these songs of his ? 
 Listen to his own answer in the quaint rhythms of his " In- 
 dian Carol :" — 
 
 I should answer, I should tell you, 
 In the birds'-nests of the forests, 
 In the lodges of the beaver, 
 In the hoof-prints of the bison, 
 In the eyrie of the eagle ! 
 
 All the wild-fowl sang them to me, 
 In the moorlands and the fenlands, 
 In the melancholy marshes ; 
 Chetowaik, the plover, sang them, 
 Mahung, the loon, the wild goose, Wawu, 
 The blue heron, the Shu-shu-guh, 
 And the grouse, the Mushkodusa. 
 
 Not only is his manner of treating his subjects always 
 natural, but his subjects themselves are generally such as 
 carry us back to the primitive simplicity of the world. 
 Here he had an advantage in being an American. Where 
 were such subjects to be found by a British poet ? All the 
 mountains and streams of his native land had been sung and 
 
1 86 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 immortalized already. Not so the rivers and forests of the 
 American continent, which, being entirely new, stood ready 
 to be possessed not only by the first hand of business adven- 
 ture, but by the imagination of the first poet who should 
 plant the flag-staff of his genius upon the region. This 
 Longfellow did in his " Evangeline." You may say that our 
 poets had it in their power to go back to the hoary antiquity 
 of this our country, and find a subject in its primitive in- 
 habitants, customs, and legends. Unfortunately there was 
 nothing poetical in the horrible superstitions of the Druids. 
 Meanwhile, as Longfellow discovered, there was something 
 romantic and picturesque in the Indian legends, and he 
 availed himself of them in his " Hiawatha." Thus, while 
 our poets have been forced to go for their subjects to the 
 Middle Ages, or where they best might, the American bard 
 found themes at home, less artificial, appealing more to the 
 universal humanity that is in us. 
 
 The poets of our own nation have fallen into the perverse 
 habit of seeking to produce effect by embellishment, by mere 
 sentimentality, or by grotesqueness ; while sometimes (which 
 is always a sign of the worst) they hide themselves in an 
 impenetrable obscurity. Tastes of this kind are alien both to 
 the country and the constitution of our poet. An American 
 hates obscurity. 
 
 Thorough, yet simple and clear, for sublimity always is simple, 
 Both in sermon and song, a child can seize on his meaning. 
 
 While Longfellow is always intelligible, he produces im- 
 pressions, not by word - paint, but by intuitive selection of 
 the features in objects, and the circumstances in scenes, 
 which at once give us a life representation of them. How 
 much of the spasmodic is there in Browning; how much 
 in Tennyson of the false taste that seeks to give vividness 
 to the description by telling us the exact hour of the clock 
 when an event happened, or the exact place in the street 
 where the house stood, or the precise distance in space. 
 
HENRY WADSWORLH LONGFELLOW. 187 
 
 I was walking a mile, 
 
 More than a mile from the shore, 
 The sun looked out with a smile 
 
 Betwixt the cloud and the moor ; 
 And riding at close of day, 
 
 Over the dark moorland, 
 Rapidly riding far away, 
 
 She waved to me her hand. 
 
 No doubt these vices of style are exceptional with both 
 Browning and Tennyson. We merely notice the fact that 
 Longfellow is by constitution simply not capable of such 
 things. 
 
 The greatness of his genius is seen in the infinite ease 
 with which he describes all things. It is not only what he 
 accomplishes, but the unexampled facility by which the feat 
 is done. In a moment, without an effort, he is in the third 
 heaven of sublimity ; in another, he is upon the ground 
 again. It is a grotesque suggestion, but we are reminded 
 of his own great Indian dancer. 
 
 First he danced a solemn measure, 
 Very slow in step and gesture, 
 In and out among the pine trees, 
 Through the shadows and the sunshine, 
 Treading softly, like a panther ; 
 Then more swiftly, and still swifter, 
 Whirling, spinning round in circles, 
 Leaping o'er the guests assembled, 
 Eddying round and round the wigwam, 
 Till the leaves went whirling with him, 
 Till the dust and wind together 
 Swept in eddies round about him. 
 Then along the sandy margin 
 Of the lake, the Big-Sea- Water, 
 On he sped with frenzied gestures, 
 Stamped upon the sand, and tossed it 
 Wildly in the air around him: 
 Till the wind became a whirlwind, 
 Till the sand was blown and sifted 
 Like great snow-drifts o'er the landscape, 
 Heaping all the shores with sand dunes, 
 Sand-hills of the Nagow Wudjoo. 
 
1 88 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Take his "Building of the Ship." Here are first the 
 
 orders to build it simply given. 
 
 Build me straight, worthy master, 
 Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel, 
 That shall laugh at all disaster, 
 And with wave and whirlwind wrestle. 
 
 Before we have well got started with these few lines, 
 which surely do not promise much, we have such a descrip- 
 tion of the master proceeding to form his model as could 
 only have been written (one might say) by a man who was in 
 body and soul a ship carpenter. The ship is to be called the 
 Union. And now at his side we see a youth ; and the bar- 
 gain is that this youth is to have his daughter for bride on 
 the day he shall worthily finish the building of the ship 
 according to the inimitable model of the father-in-law. 
 
 The master's word 
 
 Enraptured the young man heard ; 
 
 And as he turned his face aside, 
 
 With a look of joy, and a thrill of pride, 
 
 Standing before 
 
 Her father's door 
 
 He saw the form of his promised bride. 
 
 The sun shone on her golden hair, 
 
 And her cheek was glowing fresh and fair, 
 
 With the breath of morn and the soft sea-air. 
 
 Like a beauteous barge was she, 
 
 Still at rest on the sandy beach, 
 
 Just beyond the billow's reach ; 
 
 But he 
 
 Was the restless, seething, stormy sea. 
 
 Then the work begins under love's auspices, and now the 
 author becomes the veritable spirit of a dockyard ; for it is 
 needless to conceal the fact that the very implements, one 
 and all, are in his imagination, and that we smell pitch. 
 Another poet might have told us of the various kinds of wood 
 composing the ship, and conveyed us in fancy to the forests 
 whence they came ; but our readers will notice in the follow- 
 ing lines the difference between embellished painting and the 
 master-strokes of nature. 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 189 
 
 Long ago, 
 
 In the deer-haunted forests of Maine, 
 
 When upon mountain and plain 
 
 Lay the snow, 
 
 They fell — those lordly pines ! 
 
 Those grand, majestic pines ! 
 
 'Mid shouts and cheers, 
 
 The jaded steers, 
 
 Panting beneath the goad, 
 
 Dragged down the weary, winding road, 
 
 Those captive kings so straight and tall, 
 
 To be shorn of their streaming hair, 
 
 And, naked and bare, 
 
 To feel the stress and the strain 
 
 Of the wind and the rushing main, 
 
 Whose roar 
 
 Would remind them for evermore 
 
 Of their native forests they should not see again. 
 
 Whether the bridal of old ocean with the ship, or that of 
 the young builder with the maiden, be most beautifully 
 described, we leave it with others to determine ; but who 
 does not admire the perfect ease with which both descrip- 
 tions are given, succeeded immediately, as if nothing had 
 been done, by the well-known magnificent lines upon his 
 native country. 
 
 Thou too, sail on, O ship of state, 
 Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
 Humanity with all its fears, 
 With all the hopes of future years, 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
 We know what master laid thy keel, 
 What workmen. wrought thy ribs of steel, 
 Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
 In what a forge and what a heat 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
 Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
 'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 
 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 
 And not a rent made by the gale ! 
 In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
 In spite of false lights on the shore, 
 
1 90 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 
 Are all with thee — are all with thee ! 
 
 Look at his " Rain in Summer." Many poets could give 
 us a grand picture of this phenomenon, we have not a doubt 
 of it. But in the present case, if our poet had pulled some 
 string connected with the great bath of the universe, he 
 could not have more effectually drenched us all ; for we who 
 dwell in the city hear it gushing and struggling out from the 
 throat of the house-spouts with a vengeance ; meanwhile the 
 boys are down the street, to sail their mimic fleets in the 
 gutters ; in the fields, again, the oxen which have been toil- 
 ing at the plough, " lifting their yoke-encumbered heads," 
 with dilated nostrils inhale the clover-scented breeze ; the 
 honest farmer, as he eyes the whole affair, hopes that since 
 it is for the general good he may conscientiously bless God 
 for it, though it makes for his own particular benefit. The 
 poet is engrossed with the rainbow, and follows the rain in 
 his imagination down the earth to the regions of the dead, 
 and its everlasting fountain-heads. How much better is 
 nature than art ! 
 
 It seems to be a maxim with the poets of our own country 
 now that common things ought to be said in an uncommon 
 way. Now even common things ought to be said by the 
 poet in a poetical way. If his mind be poetically constituted, 
 he will have his own imaginative way of viewing the least 
 as well as the highest things. His genius will be as the 
 moon, which throws its rich dreamy radiance upon the turn- 
 pike, as well as upon the forest and cataract. What we 
 object to is not their maxim, but the way in which they 
 understand it, which seems this — that they are to set them- 
 selves laboriously to ornament the common-place. Thus they 
 are always upon stilts. There are no pleasant inequalities in 
 their productions. They cannot trust themselves to be easy, 
 natural, and simple. Longfellow is superior to all this. 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 191 
 
 When he comes to speak of common things, he speaks 
 simply, and yet poetically. It is a bird's run along the 
 ground ; and, ere we are aware, his muse is in the air 
 again, and describing those eagle gyrations in the sky which 
 establish his claim to be one of the first poets of the age. 
 There is a rhythmical grace in the following lines, even 
 when describing Prince Henry and Elsie travelling along 
 the highway to Hirschell. 
 
 Elsie : Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city, im- 
 patiently bearing 
 
 Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and hate, of doing and 
 daring ! 
 
 Henry : This life of ours is a wild jEolian harp of many a joyous strain, 
 But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail as of souls in pain. 
 
 Elsie : Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart that aches and bleeds 
 
 with the stigma 
 Of pain alone bears the likeness of Christ, and can comprehend its dark 
 
 enigma. 
 
 Henry : Now, they stop at the wayside inn, and the waggoner laughs 
 with the landlord's daughter, . 
 
 While out of" the dripping trough the horses distend their leathern sides 
 with water. w. 
 
 Elsie : All through life there are wayside inns, where man may refresh 
 
 his soul with love ; 
 Even the lowest may_jquench his thirst at rivulets fed by the springs 
 
 above ; &c. ■'- k 
 
 But, that we may have done with generalities, let us now 
 direct our criticism to some of his well-known productions. 
 
 " Hiawatha " is the most perfect piece of music that was 
 ever sung to the astonished ears of those whose faith in the 
 necessity of rhyme had previously amounted to a superstition. 
 Adopting a trochaic instead of an iambic measure, he has 
 struck upon the melodies best fitted, 
 
 Wkh their frequent repetitions, 
 - And their wild reverberations, 
 
 to recount the wonders of his Indian Edda. 
 
192 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 The subject of the poem is happily chosen. The story 
 relates to the earlier stages of society, when nature has not 
 yet been invaded by civilisation ; when the timber that is to 
 form our boasted architecture is yet waving in the forest, 
 and the stone that is to rear the city is hanging in savage 
 cliffs above rivers not yet navigated ; when, instead of teem- 
 ing populations and smoking manufactories, there are only 
 the magnificent solitudes, the flower -clad meadows, the 
 silent mountains and valleys. The people introduced to our 
 notice are of the tribes newly emerging from barbarism, 
 simple with the simplicity of our own childhood, which 
 never returns, and is an eternal regret ; ignorant of our 
 conventionalities, but having the compensation of the pri- 
 mitive virtues ; naked, as it were, but walking unashamed 
 in the wilderness gardens of their first estate. Even had this 
 been all, Longfellow, by the choice of his subject, has a great 
 advantage over our poets, who, stopping at what we call the 
 Middle Ages, strive to interest us with the gallantries of 
 knights and ladies. But availing himself, moreover, of the 
 legends of the people, he has been able to add sublimity to 
 beauty, by interweaving with his narrative the wonders of 
 preternatural agency. We have not only the primitive 
 wildernesses of America to attract our eye, but we have Gitche 
 Manito, the Mighty, the Master of Life, descending upon 
 them. We have more than a mere description of the first 
 rise of the arts of peace among India's warlike tribes ; we 
 have a wild narrative of the legendary and marvellous way 
 in which their prophet Hiawatha, whose grandmother fell 
 from the moon, introduced the Indian corn, and the canoe, 
 and the rod-fishing, and the draining of fen and marsh. If 
 along with all this it be considered that Hiawatha, though 
 descended from the moon, is represented as a veritable 
 youth of flesh and blood, capable of love and marriage with 
 Minehaha, the girl born by the side of the Laughing Water, 
 or Falls of St. Anthony, it is plain that here was a subject 
 which for splendour was wholly unrivalled. 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 193 
 
 But what signifies the best subject in the hands of a 
 common man ? Is there any who could have handled it in the 
 manner Longfellow has done ? A thousand to one it would 
 have been felt by us all to be at best a gifted and highly- 
 embellished painting of Indian times by a man of the nine- 
 teenth century. The production before us is essentially 
 different. 
 
 The author seems, such is the native force of his genius, 
 to have undergone a metempsychosis ; he is possessed 
 throughout by the soul and spirit of the wild Indian. The 
 very melody of the verses has a veritable sound of the first 
 ages of humanity. The delusion is perfected by his introduc- 
 tion of a whole vocabulary of Indian names for birds, beasts, 
 things, and persons — most euphonious names withal, which 
 have a strange charm in them. As for the legends, nothing 
 is so unearthly and strange that he cannot describe it. The 
 apparently impracticable is played with by him ; what other 
 poets never would have ventured to touch upon is sported 
 with by this man of infinite humour and inexhaustible fancy. 
 
 What a Homeric simplicity in the convention of the 
 warriors of all the tribes by Gitche Manito, the Great Spirit ! 
 This must be done, according to Indian fashion, by smoking 
 the peace-pipe, and here is one worthy of the gods: — 
 
 From the red stone of the quarry 
 With his hand he broke a fragment, 
 Moulded it into a pipe-head, 
 Shaped and fashioned it with figures ; 
 From the margin of the river 
 Took a long reed for a pipe-stem, 
 With its dark green leaves upon it ; 
 Filled the pipe with bark of willow, 
 With the bark of the red willow : 
 Breathed upon the neighbouring forest, 
 Made its great boughs chafe together, 
 Till in flames they burst and kindled ; 
 And erect upon the mountains, 
 Gitche Manito, the mighty, 
 Smoked the calumet, the peace-pipe, 
 As a signal to the nations. 
 14 
 
194 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 And the smoke rose, slowly, slowly, 
 Through the tranquil air of morning ; 
 First a single line of darkness, 
 Then a denser, bluer vapour, 
 Then a snow-white cloud unfolding, 
 Like the tree-tops of the forest, 
 Ever rising, rising, rising, 
 Till it touched the top of heaven, 
 Till it brake against the heaven, 
 And rolled eastward all around it. 
 
 From the Vale of Taswasentha, 
 From the Valley of Wyoming, 
 From the groves of Tuscaloosa, 
 From the far-off Rocky Mountains, 
 From the northern lakes and rivers, 
 All the tribes beheld the signal, 
 Saw the distant smoke ascending, 
 The Puckwana of the peace-pipe. 
 
 Down the rivers, o'er the prairies, 
 Came the warriors of the nations, 
 Came the Delawars and Mohawks, 
 Came the Choctaws and Camanches, 
 Came the Shoshomis and Blackfeet, 
 Came the Pawnees and Omawhaws, 
 Came the Manduas and Dacotahs, 
 Came the Hurons and Ojibways, 
 All the warriors drawn together 
 By the signal of the peace-pipe, 
 To the mountains of the prairie, 
 To the great red pipe-stone quarry. 
 
 And they stood there in the meadow, 
 With their weapons and their war-gear 
 Painted like the leaves of autumn, 
 Painted like the sky of morning. 
 Wildly glaring at each other ; 
 In their faces stern defiance, 
 In their hearts the feuds of ages, 
 The hereditary hatred, 
 The ancestral thirst of vengeance. 
 
 Hiawatha's marriage with Minehaha differs altogether 
 from the innumerable descriptions we have of such sort of 
 things. With the pomp of nature's great forests and rivers 
 for its background, solemnized before the stars for witnesses; 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 195 
 
 the silence of rapture only interrupted by the sound of 
 Laughing Water ; Minehaha given away by her old father, 
 the arrow -maker of Dacotah, in days when there was no 
 distinction of crowned heads ; the bridegroom entering the 
 wigwam with the deer upon his shoulders, for his wedding 
 gift, while the bride rises from the rush-mat she had been 
 plaiting, to give him nothing but her heart — such is the 
 marriage that forms the centre-piece of tenderness in this 
 narrative of wonders. He thus describes the home-going : — 
 
 All the travelling winds went with them, 
 O'er the meadow, thro' the forest ; 
 All the stars of night looked at them, 
 Watched with sleepless eyes their slumber ; 
 From his ambush in the oak-tree 
 Peeped the squirrel, Adjidamo, 
 Watched with eager eyes the lovers ; 
 And the rabbit, the Wabasso, 
 Scampered from the path before them, 
 Peering, peeping from his burrow, 
 Sat erect upon his haunches, 
 Watched with envious eyes the lovers. 
 
 Pleasant was the journey homeward, 
 All the birds sang loud, and sweetly, 
 Songs of happiness and heart's ease ; 
 Sang the blue-bird, the Owassa, 
 " Happy are you, Hiawatha, 
 Having such a wife to love you.'' 
 Sang the Opechu, the robin, 
 " Happy are you, Laughing Water, 
 Having such a noble husband.'' 
 
 From the sky the sun benignant 
 Looked upon them thro' the branches, 
 Saying to them, " O my children, 
 Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, 
 Life is checkered shade and sunshine ; 
 Rule by love, O Hiawatha." 
 
 From the sky the moon looked at them, 
 Filled the lodge with mystic splendour, 
 Whispered to them, " O my children, 
 Day is restless, night is quiet, 
 Man imperious, woman feeble ; 
 Half is mine, although I follow, 
 Rule by patience, Laughing Water." 
 14* 
 
196 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Such is the variety characterising this poem, that it would 
 not be difficult to select passages rivalling all our most cele- 
 brated poets in each of the different styles in which they are 
 supposed to be masters. We are familiar, all of us, with the 
 bold life-strokes with which Burns describes the tenants 
 whether of air, or stream, or loch ; whether water-fowl that — • 
 
 Peaceful keep their dimpling wave, 
 Busy feed, or wanton lave ; 
 Or, beneath the sheltering rock, 
 Bide the surging billow's shock ; 
 
 Or " saumont " that — 
 
 Stately sail, 
 And trouts bedropped wi' crimson hail, 
 And eels weel kenn'd for souple tail, 
 An' geds for greed. 
 
 The same eye for nature appears in the account we have 
 of Hiawatha's fishing in the Gitche Gumee, the Big-Sea- 
 Water. 
 
 On the white sand of the bottom 
 
 Lay the monster Mishe-Nahmer, 
 
 Lay the sturgeon, king of fishes. 
 
 Through his gills he breathed the water, 
 
 With his fins he fanned and winnowed, 
 
 With his tail he swept the sand floor. 
 There he lay, in all his armour ; 
 
 On each side a shield to guard him, 
 
 Plates of bone upon his forehead, 
 
 Down his sides and back and shoulders 
 
 Plaits of bone with spines projecting ! 
 
 Painted was he with his war paint, 
 
 Stripes of yellow and of azure, 
 
 Spots of brown and spots of sable ; 
 
 And he lay there on the bottom, 
 
 Fanning with his fins of purple, 
 
 As above him, Hiawatha 
 
 In his birch canoe came sailing, 
 
 With his fishing line of cedar. 
 
 Slowly upward, wavering, gleaming 
 Like a white moon in the water, 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 197 
 
 Rose the Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 
 Seized the line of Hiawatha, 
 Swung with all his weight upon it, 
 Made a whirlpool in the water, 
 Whirled the birch canoe in circles, 
 Round and round in gurgling eddies, 
 Till the circles in the water 
 Reached the far-off sandy beaches, 
 Till the water-flags and rushes 
 Nodded on the distant margins- 
 
 But when Hiawatha saw him 
 Slowly rising thro' the water, 
 Lifting his great disc of whiteness, 
 Loud he shouted in derision, 
 " Esa ! esa ! shame upon you, 
 You are Ugudwash, the sun-fish, 
 You are not the fish I wanted, 
 You are not the king of fishes." 
 
 Wavering downward, white and ghastly, 
 Sank the Ugudwash, the sun-fish ; 
 And again the sturgeon Nahmer 
 Heard the shout of Hiawatha, 
 Heard his challenge of defiance, 
 The unnecessary tumult, 
 Ringing far above the water. 
 
 From the white sand of the bottom 
 Up he rose with angry gesture, 
 Quivering in each nerve and fibre, 
 Clashing all his plates of armour, 
 Gleaming bright with all his war-paint ; 
 In his wrath he darted upward, 
 Flashing leapt into the sunshine ; &c. 
 
 For startling imagery and invention of circumstances in 
 the, department of the terrible, the following passage may 
 compare with the "gruesome" in "Tarn O'Shanter." It 
 narrates the calling up of the ghost of the departed friend 
 of Hiawatha by the magician, the Wabeener. 
 
 From the sand he rose and listened, 
 Heard the music and the singing, 
 Came, obedient to the summons, 
 To the doorway of the wigwam, 
 But to enter, they forbade him. 
 
 Through a chink a coal they gave him, 
 
198 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Through the door a burning firebrand ; 
 
 Ruler in the land of spirits, 
 
 Ruler o'er the dead they made him ; 
 
 Telling him a fire to kindle 
 
 For all those that died thereafter, 
 
 Camp-fires for their night encampments 
 
 On their solitary journey 
 
 To the kingdom of Ponemah, 
 
 To the land of the Hereafter. 
 
 From the village of his childhood, 
 From the homes of those who knew him, 
 Passing silent thro' the forest, 
 Like a smoke-wreath wafted sideways, 
 Slowly vanished Chibiates. 
 Where he passed the branches moved not. 
 And the fallen leaves of last year 
 Made no sound beneath his footsteps. 
 
 Four whole days he journeyed onwards 
 Down the pathway of the dead men ; 
 On the dead man's strawberry feasted, 
 Crossed the melancholy river, 
 On the swinging log he crossed it ; 
 Came unto the Lake of Silver, 
 In the stone canoe was carried 
 To the Islands of the Blessed, 
 To the lands of ghosts and shadows. 
 
 On that journey, moving slowly, 
 Many weary spirits saw he, 
 Panting under heavy burdens, 
 Laden with war-clubs, bows and arrows, 
 Robes of fur, and pots and kettles, 
 And with food that friends had given 
 For that solitary journey. 
 
 " Ah ! why do the living," said they, 
 " Lay such heavy burdens on us ? 
 Better were it to go naked, 
 Better were it to- go fasting, 
 Than to bear such heavy burdens 
 On our long and weary journey." 
 
 To refer to another passage — have we anything in Coleridge 
 more weird, more fitted to make the blood chill in our veins, 
 and the hair to stand up, than the visit of the ghosts to the 
 wigwam of Hiawatha ? Not that we have the same exquisite- 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 199 
 
 ness of imagery or perfect polish of expression which we 
 find in the "Ancient Mariner." The genius of Longfellow 
 is Homeric. He polishes nothing. He never paints. So far 
 as the scene to be described is concerned, it is brought before 
 us by a record of circumstances, but how poetical ! how sub- 
 limely simple ! And what the actors, produced upon the 
 scene, say is never embellished ; it is what they do say that 
 melts, or thrills, or terrifies us. This is the highest poetry, 
 consisting in things, not words. In the present case, for 
 example, here is young Hiawatha come home from his 
 hunting, full of lusty life and health, the red deer on his 
 shoulders, his heart exulting at the prospect of seeing his 
 Laughing Water, and the moon-descended Nekomis, her 
 grandmother. On entering the wigwam he sees the two 
 strangers, ghosts of the departed, cowering and crouching in 
 the shadows. The hospitality of the tribe forbids that he 
 should ask any questions. From whatever world they come 
 they are welcome to the Indian's tent ; and not even the 
 insolence of these bloodless spectres is resented, as they 
 sprang from the recess among the shadows of the wigwam, 
 and for supper seized the choicest portions of the day's hunt. 
 In the awful nights of their stay they steal out to the forest 
 to bring pine-cones to burn, for fire seems their only consola- 
 tion. On one of the nights Hiawatha, as he sleeps on his 
 hides of bison, is startled by a sob — a sighing. He rises — 
 he turns aside the deer curtains. He beholds both the pallid 
 guests. He asks them whether there had been any violation 
 of the rules of hospitality — whether Minehaha or Nekomis 
 had offended them. Such are the circumstances which this 
 poet — this great master of poetry — calls up, and we will all be 
 agreed that the man who can summon them may dispense 
 with painting and embellishment, whether he means to 
 awaken love or excite horror. Listen, too, to the cause 
 of their sighing, for it is enough to awaken tears so far 
 as it touches this common humanity of ours, and simple 
 terror, so far as it spoke the Indian superstition. 
 
2oo THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Then the shadows ceased from weeping, 
 Ceased from sobbing and lamenting, 
 And they said, with gentle voices, 
 " We are ghosts of the departed, 
 Souls of those who once were with you. 
 
 Cries of grief and lamentation 
 Reach us in the Blessed Islands ; 
 Cries of anguish from the living", 
 Calling back their friends departed, 
 Sadden us with useless sorrow. 
 
 Think of this, O Hiawatha ! 
 Speak of it to all the people, 
 That henceforward, and for ever, 
 They no more with lamentations 
 Sadden the souls of the departed 
 In the Islands of the Blessed. 
 
 Do not lay such heavy burdens 
 In the graves of those you bury, 
 Not such weight of furs and wampum, 
 Not such weight of pots and kettles, 
 For the spirits faint beneath them. 
 Only give them food to carry, 
 Only give them fire to light them. 
 
 Four days is the spirit's journey 
 To the land of ghosts and shadows, 
 Four its lonely night encampments ; 
 Four times must their fires be lighted. 
 Therefore when the dead are buried, 
 Let a fire, as night approaches, 
 Four times on the grave be kindled, 
 That the soul upon its journey 
 May not lack the cheerful firelight, 
 May not grope about in darkness. 
 
 It so happens that the poem of " Hiawatha" terminates 
 very much in the same way, as to subject, with the " Idylls 
 of the King." Just as Arthur passed away, when his mission 
 was done, to the Fairy Isle, so Hiawatha, having discharged 
 his prophet trust, departed mysteriously by ship for another 
 world. Our readers may be interested to compare the two 
 descriptions together. Here is the passing of Arthur : — 
 
 And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 201 
 
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
 Comfort thyself ; what comfort is in me ? 
 I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
 May he within himself make pure ; but then, 
 If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
 Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats, 
 That nourish a blood life within the brain, 
 If knowing God, they lift not hands in prayer, 
 Both for themselves, and those who call them friend ? 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
 But now farewell. I am going a long way 
 With these thou seest — if indeed I go 
 (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 
 To the island-valley of Avilion ; 
 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies 
 Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns, 
 And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea, 
 Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
 So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
 Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
 That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
 Ruffles her pure cold plume and takes the flood 
 With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
 Revolving many memories, till the hull 
 Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
 And on the mere the wailing died away. 
 # * # * 
 
 Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 
 E'en to the highest he could climb, and saw, 
 Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, 
 Or thought he saw the speck that bare the king, 
 Down that long water opening on the deep, 
 Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go 
 From less to less, and vanish into light. 
 And the new sun rose, bringing the new year. 
 
 The following is the departure of Hiawatha, after com- 
 mending the Christian missionaries who had arrived to the 
 care of his fellow-countrymen : — 
 
THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 " I am going, Nekomis, 
 On a long and distant journey, 
 To the portals of the sunset, 
 To the regions of the home- wind, 
 Of the north-west wind, Keewardin. 
 But these guests I leave behind me, 
 In your watch and ward I leave them, 
 See that never harm comes near them, 
 See that never fear molests them, 
 Never danger, nor suspicion, 
 Never want of food or shelter, 
 In the lodge of Hiawatha ! " 
 
 Forth into the village went he, 
 Bade farewell to all the warriors, 
 Bade farewell to all the young men, 
 Spake persuading, spake in this wise : 
 
 " I am going, O my people, 
 On a long and distant journey ; 
 Many moons and many winters 
 Will have come and will have vanished 
 Ere I come again to see you. 
 But my guests I leave behind me ; 
 Listen to their words of wisdom, 
 Listen to the truth they tell you. 
 For the Master of Life has sent them 
 From the land of light and morning ! " 
 
 On the shore stood Hiawatha, 
 Turned and waved his hand at parting, 
 On the clear and luminous water 
 Launched his birch canoe for sailing, 
 From the pebbles on the margin 
 Shoved it forth into the water. 
 Whispered to it, " Westward ! Westward ! " 
 And with speed it darted forward. 
 
 And the evening sun descending, 
 Set the clouds on fire with redness, 
 Burned the broad sky, like a prairie, 
 Left upon the level water 
 One long track and trail of splendour ; 
 Down whose stream, as down a river, 
 Westward, westward, Hiawatha 
 Sailed into the fiery sunset, 
 Sailed into the purple vapours, 
 Sailed into the dusk of evening. 
 
 And the people from the margin 
 
HENRY VVADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 203 
 
 Watched him floating, rising, sinking, 
 Till the birch canoe seemed lifted 
 High into that sea of splendour, 
 Till it sank into the vapours, 
 Like the new mpon slowly, slowly 
 Sinking in the purple distance. 
 
 And they said, " Farewell for ever ! " 
 Said, " Farewell, O Hiawatha ! " 
 And the forests, dark and lonely, 
 Moved through all their depths of darkness, 
 Sighed, " Farewell, O Hiawatha." 
 
 * * * # 
 
 Thus departed Hiawatha, 
 Hiawatha the beloved, 
 * In the glory of the sunset, 
 
 In the purple mists of evening. 
 To the regions of the home wind 
 Of the north-west wind, Keewardin. 
 To the Islands of the Blessed, 
 To the kingdom of Ponemah, 
 To the land of the Hereafter. 
 
 Such is this splendid production of Longfellow. Reasons 
 could easily be assigned why many do not appreciate it. 
 We have spoken already of the rhyme being wanting. They 
 no more account any composition to be a poem without 
 rhymes, than certain other folks would count it to be 
 Sabbath-day if there were no ringing of the church bells. 
 No man, besides, can relish this poem unless he has become 
 body and soul, for the time being, an aboriginal Indian ; and 
 how few are capable of such a transmigration, needs not be 
 told. So wild and strange is the whole composition — such an 
 intermixture of the natural with the legendary— that none 
 except one whose ideality is of the largest will appreciate 
 this great " Midsummer Dream " of the prairie. They 
 would be well content to join Pope or any of his compeers 
 in their old-fashioned chariot, and even to accompany 
 Browning or Tennyson on the rail-; but it is with no small 
 trepidation that they get into the car of Longfellow's 
 balloon, which goes careering in the skies, over Gitche 
 
2o 4 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Gumee, the Big-Sea- Water ; and the likelihood is that, after 
 a scud before the west wind, even Mudjekeewis, they are 
 glad to get alighted over the wigwam of Laughing Water, 
 and refuse to ascend again with this daring poet, leaving him 
 to pursue alone his sublime flight to the kingdom of Pone- 
 mah, the land of his own deserved and immortal hereafter. 
 
 In any criticism upon " Miles Standish," notice would 
 need to be taken of his poetic skill in choosing his subject. 
 He does not, as another might have done, take up the 
 landing of the Mayflower. When the poem commences, 
 the first sad winter of the Pilgrims is already over. Spring 
 has dawned, and the ship is lying in the harbour, ready to 
 start home again for England on the morrow. The last link 
 between them and the old country was not broken so long as 
 that vessel remained ; but now it was about to sail back to 
 the blessed shore they would never see again. Had the 
 poet fixed upon the landing of the Mayflower he might 
 better have awakened, it may be, philosophical reflections 
 connected with that world-pregnant disembarkation ; but, by 
 the plan he adopted, the great sacrifice made by the Pilgrims, 
 and which was necessary to begin the Republic as with their 
 outpoured hearts' blood, is brought more home to us all. 
 
 Long in silence they watched the receding sail of the vessel, 
 
 Much endeared to them all, as something living and human. 
 
 Then, as if filled with the Spirit, and rapt in a vision prophetic, 
 
 Baring his hoary head, the excellent Elder of Plymouth 
 
 Said, " Let us pray," and they prayed, and thanked the Lord and took 
 
 courage. 
 Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, and above them 
 Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, and their kindred 
 Seemed to awake in their graves and to join in the prayer that they 
 
 uttered. 
 Sun-illumined and white on the eastern verge of the ocean, 
 Gleamed the departing sail, like a marble slab in a graveyard, 
 Buried beneath it lay for ever all hope of departing. 
 
 We have underscored the image which the poet employs, 
 because we look upon it, for poetical conception, as the 
 finest thing we have ever read. In any case, the com- 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 205 
 
 parison between a distant sail at sea, " sun - illumined," 
 and a sepulchral slab, would have been both true to nature 
 and original ; but when one considers the circumstances in 
 which the Pilgrim Fathers were placed, the Mayflower's 
 sail being now made suddenly to assume even the palpable 
 form of the gravestone of their hope of return, is unspeak- 
 ably beautiful. 
 
 But we anticipate matters when we speak of the vessel 
 as having departed. During most of the time embraced in 
 this poem the Mayflower is still in the harbour, thus giving 
 grandeur to the whole scenes in the narrative. It lies at 
 anchor before us, close by the Plymouth Rock, — 
 
 That had been to their feet as a doorstep 
 Into a world unknown — the corner-stone of a nation ! 
 
 The conception of Miles Standish and John Alden and 
 Priscilla as the groundwork of the piece, shows also great 
 genius. No general description of the infant colony, how- 
 ever elegantly given, would have so strikingly illustrated 
 its history as the selection of this single group. The in- 
 terest of a domestic incident is thrown round this nation- 
 commencing crisis. The love incident again, which, apart 
 from any such juxtaposition, would have been an interesting 
 one, is intensified by its Plymouth connections, like some 
 humble homestead that has its picturesque background on 
 the Appenines. 
 
 In the present state of poetical literature, when extrava- 
 gance of style prevails to such an extent, it is refreshing to 
 see that Longfellow, in the characters in this piece, seeks to 
 produce effect only by conforming to the truth of nature. 
 We could not have a more lifelike portrait than that of 
 Miles Standish, a genuine soldier-graft of a Puritan, profes- 
 sionally having more faith in gunpowder when dealing with 
 Indians than in the Bible, and constitutionally less fit to 
 court a woman than to win a fortress. Having lost his first 
 wife, he is not the man in any department to lose heart, and 
 moves forward so suddenly for the acquisition of a second, as 
 
206 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 wholly to disconcert his young secretary, John Alden, who 
 finds to his astonishment that his friend has singled out the 
 very object of his own affections, and commissioned him 
 ^moreover to be his agent in this, to himself, uncongenial 
 species of assault and battery. John Alden is drawn also to 
 the life; so soft and amiable, that he consents to sacrifice his 
 own interests to the stronger-willed little man ; so religiously 
 conscientious, that he looks upon this trial as the Lord's con- 
 troversy with his own soul. We have thus the sterner and 
 the softer side of Puritanism represented, and strikingly 
 separated. We have no such nice discrimination of cha- 
 racter in any of our other living poets. Nothing meanwhile 
 can be better than the description of the way in which 
 both these men proceeded to fulfil their work. 
 
 First, Miles certainly executed with a vengeance the mis- 
 sion nature had assigned him, as a belligerent against the 
 Indians. 
 
 After a three days' march he came to an Indian encampment 
 Pitched on the head of a meadow, between the sea and the forest ; 
 Women at work by the tents, and the warriors, horrid with war-paint, 
 Seated about a fire, and smoking and talking together ; 
 Who when they saw from afar the sudden approach of the white men, 
 Saw the flash of the sun on breastplate, and sabre, and musket, 
 Straightway leapt to their feet, and two from among them advancing, 
 Came to parley with Standish, and offer him furs as a present ; 
 Friendship was in their looks, but in their hearts there was hatred. 
 
 ***** 
 Then Wattemot advanced with a stride in front of the other, 
 And with a lofty demeanour thus vauntingly spake to the captain : 
 " Now Wattemot can see, by the fiery eyes of the captain, 
 Angry is he in his heart ; but the heart of the brave Wattawamet 
 Is not afraid at the sight. He was not born of a woman, 
 But on a mountain at night, from an oak-tree riven by lightning, 
 Forth he sprang at a bound, with all his weapons about him, 
 Shouting, " Who is here to fight with the brave Wattawamet ?" 
 Then he unsheathed his knife, and whetting the blade on his left hand, 
 Held it aloft, and displayed a woman's face on the handle, 
 Saying, with bitter expression and look of sinister meaning, 
 " I have another at home, with the face of a man on the handle : 
 By-and-by they shall marry, and there will be plenty of children !" 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 207 
 
 Then stood Pecksurt forth, insulting Miles Standish, 
 While with his fingers he patted the knife that hung at his bosom, 
 Drawing it half from its sheath, and plunging it back as he muttered : 
 " By-and-by it shall see ; it shall eat ; ha ! ha ! but shall speak not ! 
 This is the mighty captain the white men have sent to destroy us, 
 He is a little man ; let him go and fight with the women !" 
 
 ***** 
 
 All the best blood of his race, of Sir Hugh, and of Thurston de Standish, 
 Boil'd and beat in his heart, and swell'd in the veins of his temples. 
 Headlong he leapt on the boaster, and snatching his knife from its 
 
 scabbard, 
 Plunged it into his heart, and, reeling backwards, the savage 
 Fell with his face to the sky, and a fiendlike fierceness upon it. 
 Straight there arose from the forest the awful sound of the war-whoop, 
 And, like a flurry of snow on the whistling wind of December, 
 Swift and sudden and keen came a flight of feathery arrows. 
 Then came a cloud of smoke, and out of the cloud came the lightning, 
 Out of the lightning, thunder ; and death, unseen, ran before it. 
 Frightened, the savages fled for shelter in swamp and in thicket, 
 Hotly pursued and beset ; but their sachem, the brave Wattawamet, 
 Fled not, he was dead. Unswerving and swift had a bullet 
 Passed through his brain, and he fell with both hands clutching the 
 
 green sward, 
 Seeming in death to hold back from his foe the land of his fathers. 
 
 These are lines which for strength and spirit equal any that 
 can be quoted from the pages of our modern poets. The 
 terrific sarcasm of these Indians, and their grim humour may 
 be matched no doubt by some of the descriptions in Robert 
 Browning, who excels in this kind of writing ; but in him it 
 is often to be regretted that such passages in his works are 
 deformed by something unnatural in the subject itself, or in 
 his method of treating it. With the passage we have just 
 quoted, no such objection can be taken. It is sublime, and 
 yet the proprieties are observed. It affords subject for a 
 magnificent painting. 
 
 Neither can anything be better than the description of the 
 manner in which John Alden executed the mission laid upon 
 him by the captain. Priscilla, the Puritan maiden ! How 
 much more artistically conceived than either the Pompilia 
 of Browning or the Elaine of Tennyson. No interest 
 
2 o8 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 thrown by them around these ladies, by placing them in 
 sensational situations, and by high - wrought sentiment, 
 comes up to that which Longfellow produces by his mastery 
 in availing himself of natural and legitimate circumstances. 
 As she appears in his poem, Priscilla is regarded by us as 
 the first destined bride, so to speak, of the States ; she stands 
 before us in the uncorrupted simplicity of the Plymouth 
 time — the Eve of the Republic ; the representative of the 
 primitive innocence of the United States. As she sits at 
 her wheel, an orphan in that new land, with the snow-white 
 carded wool upon her knee, and her white hands feeding the 
 "ravenous spindle," the poet has already invested her with 
 a national and world interest. And what a truly drawn 
 womanhood. How intuitively she discerns the love which 
 Alden bears to her, under all the dissimulations of the com- 
 missary office he had undertaken. 
 
 But as he warmed and glowed in his simple and eloquent language, 
 Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival, 
 Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter, 
 Said, in a tremulous voice, " Why don't you speak for yourself, John ? " 
 
 With regard to the measure in which the poem is written, 
 when we first begin to read, we are disposed to shake our 
 head and ask ourselves how possibly the author can ever 
 wield these long uncouth lines of fifteen feet. Nor do we 
 mean to justify them. There are many of them which read 
 like unmistakable prose. And yet, as he proceeds, such is 
 the power of his genius, that even these long trailing 
 measures become electrified with life and rhythmical with 
 beauty, and ere long, in his sublimer moods, forked light- 
 nings in his hands, by which he strikes dismay into our 
 hearts. 
 
 What shall we say of " Evangeline " ? It holds a place 
 entirely by itself in our literature, in so far as immortal 
 praise is due to its author not only, and not so much for his 
 manner of treating the subject, as for his discovery and con- 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 209 
 
 ception of the subject itself. The idea of a girl who has 
 been torn from her lover by enemies who have invaded their 
 home settlement, and embarked them in ships to two different 
 ports in America; her search after him through the provinces 
 of that continent, down its great rivers, and through its 
 interminable forests — again and again finding traces of him, 
 only to end in disappointment ; catching a vain hope from 
 the smoke that ascends above every encampment in the 
 wilderness ; refusing to part with life's earliest dream, and 
 still believing that God will direct her steps through those 
 labyrinths of nature to the object of her love ; the unutter- 
 able longings ; the sickness of hope deferred, till youth at 
 last passed away, and her tresses became grey in this 
 mysterious love journey — this is a form of calamity that 
 was never conceived of in the imagination of any other 
 bard, and the bare presentation of which to the reader is 
 so suggestive of the highest poetry, of all that is trying in 
 situation and tragical in sentiment, as to amount in the 
 simple conception of it to a triumph of genius. True, 
 Longfellow was an American. But that cannot account for 
 such an idea having entered his mind as forms the ground- 
 work of this story. There are millions in the States to 
 whom the boundlessness of their continent suggests thoughts 
 of ambition and of enterpriser there is only one to whom 
 it would have suggested the despair of an Evangeline in 
 search of her lover. The idea could only have entered into 
 the soul of such a poet as he is, for sublimity is an essential 
 element in him. Sublime poets delight in vastness and 
 infinite space. Look to Milton. "What fills his mind is 
 the conception of the immeasurable gulf-distance between 
 hell and our earth, up which Satan steers his ascending 
 flight. 
 
 A dark 
 
 Illimitable ocean, without line, 
 
 Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, 
 
 And time and place are lost. 
 
 IS 
 
210 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 In the poem before us the vastnesses of the American 
 continent are with us and before us throughout, while the 
 interest of tenderness is awakened by the utter inability 
 of this lover in her maiden helplessness to contend with 
 them ; for it is the very magnificence of nature in its forests 
 and prairies and rolling rivers that is against her — it is the 
 wideness of space that overwhelms her. 
 
 The conception having once entered into Longfellow's 
 mind, how masterly is his way of managing it. Supposing 
 the idea to have been hit upon by any poet of the hopeless- 
 ness of this love-search, there were various ways of developing 
 it. When Byron would impress us with the loneliness of 
 the Chillon imprisonment, he makes the prisoner himself 
 describe it, which he does, no doubt, in sentimental and 
 exquisitely musical lines. When Tennyson would affect us 
 with the tragical sorrows of Maud's lover, he too makes him 
 his own narrator, striving to create and sustain interest (as 
 is the way with our modern poets) by throwing the poem into 
 a series of sensational ballads. With more trust in nature, 
 and with more command over the ways by which the human 
 heart can be reached, Longfellow has adopted another 
 method. He commences the poem with a simple narrative 
 of the days when Evangeline and Gabriel were happy 
 youthful lovers at Grand Pre in their own beloved Nova 
 Scotia. We are apt to consider the description needlessly 
 detailed, even common -place and prosy. Ignorant souls 
 that we are ! Unconsciously, insensibly are we prepared 
 with infinite skill for the coming catastrophe. There must 
 be first a picture of the perfect peace of that home settle- 
 ment — quiet but humble — the nest as God made it, moss- 
 fashioned, softly lined with the loves that are in it. We 
 must first have visited and looked into it, then we shall feel 
 the tragedy of the hour when this sanctuary was ravished 
 and violated by ruthless hands. In the very common- 
 placeness of Evangeline's first prospects, well-to-do on her 
 father's farm, no bar of poverty, no obstacle to her heart's 
 
HENR Y WA DS WORTH L ONGFELL OW. 211 
 
 affection, everything holding out the likelihood of a life 
 monotonous, but perfectly level with her desires, there is a 
 dreadful preparation planned by contrast for the extraordi- 
 nary fate that awaited her. The tame and unattractive 
 landscape, too, of Nova Scotia, so dear to her heart by the 
 loves of Gabriel and her old father — how does it contrast 
 with the gorgeous scenery through which she is afterwards led 
 — the pomp and prodigality of nature which was to mock her 
 heart. How well does the poet sustain the picture of perfect 
 peace and love happiness that reigned at Grand Pre up to 
 the very last moment before the thunder-storm burst upon 
 it ; up to the last night when, the humble preparations for her 
 marriage being all made, Evangeline retired to her bedroom. 
 
 Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, and its clothes-press 
 
 Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were carefully folded 
 
 Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hands of Evangeline woven. 
 
 This was the precious dower she would bring to her husband in marriage, 
 
 Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill as a housewife. 
 
 Ah ! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she stood with 
 
 Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her chamber ; 
 
 Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the orchard, 
 
 Waited her lover, and watched for the gleam of her lamp and her shadow. 
 
 Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling of sadness 
 
 Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in the moonlight 
 
 Flitted across the floor, and darkened the room for a moment. 
 
 And as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely the moon pass 
 
 Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star followed her footsteps, 
 
 As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered with Hagar ! 
 
 Any other poet than Longfellow might have shrunk from 
 an attempt to describe the varied regions through which his 
 heroine passed. It was, in fact, to undertake to give a 
 panoramic view of whatever is wonderful on the American 
 continent. But difficulties of this kind vanish before his 
 rich and prodigal fancy. Whether he lead us past the 
 Ohio shore and the mouth of the Wabash, down the swift 
 Mississippi or by the b.kes of the Atchafalaya, or westward 
 where the Oregon flows and the Walloway and the Owyhee, 
 we have the characteristic scenery conjured up, every 
 
 15* 
 
212 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 variety of vegetation, every species of bird, every strange 
 and picturesque freak of nature. Wherever the despair of 
 Evangeline's love carries her, his transcendent genius accom- 
 panies her, depicting each region of her wanderings, so that 
 we see it gleaming under the tenderness of her moonlights, 
 or reddened by the sunsets that closed her unavailing 
 journeys. Seldom has there been a greater master-stroke in 
 the pathetic than his bringing the two lovers on one of the 
 nights to the very point of meeting. The exhaustion of 
 nature leads her to retire for the night to slumber on the 
 banks of the river, and he passes by ! The mockery of a 
 moment's proximity added to the misery of a lifetime 
 separation. Hapless Evangeline ! 
 
 Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in seasons and places 
 Divers and distant far was seen the wandering maiden ; 
 Now in the tents of grace of the meek Moravian Mission, 
 Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the army, 
 Now in secluded hamlets, in towns, and populous cities ; 
 Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremembered. 
 Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey ; 
 Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended. 
 Each succeeding year stole something away from her beauty, 
 Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and the shadow. 
 Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of grey o'er her forehead, 
 Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly horizon, 
 As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the morning. 
 
 The close of the story is well conceived. We feel it to 
 be a relief when this child of suffering comes up with him 
 at length ; and when we connect this her last embrace of 
 him in the hospital of Pennsylvania with the preparations for 
 marriage in Grand Pre, it seems to us as if here were the 
 beginning and the end of a love, all the intermediate stages 
 of which are wanting — the mere foundation stone and cope 
 stone of a building which God had made frustrate ! 
 
 Let us now look at the "Golden Legend." 
 
 We cannot agree with the author in admiring the legend 
 upon which this poem is founded. He is quite in raptures 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 213 
 
 with it. " It seems to me to surpass all other legends in 
 beauty and significance." What is it ? A prince, the Prince 
 of Hohonek, labours under a deep melancholy. Certain 
 'doctors of Salerne give it as their opinion that his malady 
 is not curable unless a young maiden be found willing to die 
 for him. A young girl, Elsie, the daughter of one of his 
 tenants, is willing to undergo this fate. She communicates 
 her intentions to her old father and mother, both of whom, 
 after some very small demurrance, consider that this must 
 be nothing less than a suggestion from above. The prince 
 hesitates in the first instance. He goes to consult the priest 
 in confessional. The priest would have stood out against 
 the proposal, but having left the church before Hohonek 
 arrives, Lucifer in disguise gets into the confessional and 
 sanctions it. Upon this, the prince proceeds along with Elsie 
 on the journey from his castle on the Rhine to Salerne, 
 where the death was to take place. Upon reaching it he 
 changes his purpose. He now decisively refuses to allow 
 her to die. Whether through the benefit of a popish miracle, 
 or of the fresh air on the journey, he recovers from his 
 melancholy. He resolves to marry her, and she returns to 
 his castle his wedded wife. 
 
 We wonder that our author should admire a story like 
 this, founded upon a proposal of death wanting in morality 
 and probability, and certain therefore to fail in aesthetics. 
 He looks upon Elsie's act as one of wonderful devotedness. 
 
 God sent His messenger of faith, 
 
 And whispered in the maiden's heart, 
 
 " Rise up, and look from where thou art, 
 
 And scatter with unselfish hands 
 
 The freshness on the barren sands 
 
 And solitudes of death." 
 
 O beauty of holiness, 
 
 Of self-forgetfulness, of lowliness ! 
 
 O power of meekness, 
 
 Whose very gentleness and weakness 
 
 Are like the yielding but irresistible air 1 
 
214 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Upon the pages 
 
 Of the sealed volume that I bear 
 
 The deed divine 
 
 Is written in characters of gold, 
 
 That never shall grow old, 
 
 But through all ages 
 
 Burn and shine 
 
 With soft effulgence ! 
 
 O God ! it is Thy indulgence 
 
 That fills the world with the bliss 
 
 Of a good deed like this. 
 
 There can be no question of the beauty of these lines, but 
 as to the deed they commend — well, what shall we say ? If 
 a man were in danger by exposure to enemies, or from fire 
 or water, that a young woman should interpose to save his 
 life at the sacrifice of her own, would entitle her to be 
 considered as a heroine. But if he be labouring, like Prince 
 Hohonek, under some malady in the providence of God, that 
 she should subject herself to a violent death in order to 
 effect his recovery, is a monstrosity in two senses. She is 
 fool enough to think that any death of the kind could have 
 such an effect. Next, she does an unauthorised thing, 
 for no one is warranted to give away life for the cure of 
 another's melancholy. The doctors at Salerne had no doubt 
 given out their opinion that a young woman's blood was the 
 only remedy for hypochondria ; but it is plain from the narra- 
 tive itself that the prince did not consider their authority as 
 sufficient, that he considered it necessary to consult the 
 priest, and that the priest himself repudiated in his heart 
 the proposal. It was only Lucifer that sanctioned it, by our 
 author's own showing. How then can he approve it ? Nor 
 will it do to say that the girl believed the thing to be right, 
 and considered the whole to be a suggestion of heaven. 
 This removes the case into the fanatical, which is con- 
 demnable, and never aesthetical. A girl acting under such 
 influence can never fully sustain our admiration. The act is 
 too high-flown and improbable to be accepted in morals or 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 215 
 
 in art. The same may be said of her father and mother, 
 who, after a single conversation with her at their bedside, 
 consent to her self-immolation. This lowers them at once 
 in our eyes. But what shall we say of Hohonek himself — 
 of the man who consented to the proposal of being cured of 
 his melancholy by this child's blood ? He no doubt changes 
 his purpose at last, but who can admire such irresolution ? 
 Thus, there is a fault in all the characters, which is the 
 more to be lamented, because the scenes of the poem are 
 magnificently described. 
 
 The " Golden Legend " is full of genius, and written with 
 infinite talent. Even the parts of Hohonek and Elsie, if 
 we exclude the unnatural design of their journey, are finely 
 conceived. The legends which they recite to each other in 
 the garden are rendered, like all his other legends, with 
 singular grace, airyness, and loveliness ; and the prince's 
 address to her on the terrace of the castle at the close, 
 reminds one of the musical and impassioned tenderness of 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 But the chief charm of the poem, and that which stamps 
 it as entirely original, is the description given us of the 
 whole services, offices, and officials of the Church of Rome, 
 as they came under the observation of the two lovers on their 
 journey to Salerne. When they came to Strasbourg Cathe- 
 dral, besides a splendid description of the structure itself, we 
 have a sermon from Friar Cuthbert to the crowd round the 
 pulpit on Easter Sunday, followed by a miracle play. At 
 the Convent of Herschau we have Friar Claus's exultations 
 in the wine-cellar, and Friar Pacificus's complacencies over 
 his illuminated Gospels. At the school of Salerne we have 
 scholastics and doctors disputing their theses. No doubt 
 there is a certain oddness of style, which approximates too 
 much to the viciousness of our false modern school of 
 poetry, and we prefer tne other larger poems of Longfellow, 
 as written by a purer standard. But the description is 
 splendid, and shows a power of entering into the very per- 
 
216 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 sons he describes superior to that of any other of our poets, 
 and amounting to a metempsychosis. No friar in the 
 Middle Ages could have preached with more characteristic 
 mixture of humour and profanity than Friar Cuthbert does 
 when describing the resurrection of Christ, accompanied by 
 the cracking of his whip and the cheers of the mob. So 
 also have we had many pictures of wine-loving friars, but 
 this probably excels them all. Claus thus soliloquises in the 
 cellar over a cask of Bacharach : — 
 
 Now, here is a cask that stands alone, 
 
 And has stood a hundred years or more, 
 
 Its beard of cobwebs long and hoar, 
 
 Trailing and sweeping along the floor, 
 
 Like Barbar-ossa, who sits in his cave, 
 
 Taciturn, sober, sedate, and grave, 
 
 Till his beard has grown thro' the table of stone ! 
 
 It is of the quick and not of the dead, 
 
 In its veins the blocd is hot and red, 
 
 And a heart still beats in these ribs of oak, 
 
 That time may have tamed but has not broke ! 
 
 Behold where he stands all sound and good, 
 
 Brown and oloS in his oaken hood ; 
 
 Silent he seems externally 
 
 As any Carthusian monk can be ; 
 
 But within, what a spirit of deep unrest ! 
 
 What' a seething and simmering in his breast ! 
 
 As if the heaving of his great heart 
 
 Would burst his belt of oak apart ! 
 
 Let me unloose this button of wood, 
 
 And quiet a little his turbulent mood. 
 
 See how its currents gleam and shine, 
 
 As- if they had caught the purple hues 
 
 Of autumn sunsets on the Rhine, 
 
 Descending and mingling with the dews ; 
 
 Or as if the grapes were stained with blood 
 
 Of the innocent boy who some years back 
 
 Was taken and crucified by the Jews, 
 
 In that ancient town of Bacharach. 
 
HENR Y WADSWORTH LONGFELLO W. 217 
 
 He next transmigrates into Friar Pacificus, the transcriber 
 and illuminator, as follows : — 
 
 There, now, is an initial letter, 
 
 King Rdne himself never made a better ! 
 
 Finished down to the leaf arjd the snail, 
 
 Down to the eyes on the peacock's tail ! 
 
 And now, as I turn the volume over, 
 
 And see what lies between cover and cover, 
 
 What treasures of art these pages hold, 
 
 All ablaze with crimson and gold, 
 
 God forgive me ! I seem to feel 
 
 A certain satisfaction steal 
 
 Into my heart and into my brain, 
 
 As if my talent had not lain 
 
 Wrapped in a napkin, and all in vain. 
 
 Yes, I might almost say to the Lord, 
 
 " Here is a copy of Thy Word, 
 
 Written out with much toil and pain ; 
 
 Take it, O Lord, and let it be 
 
 As something I have done for Thee.'' 
 
 (He looks from the window) 
 
 How sweet the air is ! How fair the scene ! 
 
 I wish I had as lovely a green 
 
 To paint my landscapes and my leaves ! 
 
 How the swallows twitter under the eaves ! 
 
 There, now, there is one in her nest, 
 
 I can just catch a glimpse of her head and breast, 
 
 And will sketch her thus, in her quiet nook, 
 
 For the margin of my Gospel book. 
 
 Meanwhile the abbot moralises outside the cloisters : — 
 
 Slowly, slowly, up the wall 
 
 Steals the sunshine, steals the shade ; 
 Evening damps begin to fall, 
 
 Evening shadows are displayed. 
 Round me, o'er me, everywhere, 
 
 All the sky is grand with clouds, 
 And athwart the evening air 
 
 Wheel the swallows home in crowds. 
 Shafts of sunshine from the west 
 
 Paint the dusky windows red ; 
 Darker shadows, deeper rest, 
 
 Underneath and overhead. 
 
2r8 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Darker, darker, and more wan 
 
 In my breast the shadows fall ; 
 Upward steals the life of man, 
 
 As the sunshine from the wall ; 
 From the wall unto the sky, 
 
 From the roof along the spire ; 
 Ah ! the souls of those who die 
 
 Are but sunbeams lifted higher. 
 
 We cannot dwell upon the " Saga of Olaf." The warlike 
 encounters of the Norse had long been familiar to our litera- 
 ture, but the first introduction of Christianity by force into 
 their regions was a new and fine subject for poetry. Under 
 the bold exorcism of Longfellow's imagination this burlesque 
 mission rises up in living form and startling embodiments. 
 Thor, defiant, meets us on the threshold ; and, as a closing 
 contrast, we have the voice of the Evangelist John heard in 
 a vision of the night, advising love, not force. The body of 
 the poem records, in sea-fights and graphic scenes, the 
 exploits of King Olaf, who confounded the sword with 
 Christianity, and of Thaugbrand, his priest, who confounded 
 wholesale baptism with conversion. But as the Saga takes 
 the ballad form, accompanied by some of the extravagances 
 often connected with it, we scarcely look upon them as 
 illustrating the truer style of poetry which our author has 
 exhibited to our age. 
 
 We may be expected, perhaps, following the rule adopted 
 in preceding essays, to say something of the religious senti- 
 ments of Longfellow, as those appear in his writings. But 
 we would not be considered as in this volume presuming to 
 be censor general of the religion of our bards. The cases of 
 Browning and Tennyson were peculiar. They have made 
 their poetry a vehicle for introducing a new species or form 
 of Christianity. This cannot be said of the poet who forms 
 the subject of this essay. Writing on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, he is not affected by the spirit pervading this school 
 of religionists. He does not write under the agonies or 
 earnestness that have originated in scepticism. 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 219 
 
 At the same time, Longfellow, in religion, seems to be of 
 the Broad school. We have no intention of animadverting 
 upon the kind of religion advocated by the Theologian form- 
 ing one of his party in the " Wayside Inn," and which re- 
 presents his own views. 
 
 A Theologian, from the school 
 
 Of Cambridge on the Charles, was there ; 
 
 Skilful alike with tongue and pen, 
 
 He preached to all men everywhere 
 
 The gospel of the Golden Rule, 
 
 The new commandment given to men, 
 
 Thinking the deed and not the creed 
 
 Would help us in our utmost need. 
 
 With reverent feet the earth he trod, 
 
 Nor banished nature from his plan ; 
 
 But studied still with deep research, 
 
 To build the universal Church, 
 
 Lofty as is the love of God, 
 
 And ample as the wants of man. 
 
 He thus explains himself: — 
 
 I stand without here in the porch, 
 I hear the bells' melodious din, 
 I hear the organ peal within, 
 I hear the prayer, with words that scorch 
 Like sparks from an inverted torch. 
 I hear a sermon upon sin, 
 With threatenings of the last account. 
 And all, translated in the air, 
 Reach me, but as our dear Lord's prayer, 
 And as the Sermon on the Mount. 
 Must it be Calvin, and not Christ ? 
 Must it be Athanasian creeds, 
 Or holy water, books, and beads ? 
 * * * * 
 
 Not to one Church alone, but seven , 
 The voice prophetic spake from heaven ; 
 And unto each the promise came, 
 Diversified, but still the same. 
 For him that overcometh are 
 The new name written on the stone, 
 The raiment white, the crown, the throne, 
 And I will give him the Morning Star. 
 
220 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 In short, the religion here taught to be important is that 
 which appears in the life, irrespective of creed ; and, if we 
 understand him aright, he means to say that the Bible 
 inculcates the same view, contemplating all Churches as 
 good enough, and their peculiar creeds as very much a 
 matter of indifference, compared with matters of life and 
 practice. True religion, according to him as he " stands 
 in the porch," or as " translated in the air," i.e., as separated 
 from the dust thrown around it by ministers and churchmen, 
 is comprehended, in the summary spirit of it, in the " Lord's 
 Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount." How deep the 
 Charles may be at the point where the Cambridge school 
 stands, we cannot tell ; but the theology of the school 
 itself must be very shallow if this be the amount of its 
 teaching. What right has any man to cull out one part of 
 the Bible, especially the Sermon on the Mount, where our 
 Lord is simply inculcating the practical rules of the Christian 
 religion, and to cashier all the rest of the Record ? If the 
 Bible, when "translated in the air," appears reduced to these 
 three chapters, most of us will prefer our own English 
 version, which gives us the whole of the original. We can 
 easily see why he singles out these chapters. Containing as 
 they do nothing but what is common to Christianity with 
 other religions, they afford him a foundation broad enough 
 upon which to build up his " universal Church." Mean- 
 while what does he make of the rest of the Record which 
 declares at great length what is peculiar to Christianity ; as, 
 for example, that the eternal Son of God was made flesh in 
 order that he might be made sin, and atonement for it ; that 
 we are all born into this world guilty and polluted, needing 
 to be washed in the sin-atoning blood of the Saviour, and 
 to be born again by the Holy Spirit before we can keep the 
 rules laid down in the Sermon on the Mount? All this is 
 what the Cambridge scholar would call creed. Of course 
 it is ; but, whatever it be, he is bound to receive it ; and any 
 man with half an eye can perceive that our life and practice 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 221 
 
 must be essentially affected according as we receive or reject 
 it. This creed, if it be true, is infinitely more momentous 
 than life or practice, for it concerns the whole matter of our 
 everlasting salvation, with the life and practice besides. 
 
 As already stated, we have no intention of animadverting 
 upon Longfellow's religious sentiments. But we have made 
 these statements to show that he cannot be considered as an 
 Evangelical, in the sense of a Calvinistic poet. 
 
 A Calvinistic poet ! Some may sneer at the term. But 
 we hold this to be the great desideratum of the age. Let us 
 for a moment consider what constitution of a man we need 
 at present in this department of our literature. 
 
 First, then, he would need to be in sympathy with the 
 Creator in that world of beauty by which we are surrounded, 
 in its magnificence, its beauty, and its tenderness; having, in 
 short, as one half of his qualification, that which forms very 
 nearly all the qualification which our modern poets of the 
 higher order possess. 
 
 Next, he must be in sympathy with the same glorious 
 Being in the great work of Redemption, acquiescing in His 
 views of the awful demerit of sin, accepting man's eternal 
 condemnation upon account of it, and responding to His 
 infinite love in sending His Son to be our surety-expiation 
 upon the cross. This is the other half of the qualification 
 needed. If he has not seen the glory of the Maker of all 
 worlds in this department of his operation, he lacks just so 
 much of the inspiration which makes up the perfect poet. 
 
 Milton treated the Fall Calvinistically. He threw the 
 Bible truth of that event into the region of the imagination, 
 where it will ever remain. He represented sin, according 
 to the truth of it in the Bible, as that which, even in one 
 act of it, deserves hell. The poem stands out therefore in 
 the sublimity to be expected from a Divine idea. 
 
 In his " Paradise Regained" he failed utterly, because he 
 swerved from Calvinism, that is, from the Bible view of 
 Redemption, fully and faithfully and at once accepted. He 
 
222 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 deserved to fail. Following his own reason, which I suppose 
 had led him into Arianism, or something like it, he placed 
 the battle-ground of Redemption in the wilderness, instead 
 of placing it on Calvary. He made it an affair of obedience, 
 and not of expiation. There is no sublimity in Redemption 
 unless you take the Calvinistic view of it. Even the enemies 
 of this view object to it upon the ground of the stupendous 
 steps which it supposes God to take ; and, from the very 
 reason why they reject it, we must infer that, if well founded, 
 it furnishes the greatest subject for the human imagination. 
 
 What we need, then, is an epic poet to do for the Cross 
 what Milton did for the Fall ; that is, to treat it Calvin- 
 istically, and at the same time throw it into the realm of the 
 ideal. How this is to be done must be left to the coming 
 poet to determine. Meanwhile, let none imagine that the 
 Crucifixion has become so much a plain, established verity 
 of fact, along with all the circumstances of it, as that it 
 never can be made the subject of such a poem. What took 
 place on Calvary was only the transaction as it appeared to 
 the human eye. Meanwhile the whole grandeur of the trans- 
 action lies invisible behind, something which faith glories 
 in realising, and something which genius could render irre- 
 sistibly attractive. The Socinian's cross is nothing at all. 
 The cross of Browning, Carlyle, and Tennyson is merely the 
 sanctuary of sorrow; but the Cross, Calvinistically viewed, 
 where the surety-Saviour hangs to deliver us from the wrath 
 to come, is a sublime cliff, whence the eagle imagination will 
 some day or other take its flight, which is destined to soar 
 to the highest heaven of song. 
 
223 
 
 V. 
 
 THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after the Fall we read of animal sacrifice. 
 I shall take for granted that we admit this to have been 
 a Divine institution, intended to prefigure the atoning death 
 of our Lord. Meanwhile, have we considered what follows 
 from such an institution, or rather from the principle of 
 symbolism it proceeds upon ? Has it occurred to us that if 
 God has thus resolved to represent one thing belonging to 
 Christianity under a figure, it is the first step taken to sym- 
 bolise the whole of it ? For, if the plan be good in reference 
 to one particular, why not make it of universal application ? 
 Does not the congruity of things demand it ? 
 
 If the atonement is to be represented by animal blood, 
 plainly God Himself is not the congruous object to be ap- 
 proached by such blood, but a Shekinah or luminous appear- 
 ance grossly setting Him forth. For the same reason, in 
 this symbolical system let the throne on which the Eternal 
 sits propitiated be represented by a small wooden chest, over- 
 laid with gold, and a lid of pure gold above it, to be called 
 the Mercy Seat. Let heaven be represented by an apart- 
 ment so many cubits long and broad. It must be so. If 
 the atonement is lowered down to bullock's blood, the heaven 
 which is thus purified must be brought down in the same 
 proportion. Then, as the cardinal truth of Christianity 
 was to be the Incarnation, it was necessary that all the things 
 we have mentioned, the Shekinah, the Mercy Seat, the Most 
 Holy, should be inclosed within a tabernacle, this being a 
 figure of "the more perfect tabernacle" of Christ's human 
 
224 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 nature — a poor figure no doubt, but the whole mystery is 
 dwindled down into a proportional insignificance. 
 
 In such a symbolical system it is plain that the Lord Jesus 
 Christ could never Himself be the priest. The priesthood 
 also must be lowered in the same proportion. A mere man 
 clothed in garments of glory and beauty, with a linen mitre, 
 will do ; and, so far as holiness is concerned, the word itself 
 graven upon a plate of gold on his mitre will suffice. Thus 
 when we advance from the Fall to the period of Moses, we 
 discover that the symbol of animal sacrifice was only the 
 first step taken in a singular plan which had entered into the 
 mind of Jehovah to foresketch in outward symbol the whole 
 objective of Christianity. 
 
 But what as to the subjective ? The people who were to 
 be set down before this symbolic system must correspond to 
 it. They must be a people the subjects of a proportionally 
 insignificant redemption. Here again the everlasting salva- 
 tion sinks down into connection with deliverance from slavery 
 in Egypt, and from the Red Sea. Satan is Pharaoh, and 
 heaven is Canaan. When God had resolved to perfect the 
 symbolic system at Sinai, it was in connection with a people, 
 the Jews, who in their outward history and political separa- 
 tion held out the true redeemed of God upon the same small 
 proportional scale. 
 
 Thus it entered into the mind of God to foresketch all 
 Christianity objectively and subjectively. Now this, when 
 we think of it, was a very strange scheme. Has it been 
 sufficiently considered, and the reasons for it in the wisdom 
 of God ? We shall afterwards show how it was designed by 
 God to constitute one of the evidences of Christianity 
 when it appeared. But we shall presently inquire into the 
 Divine purposes served by it under the former Testament. 
 
 We shall first inquire why God saw fit to begin by em- 
 ploying the symbolic method of dealing with the Church, 
 giving the shadow of heavenly things before He brought in 
 he heavenly things themselves. 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 225 
 
 We are accustomed to say that it was more suitable to the 
 infancy of the Church, just as pictures are employed in the 
 nursery. What do we mean by the infancy of the Church ? 
 We are not to confound it with an infancy of society or of 
 the human race in general. The idea which suggests itself 
 to some is the want of intellectual development in mankind 
 in the earlier ages. We would protest against this being 
 considered as the reason why symbol was more suitable at 
 the beginning in matters of religion. We would demur to 
 the doctrine that there was a natural infancy of human 
 society requiring that Divine things should be exhibited in 
 this way, and then a natural development in human society 
 under which it became susceptible of the full doctrinal 
 revelation. There is nothing in such an idea but mysticism, 
 and even a dangerous error. The natural faculty of man 
 stood at zero after the Fall, as to religion, and made no 
 advancement in it by a natural process. Progress in religion 
 was supernatural. It is the Church and not the world Paul 
 speaks of in his famous illustration of an infancy, a minority, 
 and a manhood ; and the Church is to be considered as 
 having been in the one or the other of these stages entirely 
 because of the measure of Divine revelation granted to 
 her, less or more. What made the infancy of the Church 
 was the small quantity of Divine revelation granted at first • 
 that, and that only. Does any believe that Adam and Eve 
 and their first descendants could not have understood the 
 full gospel afterwards revealed, without first having gone 
 through some process of development ; and that they would 
 not have been fit enough for its institutions, if God had been 
 pleased to set them up ? The whole depended upon God's 
 sovereignty. And just as He has purposed that man himself 
 should pass through the various stages of growth, and no 
 other reason can be given for it but His purpose, so it was 
 His sovereign will that revelation should dawn gradually upon 
 the world, and reach its noonday above the cross. 
 
 Even when the apostle suggests an infancy, minority, and 
 
 16 
 
226 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 manhood of the Church itself, he is rather describing the 
 successive modes which God was pleased to adopt in dis- 
 pensing the covenant, than describing any successive devel- 
 opment that went forward in the Church. We are not to 
 conceive as if under the patriarchal dispensation it was 
 growing and preparing for the Sinaitic, and under the Sinaitic 
 growing and preparing for the Evangelic. For what do we 
 mean by the Church growing ? Why, of course, those 
 members of the Church that underwent the training of the 
 patriarchal dispensation were swept away by death and never 
 entered upon the Sinaitic ; and such as were schooled in the 
 Sinaitic did not survive to pass into the light of the Christian 
 economy. Could you suppose an individual born in patri- 
 archal times to have lived some two thousand years, then 
 might you conceive of him as being the subject of such a 
 dispensational experiment. All we can say, then, is that 
 God was pleased to adopt these successive economies, and 
 that the Church under them is fitly viewed either as the 
 infant, or the minor under tutors, or the grown heir. 
 
 When the Church, owing to the small measure of super- 
 natural revelation yet granted, was thus in its infancy, and 
 the heavenly things afterwards to come were as yet defectively 
 made known in doctrine, it pleased God to give a symbolical 
 representation to them of those things, over and above the 
 doctrinal. Those symbols were intended more for impression 
 than for instruction — not so much to add to their information, 
 as to impress upon their senses the things revealed, and thus 
 make up to them, as it were, in one way, what was wanting 
 in another. This meets a difficulty that must have staggered 
 our minds had they been intended for instruction, since 
 information is in fact much more hard to apprehend by sym- 
 bols than by plain words. Take the other view, and their 
 adoption in the Church in these earlier ages is justified. 
 How essential that, when the heavenly things were as yet 
 but imperfectly revealed in doctrine, they should be all the 
 more vividly represented to their faith, or rather to their 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 227 
 
 senses ! The atonement commends itself sufficiently to us 
 now when it is exhibited in all the satisfactoriness of a com- 
 pleted event, so that there is no necessity for an animal 
 sacrifice and sprinkling of blood to impress it upon us. The 
 Priesthood of Christ is a doctrine so fully revealed to us as 
 to be fraught with comfort enough, without having a figure 
 of Him in the Aaronic priest before our eye. So with other 
 parts of the theological system. We can all see how neces- 
 sary the figures were to those who lived under the former 
 Testament. Nor does it affect the point now insisted upon 
 that they must have been unable to know the theological sig- 
 nificance of those figures. This is in part true; in part not. 
 It is not pretended that they exactly apprehended the philo- 
 sophy of the symbolic scheme — the full mystery of the temple 
 symbolism, for example, as it is unfolded in the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews, but the great truths of— God present — and 
 God dwelling in the midst of them — of the atonement, &c. — 
 were clearly enough known to them, and were comfortably 
 applied to their faith by the symbolic arrangement. Without 
 supposing them to be able to unravel the whole evangelical 
 mystery of " the worldly sanctuary," it might yet be the fittest 
 medium for impressing all the well-known truths of religion 
 upon their consciences and hearts. All the Jews might not be 
 aware that the tabernacle which stood before them was a figure 
 of the Son of God incarnate, as we know it to have been from 
 Paul, who tells us that it meant " the more perfect tabernacle " 
 of His human nature. But here at least was God associated 
 with an outward structure, and thus brought very near to 
 them, and, indeed, dwelling in the midst of them. 
 
 We very much doubt whether many of us sufficiently 
 realise the advantage of the Jews in this symbolic manifes- 
 tation by which God was with them. It was such as to 
 strike the senses with awe ; it was a local approximation of 
 the Deity. What would be the sensation produced amongst 
 us if God should establish His residence in the metropolis 
 of this kingdom in any architectural structure ? So near an 
 
 16* 
 
228 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 approach was this — so dreadful was this place — that instead 
 of wondering at the veneration in which it was held by the 
 Jews, the marvel is that society in that land represented its 
 usual levities, while the mystery is that idolatry and every 
 moral abomination found way in the community. Here was 
 God dwelling in their very midst in a tent or house. Here, 
 again, was a man, the high priest, who with the mitre upon 
 his head, and the Urim and Thummim upon his breast, was 
 the visible representation of Christ in His priestly office ; 
 while the whole work of the atonement was so sensibly before 
 their eye in the sacrifice he offered up, and the absolution 
 so comfortably realised by the blood sprinkled upon their 
 persons, that we are apt to envy the Jews their dispensa- 
 tional privilege. The whole, however, was a wise and 
 condescending advantage which God gave them under that 
 defective economy. Now that we have the truth of God's 
 nearness and reconciliation fully made known to us ; now 
 that we have the atonement fully revealed in the redemption 
 actually brought in by Jesus Christ ; there is not only no 
 necessity for such sensible confirmation of our faith, but any 
 attempt made by the Church of Rome, or Romanizing 
 Churches, to produce such impressions upon the senses have 
 been fraught with unspeakable mischief. Symbols added on 
 by God's appointment to a defective revelation helped faith, 
 but when associated by men with the gospel, they only 
 foster superstition. What was useful as a crutch, becomes 
 deadly when it is no longer necessary, and yet is retained. 
 A vicar of Christ, after Christ has Himself been manifested 
 in the flesh ; a sacrificing priesthood, after the one sacrifice 
 has already been offered ; an altar, after Christ, who was the 
 antitype of it, has appeared ; lighted candles, when the Sun 
 of righteousness has ascended the meridian ; teaching by 
 church architecture, when Christianity has itself come in — 
 we might laugh at it all as an absurd graft of the Old Testa- 
 ment into the New, were it not as pestilential as it is 
 ridiculous ! 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY, 229 
 
 Let us attend to the progressive history of symbols — the 
 way in which God was pleased to introduce them. Only a 
 very few symbolical ordinances and arrangements were 
 brought in during the patriarchal age — sacrifice indeed being 
 the principal one. There was neither a priesthood then 
 symbolising Christ's Priesthood, nor was there a tabernacle. 
 Priests indeed are spoken of before Aaron's appointment to 
 his office, but these were only men who for conveniency's 
 sake, or from regard to order, offered up the sacrifices for a 
 community : meanwhile the right of sacrificing remained 
 with the heads of all families. But when Aaron was ap- 
 pointed priest, all right of sacrificing was taken from heads 
 of families and heads of smaller communities in Israel, and 
 Aaron became sole high priest — a symbol for the first time 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such priests as were before Aaron 
 were only common or ministerial, not symbolical : we except 
 of course Melchizedec, whose priesthood was entirely peculiar, 
 and intended to prefigure what was extraordinary about 
 Christ's Priesthood and superior to the Aaronic. During 
 the patriarchal age, then, there was no symbolic priesthood, 
 and neither was there a symbolic or "worldly sanctuary." 
 God was not worshipped in any one place ; He was wor- 
 shipped as dwelling in heaven, not as dwelling in any 
 particular structure upon earth. On this account we might 
 be apt to fall into the mistake that the patriarch's privilege 
 was superior to that of the Jew. He had the right of sacri- 
 ficing in his own family, while by the law of Moses this was 
 lost, and the right of ten thousand sacrificers was taken 
 away, to be supplanted by one man, who alone was allowed 
 to offer the sacrifice, and considered as making atonement 
 for them all. Was not this a limitation of their religious 
 privilege ? But here it is to be considered that whatever 
 brought Christ's one sole and effectual priesthood before 
 their view, and served impressively to seal it to their faith, 
 went much farther for their comfort than any dignity implied 
 in being personal sacrificers. Till Aaron appeared, they had 
 
230 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 no symbol of Christ's priesthood. They had only a symbol 
 of His sacrifice. The privilege of the Church thus made a 
 perceptible advance as the symbolic picture was being carried 
 to its perfection. When they offered their own sacrifices, 
 nothing was sealed and symbolised to them but the death of 
 Christ. When one high priest was consecrated with the 
 mysterious oil, this held out to them another feature in 
 redemptive work — Christ's glorious priesthood. The same 
 remark applies to the tabernacle. One might object that 
 the patriarch's worship, which contemplated God as dwelling 
 in the skies, was a sublimer worship than that of the Jew, 
 who was called to contemplate God as dwelling in a 
 material structure, and who, besides, was restricted to one 
 place in the worship of God. But not to say that the Jew 
 was never taught to view God as confined to the tabernacle, 
 and still regarded Him as the God of heaven and earth ; not 
 to say that it was the sacrificial worship of God only that 
 was limited to one place; we are to remember that our 
 comfort as sinners depends much less upon the majesty of 
 God than upon the knowledge and assurance of His nearness 
 to us. God dwelling in the sky communicates small comfort. 
 God dwelling in the midst of us is the inestimable blessing. 
 When He pitched His tent in Israel, this was the very figure 
 of Immanuel — God with us. This privilege the patriarchs 
 wanted. 
 
 At last the time drew near when the symbolic privilege of 
 the Church was to be perfected by the whole system of 
 heavenly things being represented sensibly and materially to 
 the eye. And the first thing necessary to this was that a 
 people should be separated from the rest of the world, who 
 should themselves be a symbol of the redeemed, for a 
 symbolical people were of course to stand before the sym- 
 bolical or worldly sanctuary. Such was Israel, whose sepa- 
 ration was political ; whose calling was to a land belonging 
 to this world; whose redemption was from bodily slavery ; 
 whose exodus was a procession from Egypt ; whose way was 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 231 
 
 through a literal wilderness ; whose journey was one geo- 
 grapically described, and beset with difficulties of a corre- 
 sponding character. We cannot but feel the fitness there 
 was between such a symbolical people and the symbolical 
 system that was about to be set up, and we cannot sufficiently 
 admire the symmetrical beauty of the whole arrangement, 
 which, in the very nature of things, could only have entered 
 into the mind of God, and only been executed by Him. 
 
 The next thing necessary was that the symbolic ordinances 
 should be given forth and promulgated to the Jews at first, in 
 such a manner, and with such a manifestation of God as, 
 being itself symbolical, would correspond with them. 
 
 It was not enough that they should come with Divine 
 authority as a revelation from heaven (this the gospel did), 
 but they must come from " a mount that might be touched." 
 The Jews were brought to the foot of Sinai, which, for the 
 time, became the throne of God, and represented with an 
 impressive materialism whatever is awful or solemn about 
 His immediate presence. Upon this mountain was exhibited 
 in symbol all that is terrible and all that is comfortable in 
 our religion. 
 
 First, what is it that constitutes the truly terrible or 
 formidable in religion ? Unquestionably it is the majesty 
 and wrath of an offended God. This was displayed only in 
 external phenomena — blackness, fire, tempest, earthquake. 
 This method of representing His rectoral majesty and His 
 offended justice was well fitted to strike the senses and 
 the imagination. It was an advance upon any manifestation 
 God had hitherto given of Himself in the Church ; it was 
 something much more impressive than Abraham or any of 
 his. immediate descendants had witnessed; and it was in 
 character as a sanction to the system of symbolical ordi- 
 nances now to be brought forward. At a period when the 
 doctrinal revelation regarding the infinite justice and majesty 
 of God, and regarding everlasting punishments, was yet 
 defective, such a symbolical representation was fitted to help 
 
23 2 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 their faith and fill their minds with salutary awe. As for us, 
 we are come to the things themselves ; for it is a great 
 mistake to think that, when the apostle says (Heb. xii. 18), 
 " Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, 
 and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness and darkness 
 and tempest," he means to say merely that we are come to 
 something that is more comfortable. Whoever reads the 
 passage throughout will see he intends to say that we are 
 come to something much more formidable and terrible, even 
 to the things which were symbolised by these phenomena 
 on the mount which he specifies. We are come not merely 
 to the symbols of God's judicial majesty, but " to God 
 himself, the Judge of all." " Our God is the consuming 
 fire." In the full revelation we now have of His infinite 
 holiness and inflexible justice and incurred wrath, we have 
 something much more awful than the Sinaitic phenomena. 
 Hell is brought so near that we see the smoke of its ascend- 
 ing torments. The end of all things is brought so near that 
 we see the world wrapt in the flames of her final conflagra- 
 tion. In the Cross we have a manifestation of the wrath of 
 God which dwindles down the Sinaitic manifestation into 
 insignificance, for there, there fell down a darkness greater 
 than the absence of light, and the fire that consumed the 
 sacrifice of the world's expiation. At the same time we 
 need not say how well adapted the symbols of Sinai were to 
 the people gathered around the mount. We see how they 
 served to impress them with their true position as perishing 
 sinners, and constrained them to appropriate the comfortable 
 part of our religion, which was also, as I have observed, 
 symbolised upon the mount. 
 
 For what is it that constitutes the comfortable in our 
 religion ? It is the mediatorship of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 And this was symbolized in that of Moses. Now for the 
 first time was the mediatory office of Christ symbolised to 
 the Church, and a lively figure afforded of the nature, 
 necessity, and comfort of it. When upon this point I might 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 233 
 
 take occasion to illustrate the position which Moses occupied 
 in comparison with Christ, for it is a point which is not 
 often insisted upon satisfactorily. 
 
 There was a species of unprecedented boldness and faith 
 shown by Moses in the exercise of his mediatorship. He 
 was called to ascend the mount alone. Of the people there 
 was none with him. They dared not face the terrors that 
 compassed the mountain, nor answer the summons of that 
 fearful trumpet. He advanced forward and upward before 
 the eyes of an awe-stricken people, who must have watched 
 him as he prosecuted his perilous ascent, until ere long he 
 vanished from their view amidst the tempestuous elements 
 into which he entered. After all, however, we have seen 
 that it was only the faint symbols of the wrath of God which 
 he confronted, and in respect of which he mediated — the 
 electric flash, the meteoric fires, the earthquake which shook 
 the mount that might be touched. We on the other hand 
 are come to the true Mediator, the man Christ Jesus. The 
 approach he made to God, how inconceivably more awful ! 
 Summoned by no trump of archangel, but by God the 
 Father, in the name of His people, and with the liability of 
 our accumulated sins upon His head, He went forward into 
 the blackness and darkness of Divine desertion, to face the 
 terrors of majesty incensed, and justice demanding its satis- 
 faction. It was into heaven itself that He ascended through 
 the intervening cloud and tempest of His sufferings, and 
 having purged away our sins by the blood of an awful expia- 
 tion, He sat down for ever upon the right hand of the throne 
 of the Majesty on high. And what was the result of these 
 respective mediatorships ? Moses brought down from the 
 mount a dispensation or system containing only the figures 
 of good things to come, a result forming all that could be 
 expected from him who had only combated with the figures 
 of the wrath that needed to be turned away. Christ imparts 
 to us from heaven the benefits themselves. Through Him 
 we are come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable 
 
234 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 company of angels, to the general assembly of the first-born 
 which are written in heaven, and to the spirits of just men 
 made perfect." 
 
 The majesty of God having been symbolically represented, 
 and also Christ's mediatorship, the laws were given forth 
 from Mount Sinai. 
 
 I am not called at present to speak of these laws in gene- 
 ral, but only of the symbolical ordinances. 
 
 It was now that God completed the picture of that sym- 
 bolic representation of all heavenly things, of which the 
 rite of animal sacrifice had been the pledge, although we 
 may safely say that no man on earth or angel in heaven 
 could have conjectured it to be the first material fragment 
 intended to be afterwards fitted in to a complete symbolical 
 foresketch of Christianity. It was now that, as the atone- 
 ment had been dwindled down into an animal sacrifice, sud- 
 denly, as if by enchantment, all heavenly things went down 
 into a similar insignificance ; the Godhead into a luminous 
 cloud called the Shekinah ; the throne of God into a box so 
 many cubits long and broad ; the heavens into an apartment 
 of certain dimensions ; the human nature of Christ into a 
 tent, and His priesthood into a man standing before it, 
 whose qualifications were that his bodily members were 
 complete, and that he had " Holiness to the Lord " engraved 
 upon a golden plate above his head, and had been anointed 
 with oil of a particular composition ; while, in the court of 
 the worshippers, the ransomed from everlasting destruction 
 stood diminished into a nation of emancipated slaves. 
 
 It must immediately strike us that when this peculiar 
 system of the representation of heavenly things was adopted, 
 it followed that the subordinate parts must run upon the 
 same principle. We must expect that a symbolical character 
 more or less will be made to attach to the whole frame of 
 the worship and institutions and arrangements of the Jewish 
 Church. Sin and holiness, even, let us be sure of it, will be 
 thus shadowed off and diminished into material type. It 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 235 
 
 shall be a very special sin to touch a dead body, and to eat 
 of the eagle or the ossifrage the same, for beasts and birds 
 alike have become clean or unclean, and the Jew is one or 
 the other according as he has observed the regulation. God 
 forbid that we should say it was all one whether he were 
 morally pure or impure ; but over and above the moral in- 
 junction there is the ceremonial regulation to impress the 
 lesson. And now it is a matter of conscience with him 
 whether the animal he eats divides the hoof. The atone- 
 ment being represented by animal blood, reverence for it is 
 impressed upon him by abstinence from blood as an article 
 of ordinary diet ; and if they abstain from eating things 
 strangled they shall be a holy nation to the Lord. The 
 influences of the Holy Ghost being symbolised by water and 
 oil, the worshippers are holy (so far as the worldly sanctuary 
 is concerned) if their bodies are washed with pure water ; 
 and they are devoted to the Lord if they are anointed. Now 
 it is taste not, touch not, handle not, and religion is associated 
 with things and actions that are material. 
 
 If the objection be urged that all this had a tendency to 
 lower religion and to introduce a carnal element into it, 
 which had not attached to the patriarchal form, the best 
 answer that can be given is, that if a principle be good, it is 
 best to carry it out. If it was a good thing to symbolise the 
 death of Christ by an animal sacrifice, because, with their 
 defective doctrinal revelation, the symbolism impressed that 
 death and its atoning nature in a more lively way upon their 
 imagination, then it must be still better that all other things 
 of a like nature should be symbolised as well — that the de- 
 filing nature of sin, for example, should be impressed upon 
 them by regulations connected with the dead body, and that 
 the necessity of holiness unto the Lord should be taught 
 them by a number of interdictions laid upon their food, &c. 
 If the fragmentary symbol that first made its appearance 
 was good, the economy of course goes forward to perfection 
 when the symbolic picture is perfected. The question is 
 
236 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 whether, under an economy where the doctrines of our holy 
 religion were yet insufficiently made known, a nation like 
 that of the Jews did not require to be brought under a 
 system of this sort ? To decide that question in the negative, 
 it is not enough to insist that the Jews under such a system 
 fell into the error often of substituting the ceremonial for the 
 moral. We know they did. But the prophets were able to 
 check this error. Every system has a side upon which it 
 lies open to be perverted by the corruption of those who are 
 under it. Meanwhile the symbolism might do a vast deal 
 more to reinforce faith and help holiness than it had a ten- 
 dency to become a substitute with the Jews for the things 
 signified. It was a Jew's mistake to think that the cere- 
 monial might be a substitute for the moral, but the mistake 
 which we Christians are apt to fall into, is, thinking that 
 the moral would have stood for a single century with that 
 nation without the ceremonial being added on. The Jews, 
 in the sense I have so often referred to, were as children, 
 and we know the rudimental way in which we teach children ; 
 illustrating their books with pictures ; enforcing authority by 
 its visible emblems ; and setting up a system of disciplinary 
 regulations, compliance with which is, as it were, an infan- 
 tile code of morality that becomes conscience with them. 
 All this might be considered by very intellectual educators 
 as having a tendency to distort both their mental and moral 
 perceptions, but the system is the best for its purpose, and 
 so was the Mosaic. 
 
 Such being the system which God intended to pursue, it 
 is noticeable that the symbolical among the Jews took pre- 
 cedence of the moral worship of Jehovah. They had their 
 meetings throughout the land for prayer and reading of the 
 word of God, but the temple was above the synagogue. 
 There was no public ministry set apart to preach the word, 
 but there was the priesthood and the Levites for conducting 
 the sacrifices of the temple. These taught the law, but the 
 prominent part of their office was to carry on the ceremonial 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 237 
 
 service. Indeed, this followed from the radical principle of 
 the economy, in which God manifested Himself by the She- 
 kinah, and Christ Himself was represented by the high priest 
 who stood before the temple. The heavenly things being 
 represented in symbol, of course the service went forward 
 according to the symbolical principle ; and the people, even 
 when they engaged in religious services of a moral descrip- 
 tion, did so in the way of looking to the temple, where God 
 had recorded His name. 
 
 Finally, the sanctions of the Jewish economy assumed a 
 symbolical aspect. Life and immortality not being fully 
 brought to light, nor the doctrine of everlasting punishments, 
 it was all the more necessary that there should be at least 
 impressive symbols of them present. Hence the awful 
 death -penalties that were attached to the law of Moses; 
 not merely to some of the ceremonial regulations, but to the 
 violation of some of the moral precepts ; not merely to 
 violations of commandments belonging to the first table of 
 the law (for then they might have been said to have had their 
 origin merely in Israel's being a theocracy), but to others 
 belonging to the second table. The adulterer was punished 
 with death ; the stubborn son was put to death. Hence the 
 land of Canaan given to them, and promises of outward 
 prosperity in the land. Now that heaven and hell have 
 been clearly revealed, religion can maintain itself in the 
 world without a system of temporal sanctions of an extra- 
 ordinary kind ; but we may doubt whether it could have 
 done so in Israel. There never was a wilder theory broached 
 than that which has been held by some, that the doctrine 
 of man's eternal destinies was unknown among the Jews ; 
 but it were to betray ignorance of facts to deny that under 
 the Old Testament the prominent thing brought forward is 
 the temporal doom of nations, or their prosperity ; that the 
 wrath of God is still coming forth in outward calamities, 
 and His goodness evaporating in terrestrial blessings. We 
 see constantly before our eyes that Jewish nation, which 
 
238 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 being the type in her history of all spiritual things, we must 
 be content to see them through the dim speculum of her 
 deliverance from Egypt, or of other passages of her history 
 down to her captivity in Babylon ; and prophets are con- 
 tinually passing before us, carrying with them the doom of 
 nations, and only indirectly pointing to the eternal destinies 
 of humanity. Meanwhile we cannot endure this veil by 
 which whatever is momentous in man's eternal fate is hidden 
 under the insignificance of the destruction or restoration of 
 kingdoms ; and whatever is great in heaven is dwarfed into 
 tabernacle dimensions, and whatever is vast in the atonement 
 is reduced to animal sacrifice. Upon entering the New 
 Testament we are at once relieved of all this. Every nation 
 is now swept away from the theatre of observation, and 
 man is before us in his catholic individuality. Not only 
 (God be praised) is the temple thrown to the ground, but 
 the Jewish nation itself, which was a huge symbolism, is 
 scattered to the four winds of heaven, and the whole system 
 of representing the mysteries of our holy religion by symbols 
 is at an end. 
 
 But what a singular system was this altogether ! I have 
 only given a rough sketch of it. Extended, the subject 
 might occupy a volume, and opens up a distinct department 
 of theological science. But the above remarks have been only 
 introductory to the main point of illustrating the end which 
 God had in view by this symbolic foresketch, so far as we who 
 live in the latter days are concerned — this being to constitute 
 an extraordinary evidence of the truth of Christianity. 
 
 I have now, then, to call the attention of my readers to 
 what may be considered as a somewhat new branch of the 
 evidences of Christianity. 
 
 Infidelity is making rapid advancement amongst us. Into 
 the causes of this I shall not at present inquire. We know 
 from the holy Scriptures themselves that the doctrine con- 
 tained in them is distasteful to fallen humanity, and, indeed, 
 cannot be discerned without the holy Spirit. We may only 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 239 
 
 expect, therefore, that this antipathy will periodically accumu- 
 late, till it break forth into daring attempts to subvert the 
 authority of the Bible. As the clergy are officially brought 
 more into contact with the doctrine, and are called to preach 
 it continually, the antipathy will naturally make its appear- 
 ance first of all in the house of God. If there be something 
 offensive to the nostrils in any article of consumption, they 
 will naturally feel its offensiveness most who have profes- 
 sionally to do with it, whether by retailing it or in the 
 processes of its composition and manufacture. I do not say 
 this to excuse the infidelity that has made its appearance 
 lately in the ranks of the clergy; but one may charitably thus 
 find its source in the depravity of heart common to us all, 
 and distinguish this sin of theirs from the other of retaining 
 their church offices and emoluments notwithstanding their 
 infidelity, which degrades them below the meanest man who 
 breaks stones upon the public road. 
 
 A determined effort must be made to meet the flood of 
 prevailing scepticism. When the foundations are threatened 
 with destruction, attention should be withdrawn from doc- 
 trines of subordinate importance. In Scotland, for example, 
 we have had years of conflict (necessary ones) for adjusting 
 the relations between Church and State. The establishment 
 of religion has no doubt deserved our consideration. But 
 the thing that comes up now is, whether we have any re- 
 ligion to establish. The controversy has passed over from 
 points merely of Church government or worship to some- 
 thing more vital. Christianity, or what alone deserves that 
 name, is itself being undermined. In these circumstances, 
 when an attack is made from within upon the citadel, it 
 becomes a sin for any man to be defending the walls. 
 
 But how are we to meet the progress of infidelity ? There 
 seems no other way of it than to fight hand in hand with 
 the enemy upon the various objections they have brought 
 forward against the authority of Divine revelation, and to 
 bring forward in all their strength before the community the 
 
240 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 evidences for the truth of Christianity. It will not do to sit 
 down upon the statement with which we started, that the 
 infidelity prevailing has its foundation in the depravity of 
 the human heart, and that the only way of meeting it is to 
 pray for the revival of vital godliness. We know that the 
 cause of war is the lusts that are in our flesh, but what 
 should we think of the policy that recommended us on that 
 account not to do battle with the enemies which will pre- 
 sently invade us, and this with sword and bayonet at their 
 several points of attack. The soundness of our philosophy 
 upon the cause of war in general would be but a poor con- 
 solation for territories burnt up through our negligence in 
 defending them. Are we asked what good resulted from the 
 series of learned defences which came out last century 
 against its deistical writers ? Are we reminded that it 
 was the revival of practical religion, and the formation of 
 Bible and missionary societies at the close of last century 
 and the beginning of our own, that effectually accomplished 
 the desirable end ? The answer is abundantly obvious. To 
 say that the noble champions who refuted these deistical 
 publications did nothing effectual, because they achieved not 
 the same sort of service as the revival of vital godliness 
 accomplished, were as unjust as to undervalue the services 
 of Wellington or of Nelson, or of others who conquered 
 the enemies of our country, and to ask what good they did 
 after all, and whether the revival of a better international 
 policy has not done more, by tending to render war unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 I propose in this essay to state and enforce the argument 
 for the truth of Christianity (in some respects peculiar) to be 
 derived from the symbolical foresketch of it under the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 It is, in so far of course, the same argument which we 
 have usually derived from the predictions of Christianity 
 contained in the Jewish Scriptures — this foresketch being 
 essentially a symbolical prediction. On this account it may 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 241 
 
 be pardonable just to remind the reader for a single moment 
 of the nature of this general argument. 
 
 Plain it is, that if God had seen fit He could have in- 
 carnated His Son, and brought in the great redemption, at 
 the beginning of the world's history, instead of the middle 
 of it. It has been thought, from the names the patriarchs 
 gave to their sons occasionally, that they entertained such an 
 expectation, and God might have fulfilled it. He might also 
 have given the whole Scriptures that were to be the record 
 of life, and the guide of the Church, in one perfect and 
 instantaneous revelation. I do not insist upon all the dis- 
 advantages and dangers at present that must have attended 
 such an immediate introduction of Christ and Christianity. 
 Lord Brougham, whose lightning eye penetrated the depths 
 of all the miscellaneous subjects he handled, and this among 
 the rest, notices the risk that must have been run by placing 
 the evidences of our holy religion so far back. They lose 
 nothing by the comparatively moderate distance at which 
 they stand from us at present, but they would have been 
 sensibly placed under disadvantage had we only seen them 
 through the mist of such a primitive antiquity. But not to 
 dwell upon this and other obvious objections to the mode of 
 dispensation which God did not adopt, we cannot but admire 
 the manifold wisdom of the device which assigned the cruci- 
 fixion of Christ and the full announcement of Christianity 
 its place at the central period of the world's history, that 
 there might be a prediction of its facts and a successive 
 series of gradually developing revelations. This, in the very 
 nature of things, was a plan which God only could execute, 
 since He only foreknows the future, and can work upon a 
 plan that takes in the ages. The evidences of our holy re- 
 ligion thus connected themselves as by huge clamping irons 
 with whole centuries of time. There was thus furnished an 
 evidence for the truth of Christianity which is unassailable 
 by those who controvert miracles and ridicule the super- 
 natural. For it has just two sides. Here are certain 
 
 17 
 
242 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 writings of the Old Testament, which were unquestionably 
 in the hands of the Jews long before Christ appeared, and 
 here, on the other hand, are Christ and Christianity, which 
 manifestly are a fulfilment of what these Scriptures contain. 
 It will not do to say that these Old Testament writings were 
 the gradual development of man's own religious ideas or 
 consciousness — his conceptions of God becoming clearer as 
 the centuries advanced, and his own experience driving him 
 more and more into the conviction of a strong Son of God 
 coming to deliver us. In the first place, the authors of these 
 writings do not propound their doctrines as the result of their 
 own excogitation, but distinctly claim to have received them 
 by immediate revelation from the Most High — a succession 
 of liars, if they wrote from themselves and claimed for pro- 
 phets — at once the worst and the best of men if we accept 
 this monstrous supposition of our opponents. In the second 
 place, this attempt to explain a forerunning announcement 
 of Christianity can only apply to its doctrines, and not to its 
 facts. They who urge it will surely not pretend to maintain 
 that any amount of elevated piety could have enabled the 
 authors of the Jewish Scriptures to tell which of the tribes, 
 or which of the families in Israel the Messiah would spring 
 from, and the exact period of time at which He would 
 appear, and the exact kind of works He should do with His 
 hands, and His rejection by the Jews, and the hundred other 
 circumstances down to the minutest details of His death 
 and His resurrection — circumstances depending not upon 
 Himself only, but upon the conduct of others. Even 
 granting it were an anticipation of doctrines and not of 
 facts which our opponents are called upon to explain, this 
 theory of theirs will not suffice. Man's ideas develop from 
 the erroneous to the true. But the doctrine of the Old 
 Testament Scriptures throughout is from the beginning 
 perfect, although in miniature compass — it is as the germ 
 10 the oak, the infant to the man. Finally, it is so far 
 from being a doctrine which either naturally occurs to man 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 243 
 
 or is relished by him, that it never could have entered into 
 his heart to conceive of it, and, when revealed, it is con- 
 sidered by him to be foolishness. 
 
 We have to apologise to the reader for this reference to 
 the usual line of proof for the truth of Christianity from 
 prediction. 
 
 - 1 shall now show that the proof becomes entirely novel 
 and more convincing when we look at the symbolical fore- 
 sketch of Christianity. 
 
 See, for example, how it meets and confronts the sugges- 
 tion of modern infidelity just referred to. I can understand 
 one to allege that the human mind might have anticipated 
 Christianity as a system. But will any venture to say that 
 the symbolising of all the mysteries of Christianity which 
 meets us in the Old Testament can be accounted for by any 
 process of man's own internal consciousness or development ? 
 Does it consist with any known law of mental physiology, 
 or with observation, that a system of truth should make its 
 appearance, first in an array of symbols and material figures, 
 and then, in an after age, doctrinally ? Infidelity cannot 
 evade this appeal by reminding us that these symbols were 
 just the human mind, in the infancy of the earlier ages, 
 working out, in a grosser and ruder type, the more spiritual 
 form of Christianity that was afterwards developed. For it 
 is an utter fallacy to suppose that the human mind can 
 arrive at the knowledge of the symbol of a thing before it 
 has got the knowledge of the thing itself. It might be very 
 profitable for the Church, when it had yet an imperfect 
 knowledge of heavenly things, and was, so to speak, in its 
 infancy, that God should adopt symbols as pictures are 
 employed in the nursery, to help the understanding and 
 please the imagination of childhood. But what infidelity 
 suggests is the preposterous idea that symbol is the way in 
 which the human mind would naturally first of all grope its 
 way to the discovery of the truths contained in the system 
 of Christianity ! This is to mistake the nature of the symbols 
 
 17 * 
 
24:4 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 altogether, which suppose the truth clearly apprehended, 
 and are an arbitrary sign of it materially represented. For 
 example, the Ark with a lid over it, called the Mercy Seat, 
 sprinkled with blood, and having the tables of the law under 
 it, represented God as being just to forgive us our sins 
 through the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. But who 
 can suppose that the human mind began to work out this 
 doctrine by the conception of a chest besprinkled with blood, 
 and having the Decalogue inside of it ? It is true that the 
 things which were symbolically represented were things 
 already known among the Jews doctrinally. They knew that 
 God was just, and that He was at the same time merciful, 
 and that the coming death of Christ was what reconciled 
 these two procedures together. But they knew it, according 
 to our view, only by immediate revelation from God, and, 
 the revelation being defective, God added on the symbol to 
 seal it and make it more impressive. That is the position 
 we maintain. What is their theory ? What is the absurdity 
 to which they are reduced ? It is that of imagining that the 
 human mind was both working out itself the knowledge of 
 this strange and mysterious doctrinal truth, and (for some 
 reason unknown) was symbolising it in arbitrary material 
 forms at the same time. Credat Judceus I But their theory 
 breaks down altogether when we reflect upon a fact which, I 
 think, can be established, that the symbols went ahead of the 
 doctrinal revelation — a thing which can never be accounted 
 for except by supposing that they were given forth from God, 
 who perfectly foieknew all that was afterwards to be doc- 
 trinally revealed. Does any man believe that the wisest 
 theologian among the Jews could have drawn up such a 
 perfect system of theology as the tabernacle, with its accom- 
 panying priesthood, symbolically contained ? 
 
 The infidel, therefore, must account for the appearance of 
 this Tabernacle, or Worldly Sanctuary. 
 
 This brings me to what may be considered as one of the 
 distinct evidences of the truth of Christianity. 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF 'CHRISTIANITY. 245 
 
 Paley, by a watch found on the heath, defies atheism. By 
 this perfect representation of Christianity found in the taber- 
 nacle, ages before Christ appeared, we might easily confound 
 infidelity. It is Christianity systematised ; it is Christianity 
 in architecture. " The stone shall cry out of the wall, and 
 the beam out of the timber shall answer it." 
 
 It may be objected, Do you mean to say that the taber- 
 nacle was really such a composite of figures as you represent ? 
 What if the whole of this conception originate in the fancy ? 
 Ingenious men have found an allegorical meaning in almost 
 every part of the Bible. Are we to find an evangelic mystery 
 in everything about the tabernacle, even to its snuffer- 
 dishes ? Infidelity may attempt by allegations and sneers 
 of this kind to get out of the net in which it is her.e caught, 
 but we will not allow it to escape in this way. 
 
 (1) Can it be denied that the Ark was a figure to the Jews 
 of God's throne ? This is impossible, for He is everywhere 
 represented to the Jews as dwelling enthroned between the 
 cherubim. 
 
 (2) Can it be denied that the lid .above the Ark symbolised 
 the truth that God is in the Church merciful and forgiving 
 our sins ? For it was in so many words called the Mercy 
 Seat. 
 
 (3) Is it denied that the animal blood, sprinkled upon ihe 
 Mercy Seat, symbolised the truth that, without shedding of 
 the blood of Christ, there is no remission ? This is surely 
 as plain as that two and two make four. 
 
 (4) Can it be denied that there was something symbolised 
 by placing the two tables of the law in the Ark and below 
 the Mercy Seat ? Without pretending to infer anything very 
 particular, is not the general inference plain enough that 
 it meant that the law is maintained and vindicated in God's 
 procedure, even as He is gracious and merciful — that 
 "justice and judgment are the habitation of his ithrone, 
 while mercy and truth go before his face " ? 
 
 (5) Will it be denied that the high priest, with the mitre 
 
246 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 upon his head, and the names of the twelve tribes upon his 
 breast, was a symbol of the better High Priest to come ? 
 He could not be understood to be qualified himself to make 
 atonement for the sins of the people, for he was made to 
 offer a sacrifice first of all for himself. He must, therefore, 
 have been a symbol of a better High Priest to come, who 
 was to make atonement for Himself and for all. 
 
 (6) Can it be denied that when the high priest went up to 
 the Ark, which, as already seen, symbolised God's throne, 
 and sprinkled it with blood, and offered up incense before 
 it, he was an exact figure of Jesus, under the New Testa- 
 ment, when He entered heaven, having purged away our sins 
 by His own blood, and intercedes for us. I am not asking 
 the infidel to grant that the Lord Jesus Christ does any such 
 things as I now allege. But the New Testament Scriptures, 
 he must acknowledge, set Him forth as doing these things, 
 and infidelity is forced to grant, looking at the Jewish Scrip- 
 tures, that the Aaronic priest, ordained fifteen centuries 
 before, went through in sacred pantomime the very same 
 steps. He did in the symbolic sanctuary what Christ is repre- 
 sented in the New Testament as doing in the real sanctuary, 
 in heaven. Even the infidel must grant that these two 
 things historically coincide. We allow him to laugh at the 
 idea that the eternal Son of God did by His death make 
 atonement for sin ; but will he continue to laugh when he 
 observes that this spectral figure appears upon the Jewish 
 stage, dressed up in priestly robes, to enact the thing he 
 ridicules ? 
 
 (7) Will the infidel deny that the inner apartment was 
 designed to represent heaven, where the throne of God is — 
 " a figure of the heavenly places," as the apostle calls it ? 
 
 (8) The sanctuary of the Jews, viewed as an entire thing, 
 took the shape of a tabernacle, and was a symbol as plainly 
 of the human nature of Christ, in which the Godhead dwelt 
 and dwells with us. It will not do to say that it was merely 
 a necessary covering of the sacred utensils from the weather 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 247 
 
 or a mere structure such as the heathens erected for their 
 gods, in order to give them a decent shrine ; for the reason 
 of its tent-form was given by God — " Let them make me a 
 sanctuary that I may dwell in the midst of them." His 
 dwelling in the heavens conveys no comfort to us, but His 
 dwelling in the midst of us, His being God with us, by an 
 act of sovereign condescension, is a different thing. All the 
 nations of the earth could say that God dwelt in heaven; the 
 Jews only could say that God dwelt with them; the symbol 
 or pledge being that here was His tent, or house, as truly in 
 the midst of them as that of any man. Having found that 
 the other parts of this mysterious structure had their evan- 
 gelic counterpart in the things of the New Testament, we 
 cannot doubt that this tabernacle-form of the structure finds 
 its antitype in that human nature of Christ in which God 
 tabernacled with man, and which is the foundation of His 
 inhabitation with His Church. This the apostle declares 
 (Heb. ix. 11) : " But Christ being come an high priest of 
 good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, 
 not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building ; 
 neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own 
 blood he entered in once into the holy place." Now by the 
 holy place into which He entered is meant heaven ; and what 
 can be intended by the " greater and more perfect taber- 
 nacle " by which He entered into heaven, if not His human 
 nature ? He entered it, in short, as man, and with His own 
 blood. The tabernacle, then, was a symbol of Christ's 
 human nature. As He said, speaking of His body, " Destroy 
 this temple, and in three days will I raise it up again." 
 
 (9) Here was a people, the Jews gathered round the 
 tabernacle, who were, as I have shown, an exact symbol 
 in their outward history of the redeemed of God. 
 
 Taking all these things together, who can deny that here 
 we have a symbolical representation of the whole peculiar 
 mysteries of our holy religion, a foresketch in symbol of all 
 the heavenly things that were afterwards revealed ? 
 
248 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Having brought forward the data, I now proceed to show 
 that this was something so indisputably from the hand of 
 God, and supernatural, as to confound infidelity. 
 
 i. Take the essential idea of this symbolic representation, 
 and it is something which could never have entered into the 
 imagination of man to conceive of. Look at it for a single 
 moment. It was a plan for rendering heavenly things into a 
 complete system of material figures. God being first repre- 
 sented by a luminous cloud, the Shekinah, His throne 
 assumed the corresponding puerility of a wooden chest ; and 
 heaven the form of an apartment ; and the atonement is 
 represented by an animal sacrifice ; and the high priesthood 
 of Christ meets us in the like diminution of one who, in his 
 mitre and dress, is a mere shadow of it ; and the Jews, in a 
 like diminished figure of the redeemed, take their place as 
 the worshippers. Once grant that this was of God, and we 
 can assign a reason for it. I have shown, in the foregoing 
 essay, that this system was admirably adapted as a mode of 
 impressing the things signified upon the minds of those who 
 had only an indistinct revelation of them. What was want- 
 ing in revelation was made up in sensuous impressions. 
 But infidelity is bound to show how this thing could have 
 originated with man. I have shown that it never could have 
 been the shape which the human mind took in the con- 
 ception of divine things. But, indeed, such a thing is 
 disproved by considering that this symbolical system came 
 forth from Sinai at once, and as a whole — not being the 
 result of the excogitation of ages, but given forth instan- 
 taneously. Such being the case, there are two suppositions 
 to which infidelity is driven, both wild, and one of them 
 ridiculous. The one is to suppose that any man then living, 
 Moses included, possessed such knowledge of theology, in its 
 systematic connection, as is symbolically contained in the 
 tabernacle and its priesthood. In this worldly sanctuary, 
 or symbolical structure, by the light of the New Testament 
 we find the whole mystery of evangelical worship, with the 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 249 
 
 interposed mediation of Jesus Christ, symbolically repre- 
 sented ; but we know that there was no such systematic 
 acquaintance with it existing in Israel at that time, and no 
 knowledge of Christ's exclusive priesthood (worthy of the 
 name) — His sacrifice or atoning death being the only 
 point of truth concerning Him which could be said in any 
 measure to have been revealed. This is the first difficulty. 
 There was no man in Israel who had theological knowledge 
 enough to erect this sanctuary. But granting there was, 
 the second supposition to which infidelity must resort is, 
 that it entered into his head to reduce this theological 
 scheme into material figures ! For what purpose ? With 
 what end ? What we say is that the infinitely wise God 
 adopted this symbolical system as a sensible and lively help 
 to the faith of those who yet had a defective revelation. But 
 surely the infidel will not suppose that there was any man 
 who, by virtue of an immense intellectual or religious 
 superiority, adopted the system for any such purpose as this, 
 being able to deal with all his contemporaries and his suc- 
 cessors for fifteen centuries as a parcel of children ? If not, 
 what assignable impulse could have led any man to adopt 
 the singular device of a symbolic structure such as this ? 
 
 2. If this unheard-of plan had made its appearance for 
 the first time at Sinai, we might have indulged the wild 
 conjecture that it originated with some distinguished in- 
 dividual such as Moses. But we find animal sacrifice 
 existing long before, indeed, from the beginning ; and it was 
 one fragment of this great symbolic system, afterwards to be 
 duly fitted in. Whoever appointed animal sacrifice must 
 have had the essential idea with him of the whole system 
 introduced two thousand years and more afterwards. This 
 method of procedure perfectly consists with our conceptions 
 of God. The whole design being before His infinite mind 
 from the beginning, He yet does not introduce it at once in 
 its entirety, but only that fragment of it which was seen to 
 be absolutely necessary already for the comfort of the 
 
250 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Church. But man never knows of a magnificent plan without 
 revealing it to his fellow-creatures ; he is too proud of his 
 discovery to give them the benefit of it in one particular, 
 and carry the generalization undivulged with him to the 
 grave. He would have said that if the symbol was good for 
 the Church in one point — viz., the atonement — then it was 
 good for it in reference to all heavenly things, and let the 
 symbolic pattern be completed at once. I believe, for my 
 part, that God introduced the fragmentary symbol first, 
 and the whole pattern two thousand years after, that He 
 might establish the divinity of the whole plan. The reader 
 will notice, on the other hand, that if the symbolic system 
 had been introduced gradually — first, sacrifice, and then 
 another, and yet another part of it in slow gradation, till the 
 symbolic picture was completed, it might have been inferred 
 that this was the human mind itself working out by degrees 
 the whole system of religion in a development of rude type. 
 The symbolic pattern was suddenly and simultaneously 
 produced at Sinai, which forbids that supposition. 
 
 3. If there be any truth in what I have stated, there was 
 not only the objective of our religion symbolised in the 
 tabernacle and priesthood, but the subjective of it was 
 symbolised also in the people who stood before it. That 
 is, the Jews in their whole history were a symbol of the 
 redeemed, having been the subjects of a pass-over by the 
 Destroying Angel in Egypt, which was a figure of our escape 
 from everlasting destruction through the blood-sprinkling of 
 Jesus Christ ; and having been outwardly and politically 
 separated from all other nations, which was a figure of the 
 spiritual sense in which we are a peculiar people. I only 
 mention a tithe of the points in which the Jews were plainly 
 a figure of the redeemed. Who does not perceive that they 
 were the fit people on this account to place in front of the 
 sanctuary, which was the mere figure of heavenly things ? 
 But who does not see also the corollary from this, which 
 is that God alone could have been at the bottom of all this 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 251 
 
 arrangement ? For surely the Jews could not of themselves 
 have fallen into the exact historical circumstances, and 
 brought themselves (indeed it was their worst enemies who 
 brought them) into the emergencies and escapes which were 
 necessary to fit them for such a symbolic part ? This was 
 plainly the doing of the Lord ; and since the subjective part 
 of the symbol was of Him, we have another proof that the 
 objective part, which was concurrent, must have been from 
 Him also. 
 
 I think that these few considerations taken together prove 
 that no other explanation can be given of this mysterious 
 foresketch of Christianity in Israel, than that it was a 
 Divine and supernatural device, intended, no doubt, as I 
 have shown already, to benefit the Old Testament Church 
 by an impressive ceremonial, but intended by God also to 
 constitute in the latter days one of the most irrefragable 
 proofs of the truth of our holy religion. What will infidelity 
 say to it ? 
 
 The arguments it has taken up against miracles as an 
 attestation of our religion will not apply here. These are 
 said to be incredible in the very nature of them. But here 
 is something preternatural, and demonstratively not of man, 
 and which yet obtains place and makes appearance in the 
 Church without any such subversion of natural laws as they 
 choose to reject. In opposition to infidelity, we maintain 
 that the symbolic institutions of Moses were established to 
 be of Divine origin by the miracles with which they were intro- 
 duced. But our present argument is drawn from the sym- 
 bolic institutions themselves. The infidel cannot deny that 
 these were observed among the Jews during the long centuries 
 of their national existence, and that they were erected at the 
 commencement of their national career. He is bound to ex- 
 plain how this astonishing scheme arose whereby all Chris- 
 tianity was foresketched. If he will burst God's bands 
 asunder, there is a double adamantine chain he must break. 
 It is not only that he must dispose of verbal prophecies by 
 
252 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 the hundred which were made in the Old Testament Scrip- 
 tures and fulfilled in the New, but he must show us how it 
 could enter into man's mind to reduce the whole system of 
 the Christian religion into a complete symbolic picture ages 
 before it appeared. To have set up an impressive ceremonial 
 system so complete as that of Moses, would have been feat 
 enough for any man ; but when we find that besides its 
 adaptation for the wants of the Jews for fifteen centuries, it 
 contained a prefiguration of things that were afterwards to 
 be brought in under another economy, to last till time's end, 
 this carries us beyond the range of human attainments alto- 
 gether. The infidel is bound to prove how by any device of 
 man such a gigantic scheme should have been enacted upon 
 the platform of a nation — which nation, upon the appear- 
 ance of Christianity, as if its symbolic mission was at an 
 end, vanishes and is dissolved into its original elements. He 
 is bound to account for the alarming fact (alarming to him) 
 that Christianity, ere it came up, projected its own shadow, 
 perfect in every part, and palpable as if its body had come 
 between the Old Testament Church and the sun. In a 
 word, he is bound to show us where Moses got the pattern 
 after which, upon the mount, he drew the similitude in 
 sharp outline of all that is now before us in the shape of a 
 doctrine and a worship. 
 
 If what I have established in this essay be true, equally 
 vain is it for modern infidelity to try to get quit of the super- 
 natural by suggesting that the Scriptures may after all be 
 only a record of such piety and wisdom as were of nature's 
 growth — a record of the religious consciousness of the past, 
 to be supplemented by the religious consciousness of the 
 future, why not of the present ? Granting that it could thus 
 rid itself of the inspiration of the Scriptures, here are these 
 symbolic institutions which stand outside the Scriptures 
 altogether, and were the observed ceremonial of a nation 
 for ages. How is it to find any but a supernatural origin for 
 them ? I have shown that it is not possible, and this, there- 
 
THE SYMBOLIC FORESKETCH OF CHRISTIANITY. 253 
 
 fore, is a distinct field in the evidences upon which infidelity 
 is met and confounded. 
 
 In closing this essay, let me observe that what took place 
 upon the introduction of Christianity proves that the hand of 
 God was as distinctly interposed for the taking away of the 
 symbolic institutions as for the first erection of them. 
 
 Infidelity has to explain not only how they came into 
 existence, but how they ceased, when Christianity appeared. 
 
 We, on our side, maintain that Christianity was an ex- 
 traordinary revelation from heaven, and that, the symbolic 
 institutions being no longer necessary, God inspired the 
 apostles, and especially the Apostle. Paul, to show the 
 Christian converts that they were so, and to comprehend 
 the whole original design of them. We maintain, moreover, 
 that God, in His providence, put a speedy and decisive 
 termination to them by sweeping away the symbolic nation. 
 Thus we account for the whole matter by the supernatural 
 — by God, and not by man. 
 
 But infidelity has a hard task always. Here it is bound 
 to show how Christianity was introduced by a development 
 of man's own religious ideas and consciousness, and how 
 man of himself came to throw off the symbolical, and 
 advance into Christianity. A miserable attempt has been 
 made to show that there -were various causes of a secondary 
 kind in the history of the Jews after the captivity tending 
 to produce a change of religious thought and conception. 
 Nothing, meanwhile, is more undeniable than that the whole 
 tendency of the Jews, when Christ made His appearance, 
 was to cherish the ceremony and the symbol more than ever, 
 and to look upon the Mosaic system as a permanent instead 
 of a transitory thing. Christianity was entirely antagonistic 
 to the views of the nation, and the question is how it should 
 have risen in the mind of the man Christ Jesus, supposing 
 Him to have been a mere man, and in the minds of His 
 apostles, supposing them to have been uninspired. The 
 difficulty is immensely increased to infidelity by the sudden- 
 
254 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 ness with which the entire and perfect system of Christianity 
 started up, which answers to a revelation from heaven, but 
 disagrees with the laws of natural development. If the 
 Jewish religion, with all its carnal ordinances, was the 
 result of the religious consciousness or thought of man 
 taking a symbolic direction in the earlier ages, how did it 
 happen to take the new and more spiritual form of Chris- 
 tianity all at once, and in the mass ; so that, as the symbol 
 system went up simultaneously at Sinai, it went down 
 simultaneously at this one period of time ? Add to this, 
 infidelity has to explain how, when the perfect symbolic 
 picture of Christianity was to go up, the Jews, who were the 
 subjective fit for it, immediately make their first appearance 
 as a nation, and when again the symbolic picture is to go 
 down, the Jewish nation, in God's providence, immediately 
 disappears. 
 
 Finally, it was Paul who, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 shows that he had most perfectly apprehended the design 
 of the whole symbolical system ; but does he appear to us 
 in that epistle as one working his own way out of the 
 symbolical into the spiritual, and not rather plainly as one 
 who professes, being inspired, to tell us what the Holy 
 Spirit signified by every part of the symbol — declaring that 
 it was all a pattern of heavenly things given by God ori- 
 ginally to Moses on the mount. So far was Paul from being 
 a man whose own religious consciousness or thought enabled 
 him to advance from the symbol to Christianity, that he was 
 in the earlier part of his life a determined opponent to 
 Christianity, so that either he received all his knowledge of 
 it from heaven, or he was the most profane impostor, or he 
 was the most deluded fanatic, that ever walked the earth. 
 
255 
 
 VI. 
 THE ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 THE remark has often been made that there is a cer- 
 tain style characterising the works of every artist or 
 literary writer — the distinctive impress of his genius. His 
 productions may exhibit variety of subject, and develop, as 
 they come before the public eye, new powers which the 
 author- was not supposed to possess, but careful investigation 
 will discover the traces of his manner. The name does not 
 need to be written under the canvas that we may know this 
 to be the painting of Titian and that the painting of 
 Raphael. The immortal figures of the great statuary do not 
 more faithfully represent their subject than they reflect their 
 author ; they are all made, in a sense, after the image of him 
 who created them. Should any writer, well known in the 
 republic of letters, issue some publication from the press, of 
 which a sense of shame, or say of personal safety, made him 
 wish to hide the authorship, he would require not only to 
 withhold his name from the title-page, but artificially to 
 violate the whole texture of the composition ; and when 
 this were done, it would be found after all to have been a 
 most ineffectual attempt at concealment, for very few would 
 fail to detect the source whence the anonymous licentiousness 
 or Atheism had emanated. 
 
 We might observe that this sameness of style marking the 
 successive works of the same author is by no means a proof 
 of infirmity. So far from it, we will exclusively or chiefly 
 encounter it in men of the most commanding genius. Men 
 of an inferior order of mind have nothing characteristic about 
 
256 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 their productions. As these succeed one another, we could 
 not tell from internal evidence that they had proceeded from 
 the same hand ; or, if we could, it would be because through 
 poverty of parts the author had repeated himself, in which 
 case we have the same performance before us, rather than 
 evidence of the same performer. The writer who only 
 reaches mediocrity may thus be detected to be the author of 
 his own successive publications ; not, however, because of 
 any distinctive style he has in the moulding of his materials, 
 but because the materials themselves are constantly repro- 
 duced. It is the prerogative of genius alone to stamp upon 
 its own varied productions the identity of an original image 
 that cannot be imitated, and that is instantly recognised. 
 
 More than all, then, might we infer that a certain charac- 
 teristic style would distinguish the works of God. If the 
 higher orders of intelligent creatures possess a power of im- 
 pressing an unmistakable character upon their productions, 
 sufficient to identify them, much more must we suppose that 
 the Creator is able so to authenticate His works that we 
 shall be constrained to say, "This is the doing of the Lord." 
 While it is reasonable to conclude that His works will be 
 marked out with infinite distinctness from the works of the 
 creature, it is not presumption to expect that they will 
 exhibit a certain trace in themselves of having proceeded 
 from the same hand. Such are the resources of the God- 
 head, indeed, that we may look for an endless diversity of 
 operation, -but it is the one selfsame Spirit that worketh 
 in all, and He will leave His specific impress upon every 
 department. 
 
 The circumstance we refer to is not one to be noticed for 
 the mere gratification of curiosity. It suggests one criterion 
 by which, supposing us to have ascertained one work to be 
 of God, we may certify ourselves as to the Divine origin of 
 another. Has it the characteristic style of the first ? The 
 analogies that may be traced in the three great works of 
 Creation, Providence, and Redemption, are in this way 
 
THE AESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 257 
 
 highly confirmatory to our faith. While each of them is 
 capable of being shown to be a Divine work by a direct process 
 of probation, the other two derive benefit from this proba- 
 tion, for they bear indubitable traces of having proceeded 
 from the same hand. Good sendee has been done to the 
 argument in favour of the Divine origin of the scheme of 
 Redemption by all who have discovered new analogies be- 
 tween it and the other two great works of God. In the 
 following observations we propose to establish one that has 
 not perhaps attracted the amount of attention to which it 
 is entitled. I refer to the illustration which the work of 
 Redemption affords of a regard to the tasteful or the beautiful. 
 We shall first advert to this as a characteristic of God's 
 other works, and shall then proceed to inquire whether this 
 is proved to be a characteristic of what may fee called His 
 last, as it is indeed His greatest work. 
 
 1. — CREATION- 
 Beauty, as well as power, characterises the work of creation. 
 We cannot look abroad upon it without perceiving the traces 
 of an infinite power. There is the mere ponderosity of our 
 globe. What a vast accumulation of material ! Upon what 
 a magnificent scale is every department of our globe con- 
 structed ! Let us think of its solid continents, stretching far 
 and wide, affording ample bounds for the various kingdoms 
 and empires of the human family, and comprehending un- 
 known tracts that may yet tempt the restless foot of human 
 enterprise and discovery. Let us think of the oceans that 
 separate these continents, rolling over channels still more ex- 
 tensive, which no human eye may ever see — the great congre- 
 gation of tumultuating waves, white-crested, ever heaving that 
 swell so far off that imagination endeavours in vain to travel 
 over them, and gladly returns to the ark of its own limited 
 and dimly-lighted conception. Let us walk by their iron- 
 bound coasts, and see the stupendous masses of overhanging 
 rock, such as no machinery of man could elevate, and which 
 
 18 
 
258 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 yet are disposed in every variety of the most fantastic forms. 
 These are only some of the views we may take of the globe 
 we inhabit, calculated to impress us with the idea of 
 power. 
 
 If, lifting our eyes upward, we contemplate the starry fir- 
 mament, there we seem, indeed, to see nothing that is pon- 
 derous, for the apparent heavens above our heads wear a 
 light and etherial aspect. Science, however, acquaints us 
 with the fact that all the magnitudes of creation are in this 
 airy vault — countless worlds, as really material as our own, 
 with diameters greatly larger, and circumferences unspeak- 
 ably more formidable, so that our planet is proved to be but 
 an inconsiderable unit in the sum of worlds that variegate 
 the immensity of space. 
 
 Were these worlds of matter simply upheld at all in 
 space, we would feel amazed at the strength of the arm 
 that sustained them in their position of rest. But when we 
 think of their being in a state of motion, that they career 
 through the amplitudes of heaven with the speed of light- 
 ning, describing in perfect safety without collision the mag- 
 nificent circles that Infinite Wisdom assigned them — when 
 we come to know that the universe comprehends systems of 
 mutually dependent worlds, hung forth in the ethereal void, 
 then indeed we are seized with a sensible impression of 
 Omnipotence. 
 
 Such are the illustrations we have of power in the uni- 
 verse. Let us now trace the presence of a certain regard 
 paid throughout every department of it to the tasteful or the 
 beautiful. 
 
 Here let it be observed that it is quite conceivable that the 
 ends aimed at in the various parts of creation might have 
 been compassed, while at the same time there might have 
 been nothing to please the eye or the ear ; nay, there might 
 have been much to offend the taste. A work may be exe- 
 cuted, and yet not aesthetically. So far as man is concerned, 
 when any work of essential importance and of vast magni- 
 
THE ^ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 259 
 
 tude and difficulty is entered upon, we do not expect that 
 our sense of beauty is to be gratified. We are content that 
 many things positively offensive should be encountered. We 
 are not so unreasonable, for example, as to look that the 
 means by which the end is accomplished can be altogether 
 hidden from view, although this may mar the effect upon the 
 eye, as when some huge weight is to be suspended at a great 
 altitude, and we detect plainly the props and artificial con- 
 trivances by which it is upheld. In such a case we lavish 
 admiration upon the elevated structure, and readily wink at 
 the elaborate apparatus essential to its support, but partially 
 destructive to its elegance. If powers in like manner have 
 been discovered by man producing great and momentous 
 effects, we do not quarrel with the minor circumstance of 
 there being something that offends the eye or the ear in their 
 application. We reconcile ourselves to the din of his 
 machinery in the factory, the deafening and discordant roar 
 of the steam - engine, and its trail of smoke, that betokens 
 advanced civilisation, though it darkens the scenery of 
 nature. 
 
 But in creation the mightiest feats of power are accom- 
 plished without any sacrifice of beauty. The great is 
 achieved, and the sesthetical is observed. There stands 
 the immensity of nature's fabric in the perfect simplicity of 
 a work made without hands and without machinery, a fir- 
 mament supported without pillars, worlds suspended with- 
 out the formality of foundations. Look up to the nightly 
 heavens. You may either gaze upon them with the eye of 
 a philosopher, and then every star that shines, being viewed 
 as a distant world, there is before you a spectacle of omni- 
 potence ; or you may gaze upon them with the eye of a poet, 
 and then every star being viewed only as a decorating light, 
 and every constellation as a mere garnishing of the heavens 
 by God's Spirit, you have before you a spectacle of infinite 
 loveliness. Now, how passing strange is it that these in- 
 tractable, huge worlds, whose regulation within any boun- 
 
 18* 
 
260 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 daries might have seemed an impossibility, should have been 
 so perfectly under God's control, that He has scattered them 
 according to the minor considerations of elegance and taste- 
 fulness along the sky, — that He has made use of them in 
 their formidable courses to beautify our midnight, — that He 
 has studied their assthetical appearance to the human eye ? 
 But this regard to the law of beauty may be traced in the 
 most stupendous works of God, where, more than in His 
 other works, we might have looked that it would be neg- 
 lected. We have another example in the tides of the ocean. 
 An amply wonderful achievement it might have seemed to 
 us that so vast an element as the ocean should have been 
 carried backwards and forwards within fixed limits in what- 
 ever manner that had been done, for in any way it would 
 have been a superhuman feat, but by the Almighty the work 
 is done so as to please as well as to astonish. Standing by 
 the shore, we see the tide advancing by no power that is 
 grossly mechanical, or even visible — advancing, in such a 
 manner, wave after wave, that all is music to the ear, and 
 harmony to the eye, and rapture to the imagination. Each 
 successive wave, as it breaks along its whole line into 
 whitening foam, is a spectacle of beauty — it not only exhibits 
 an effect of power, but it inspires a dream. 
 
 The whole of nature shows the regard to tastefulness and 
 beauty that characterises the Creator. There is not a ho- 
 rizon of our globe but comprehends some landscape worthy 
 of the artist's pencil, varied by the graceful undulation of 
 hills, or the wooded and picturesque declivity ; while even the 
 clouds and vapours of the sky follow the assthetical proprie- 
 ties, so that if they did not fertilize the earth we might say 
 they were only designed to ornament the heavens — for either 
 they sail in fragmentary sublimity above us, white and pure 
 as the very investiture of the Deity, or they lie spread out 
 motionless like an archangel's wing, with soft downy feathers 
 along the sapphire firmament. There is not a river that 
 hastens to the ocean by a straight, monotonous, canal-like 
 
THE AESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 261 
 
 course, but, taking its impulse from the beauty-loving Creator, 
 it is away in the curvatures that are the most true to tasteful- 
 ness, carrying with it indeed the necessary life to vegetation, 
 but at the same time charming the eye of humanity ; rolling 
 over channels that are more variegated with stones of 
 every colour than the best mosaic, discharging itself over the 
 natural cascade, losing itself in the overhanging woods, and 
 then after all these windings, evanishings, and picturesque 
 extrications of itself, pouring its flood, now ennobled with the 
 accessions of many a tributary, into the great receptacle of 
 waters. There is not a flower that unfolds itself upon the 
 mountain steep or in the garish meadow but affords demon- 
 stration of the fact that there is no such lover of beauty as 
 this great Maker of worlds ; and it is a theme for an unpa- 
 rallelled meditation to think of Him who " looseth the bands 
 of Orion," and " bringeth forth Mazzaroth in his season," 
 decorating the fragile leaf with hues that baffle imitation. 
 But such is the characteristic of His operation, and if we 
 descend into the abysses of the sea we shall find the very 
 weeds that lie upon its unseen channels embroidered by 
 the fastidious fingers of Omnipotence. There is not a crea- 
 ture of any species that has not, besides the essential organ- 
 isms of life, some suited elegance of shape or embellishment 
 of colour. Indeed, we cannot have a more marvellous view 
 of that characteristic of the Creator we are now contemplat- 
 ing than by reflecting upon the various orders of being He 
 has marshalled forth, each adorned with the graces peculiar 
 to its kind ; the insect tribe arrayed in the gorgeous hues of 
 their ephemeral existence ; the finned tenants of the ocean 
 or running stream disporting their coats of silver or gold or 
 spotted sable in the watery element ; the feathered fowls of the 
 air exhibiting every variety of unimagined forms, and with 
 plumage lavishly painted and decorated, some hovering over 
 our sea-lashed coasts, to give picturesqueness to the storm, 
 others haunting the inland, that they may give a spirit-like 
 vitality and a spirit-like harmony to the woods : add to these 
 
262 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 the creatures of another species that walk the earth, in the 
 diversity of other shapes and the singularity of other graces, 
 haunting every possible region, looking down upon us from 
 the Alpine precipices in the glory of fearless independence, 
 or darting into the forest thickets with the interestingness 
 of timidity, or stalking in savage ferocity, yet in forms and 
 striped colours of terrible beauty, through the wilderness that 
 is filled with sublimity by their outcries ; while, last of all, 
 we ascend to the human pair. Nor need we look farther than 
 to the spectacle of woman leaning in the softness of her 
 charms upon the arm of man, in order to perceive that beauty, 
 and not strength alone, is the law of the creation and the 
 characteristic of the Creator. 
 
 2. PROVIDENCE. 
 
 Here we pass into a new province, where we are called to 
 contemplate not the way in which the works or creatures of 
 God are made, but the way in which they are upheld, pre- 
 served, and governed. In this department it will appear upon 
 reflection that there is ample scope both for the display of 
 power in accomplishing these ends, and for a regard to the 
 beautiful or the tasteful in the mode of execution. Let us 
 take up a few of the marvellous things that needed to be 
 compassed in this manifold scheme of Providence, showing 
 how they have been achieved aesthetically. 
 
 First, then, it was necessary that God should provide means 
 of sustenance for the vast multitude of creatures He had ushered 
 into existence. When a large army is upon the field there 
 is no more difficult duty devolving upon the government of 
 a country than the duty connected with the commissariat 
 department. How often has it baffled their power to make 
 the provisions forthcoming, and baffled their energy or in- 
 genuity to get them conveyed to the army, stationed it may 
 be at some very remote quarter of the globe ? Every con- 
 trivance is resorted to in order to speed forward the neces- 
 sary supplies ; nicety in the mode of transfer is not much 
 
THE ^ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 263 
 
 studied ; the aesthetics of the dealing is not once aimed at ; 
 and even as to the accomplishment of the essential object, 
 though many wise men have been devising the means, and a 
 nation has been drawn upon for the resources, many blunders 
 are possibly committed ; the provision does not arrive at the 
 moment required, or the vessels conveying it sink in the 
 storm, or it meets with obstacles in the far-off harbour, and 
 there is the cry of starvation and disappointment in the 
 camp. Need we say that the problem lying for solution 
 before the Divine Being was one of infinitely greater mo- 
 mentousness and difficulty than any ordinary commissariat 
 question ? The nutriment itself was to be fabricated, a 
 world was to be fed, a world of innumerable creatures 
 through continually successive generations. The difficulty 
 is met and effectually overcome by the Divine provisions 
 that meet our eyes in the natural world. There is found 
 to be no necessity whatever for any direct interposition of 
 the Creator in this matter; but what demands at present 
 our observation is the circumstance that it is managed 
 without any infringement whatever of the comeliness of 
 nature, but, on the contrary, so as to throw an additional 
 charm around it. For the grass that grows in the fields, 
 the innumerable herbs and fruit-bearing trees that spring 
 up on the surface of our globe, are at once the radical nutri- 
 ment of the creatures and the ornament of the landscape. 
 Had the earth been destitute of this verdure and this varie- 
 gated foliage, it would have been a bleak, uninteresting 
 waste ; and thus while God makes provision for the essential 
 wants of His creatures, He seems only to be casting a grace- 
 ful mantle over the nakedness of creation. The fields waving 
 in harvest with golden grain, that rustles as it bends before 
 the autumnal breeze, is an object for poetical description as 
 well as market speculation ; and it is plain that the Creator, 
 in meeting the gross emergency of starvation, has studied to 
 gratify the taste of the most exquisite sentimentalist. 
 
 When the whole vegetable produce of one year is con- 
 
264 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERA TURE. 
 
 sumed, how was this to be renewed ? The craving appetite 
 of a world of creatures, never satisfied, was to insist every 
 returning year for its- usual gratification, and it was neces- 
 sary that the supplies of nature should be as inexhaustible 
 as the appetite was insatiable. Here again the emergency 
 was aesthetically met. The earth's vegetable products con- 
 tain not only the material for present consumption, but the 
 seed of a future vegetation. They comprehend within them- 
 selves- the mysterious means of their own perpetuation, being 
 furnished (and this without any violation of their vegetable 
 elegances) with that which,, being deposited in the soil, 
 will die, that it may produce the marvellous spectacle of 
 an ever-recurring harvest. It is true, that in order to the 
 earth being prepared to bring the seed gradually to ma- 
 turity, there was a necessity for great and deep arrangements 
 of the Almighty ; but it is equally true that these are such 
 (we refer to the economy of the seasons) as to envelop all 
 nature with the charm of a constantly - recurring variety. 
 These seasons have been the theme of the poet in all ages, 
 and have been the favourite subject of illustration in the 
 painter's landscape ; nor do- we feel as if we were witnessing 
 a process essential to- the earth, but rather as if we were 
 regaled by the spectacle of a wonderful diorama, as we pass 
 from the glow and verdure of spring to the etherial splen- 
 dours of summer, or, again, from' the motley red and yellow 
 of autumnal vegetation, to the stern, naked sublimities of 
 winter. 
 
 But there were other problems needing to be solved, in 
 connection with the providential government of human 
 society, besides this elementary one of its sustentation. We 
 shall merely touch upon them to show how they also have 
 received an aesthetical solution. 
 
 How was an adequate occupation to be found for the widely- 
 extended members of the human family ? If, on the one hand, 
 it was necessary that Divine provision should be made for 
 their primary wants, on the other, it must have been to the 
 
THE ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 265 
 
 last degree dangerous that so vast a population should have 
 been left in a condition where subsistence could be procured 
 independently of exertion. There is much beauty in the 
 arrangement whereby God, in the natural world, has made 
 labour indispensable in order to obtaining a due harvest of 
 the fruits of the earth, limiting the display of His power, that 
 there might be room: for the exercise of the creature's own 
 energy. The provisions of nature are such as not to super- 
 sede the processes of agriculture. So exactly has Omni- 
 potence ceased to. interfere at the necessary point, that the 
 mouths of society are satisfied only when its hands are 
 sufficiently occupied. There is the same beauty in the 
 analogous arrangement whereby, while He has provided the 
 materials that are necessary for our raiment, our edifices, our 
 thousand articles for use and comfort,. He has not superseded 
 the necessity for trades and manufactures. If anything could 
 excite our admiration more than this economising of His 
 omnipotence, it is to observe how exactly He has hit the just 
 limits ; so that, let society become as extended as it may, or 
 pass into its most artificial state, the mass of men must work 
 for their livelihood ; while, upon the supposition of this law 
 being followed, not a single individual fails to obtain a ration 
 of the earth's available nutriment. 
 
 How was society to be sufficiently cemented together ? The 
 mere interest begotten of a mutual dependence upon each 
 other for subsistence was not seen to be a cement strong 
 enough to bind the social fabric. The affections of humanity 
 needed to contribute to its security. God laid the foundation 
 of the family. By this means all society resolves itself into 
 an infinite number of circles, the members of which are 
 attached to each other by ties unspeakably more powerful 
 than the tie of self-interest. Instead of being an aggregate 
 of isolated units, it is now an assemblage of smaller societies, 
 whereby the whole community is cemented through the 
 affections ; and thus there comes up over the dry bones of 
 a mere political order the flesh and blood of relational 
 
266 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 humanity. Not only is social order hereby secured, but 
 individual happiness is preserved, which must have perished 
 in the confusion of a promiscuous society. In every nation 
 there are thus thousands of domestic bowers reared by love, 
 entwined with the roses of affection, where labour finds its 
 refreshment, and order its best seminary, and childhood its 
 primary protection. The effects so obtained are surely aesthe- 
 tically arrived at ! You ask how the infant, who comes in 
 utter helplessness into the world, is to be preserved ? Who 
 shall care for it ? Where shall it find nutriment ? Look to 
 that young mother, and you see the little head of the creature 
 hanging upon her bosom, triumphing in his provision, half 
 hid in the soft tresses of womanhood. Those breasts ! at 
 once the seat of sentiment and the source of nourishment ! 
 You inquire — How shall old age be protected ? Look to that 
 young son, and you see the aged mother, who once fondled 
 him upon her bosom, now leaning upon his arm. Her tresses 
 are now grey, but his arm is now strong, and maternal 
 tenderness is repaid by filial veneration. Well, you can 
 understand how relationship should thus be formed and 
 cemented among those who have lived under the same 
 domestic roof. But you ask — How can the foundation of a 
 new family be laid ? For here two are to be brought together 
 as world's companions who were not linked together from 
 infancy. How shall the Creator draw those together, who 
 were once apart, into a relationship that requires them to 
 leave father and mother, and cleave to one another for ever ? 
 Look, we would say, then, once more, to those two young 
 lovers, who hasten from the walks of society into the soli- 
 tudes of nature. The whole earth seems to be annihilated 
 to them, who, philosophy would have said, never could have 
 been brought together 1 Such are the assthetical arrange- 
 ments by which the world goes forward. 
 
 Another problem, and we have done with this part of our 
 subject. How was society to be restrained ? Let us consider 
 the fierce passions that agitate the heart of man, with the 
 
THE ^ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 267 
 
 opposition of interests that maintains in society, and what 
 was to be looked for but universal anarchy ? All are not 
 humanised in the family. How was property to be pro- 
 tected — life itself ? Human legislation would not have been 
 a sufficient safeguard. It is neither sufficiently universal in 
 its existence, nor sufficiently powerful in its sanctions, nor 
 sufficiently at hand in all emergencies, to constitute the 
 primary protection of humanity. Where then was this to 
 be found ? In conscience. What an effectual check ! and, 
 aesthetically, how admirable ! We are arrested without the 
 serjeant-at-law; condemned without witnesses called from 
 afar; sentenced without the formality of a tribunal. Can 
 anything be more mysterious than this influence exerted 
 upon us from on high, whereby the great agitated sea of 
 humanity is controlled without hands; and, even in the roar 
 of its outgoing passions, when it seems to threaten universal 
 inundation, suddenly returns from a boundary which it can- 
 not overpass. Compared with this " band " of the Lord, by 
 which the governors as well as the governed are restrained, 
 what a cumbersome provision is the printed statute-book, 
 the paid constabulary, the jail, and the penal settlement ? 
 But we would not be understood to despise political order. 
 The powers that be are ordained of God. This is only 
 another provision of His infinite wisdom. And now survey 
 the beauty and majesty of the body politic. What a fair 
 spectacle our social institutions ; the venerableness of the 
 Legislature, the awfulness of the Bench, the significant 
 unity of the Crown ! This is the scheme by which God 
 carries forward the providential government of the world. 
 But, finally, as nations advance, the finer arts, poetry, 
 painting, sculpture, eloquence, are developed. True to 
 His style, the Almighty has thus studied not only the 
 security and vigour, but the decoration of society. In the 
 earlier stages of their history the nations exhibit the rude 
 strength that argues a growing vitality. It remains that 
 they should effloresce into civilisation; and when they have 
 
268 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 reached this point, but not till then, when they have added 
 refinement to solid attainment and exquisite taste to rough 
 energy— when, in short, the aesthetical has been arrived at, 
 then the Ancient of days takes them up as a flower, looks 
 at them for a moment with complacency, and cuts them 
 down in the evening time. 
 
 3-- — REDEMPTION. 
 
 Having seen that beauty characterises God's other works, 
 it would throw suspicion upon the Divine origin of redemp- 
 tion if it failed to reflect this characteristic. It is not 
 enough to demonstrate that the ends contemplated in re- 
 demption have been attained in the exercise of consummate 
 power. We must meet with such displays of the Divine 
 operation as awaken the sense of beauty. We must see 
 the accomplishment coming forth aesthetically from a hand 
 that plays with the impracticable, and communicates colour 
 and charms of proportion even to "the terrible things we 
 looked not for." Well, let us take up some points here. 
 
 The Introduction of Redemption. — Nothing is introduced by 
 God in an abrupt or common way ; ordinarily, so as to strike 
 the admiring eye with interest. Thus, ere we have man, 
 there is the beautiful spectacle of infancy, the open brow, the 
 long flowing ringlets, the simple unsuspecting smile ; the 
 season of unrestraint and of chartered liberty; following this 
 — early youth — the young man riding out in the recklessness 
 of early days, attended by guardians and tutors ; appearances 
 enough of strength, yet of slender growth, and proportions 
 unfilled up, needing restraints withal — last of all, manhood. 
 We would not wish to miss this history of development. 
 There is a certain beauty in the sovereign order of this pre- 
 paration. So also is day introduced to our view gradually, 
 and with precursors adding much that is attractive in the 
 exhibition. Evening precedes it, to show what God can do 
 in irradiating the darkness by lesser luminaries than the sun. 
 What is wanting in kind is compensated by multitude, for 
 
THE ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 269 
 
 here we have a host of luminaries shedding a pure, heavenly, 
 but ineffectual light all round ; and the wan shield of night's 
 queen comes forth, sending a shadowy radiance over moun- 
 tain and valley. Then we have the morning-star twilight — 
 at last the sun's disc appears above the horizon, and we 
 have ere long the full splendour of day. 
 
 This is the aesthetics of creation. In redemption we look 
 for somewhat of the same, and we are not disappointed. 
 
 The first rudimental prognostics of it after the Fall how 
 beautiful — the first promise, as it turned " its silver lining 
 to the night " — the easy simplicity that reigned under the 
 patriarchal dispensation, the Church's unrestrained child- 
 hood ! Under the Old Testament Christ is not yet intro- 
 duced, but what a strange stellar splendour of types and 
 figures of Him illustrating the darkness of the Fall ! Moses, 
 the ruler of this night-dispensation, shines with the dim 
 splendour of a reflected mediatorship. Would there not have 
 been something wanting if this forerunning economy had 
 not made its appearance ? Could anything have compen- 
 sated for the loss of this starred night which preceded the 
 rise of the gospel day ? That long line of great and dis- 
 tinguished prophets who ran before, who does not feel the 
 majesty of the procession ? They pass before us in the long 
 ages, 1 each of them bearing his flaming torch ; each of them 
 arrayed in different garments ; all looking forward ; all cry- 
 ing with one voice of a coming Saviour. It seems as if 
 this secular procession and preparation would never end — as 
 if the Saviour would never make His appearance. The 
 Deluge-revolution comes, but He is not there. Sinai's fires 
 burn to heaven, but He is not there. This is but the law 
 that is added to the promise until He come. A new com- 
 monwealth is erected, whose subjects must for ages observe 
 its symbplic institutions till He come who is to fulfil them 
 all. 
 
 Meanwhile the proud nations are stumbling in their vain 
 experimental search after the knowledge of God and a way 
 
«70 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 of salvation, that the folly of human science may be demon- 
 strated ere God's wisdom for salvation be manifested. 
 
 And now at last the Morning Star appears, " the burning 
 and the shining light." And behold, above the earth at last, 
 the Sun of Righteousness that taketh away the sin of the 
 world ! What a magnificent preparation for redemption is 
 here ! 
 
 The Redemption itself. — The primary difficulty to be over- 
 come in achieving the salvation of any of our fallen family 
 was a judicial or forensic difficulty. The parties to be saved 
 were violators of the law, and He who was to save them was 
 the Administrator of that law — the infinitely holy and just 
 Judge of the universe. Supposing God, in the power of His 
 understanding, which is infinite, to have devised a way for 
 our deliverance, we are prepared to expect that the means 
 would be excessively complicate ; or, rather, that society 
 would be convulsed to its centre ere justice could receive its 
 expiation, and the storm of outpoured wrath pass away before 
 a consummated reconciliation. 
 
 In these circumstances a spectacle meets our eye. We 
 see a mother with a child in her arms. That child is 
 clinging to her breast. I have already observed that this is 
 an object aesthetically to be admired, as containing a solution 
 of the problem in Providence — How shall the infant lord of 
 the creation be fed and cared for ? But we must look to it 
 again. And here it contains the solution of expiation. That 
 Child lying upon the bosom of the Virgin is the Saviour of 
 the world. In that infant smiling in the maternal arms is 
 comprehended all that is necessary to harmonise mercy with 
 justice, to save the honour of the tribunal, and rescue the 
 victims from the bar, and bring in everlasting redemption 
 for the elect. How wonderful ! And the expiation is already 
 commenced. This condescension of the eternal Son of God 
 to infancy — this His lying in unrecognised divinity upon the 
 bosom of a humble woman — has already gone a far way 
 towards making the atonement. And is there anything 
 ghastly here ? 
 
THE ^ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 271 
 
 For let it be observed that, upon the supposition of its 
 being the purpose of God to save an innumerable company 
 of sinners by pouring out the vials of His wrath upon one 
 devoted head, it might have been imagined that the suffer- 
 ings of this Surety would form a spectacle too awful and 
 terrible to conform with the ordinary observations, or to be 
 borne with the ordinary composures of humanity. It did 
 not appear how humanity could survive the sight of such 
 scenes as must be enacted in this vindication of justice, or 
 survey the sacrificial ghastliness of its Victim. Who could 
 outlive the spectacle of the sufferings of the damned, and 
 endure to see the visages or hear the outcries of these 
 scathed victims of eternal vengeance ? And who then might 
 hope to endure the awful exhibition that was to be made of 
 Divine wrath fully exhausted upon a single Surety ? God was 
 able to make the arrangements. Owing to the infinite majesty 
 of our Surety, He was able to make the atonement by suffer- 
 ings which exhibited nothing that was physically hideous 
 or revolting. We say nothing of the pangs of His soul, for 
 these were invisible to mortal eye ; but owing to the dignity 
 of His person, He was able to make out the reality of an 
 atonement without its visible horrors. He needed but to 
 represent the spectacle of a somewhat more than ordinarily 
 distressed humanity. There is nothing uncomely to be seen 
 in the manger of Bethjehem. It is only an interesting 
 representation of distressed or incommoded infancy. Geth- 
 semane is a scene of suffering ; but there is nothing to revolt 
 us in that moonlit garden, in that Form thrown prostrate 
 upon the ground in bloody sweat, in that angel standing over 
 Him to strengthen Him. Shall we extend the remark to 
 Calvary ? We shall only say that in the decease that 
 brought in redemption to the world there was nothing to 
 shock the eye of humanity ; and if the countenance of the 
 Saviour in His crisis-agonies assumed expressions too awful 
 for man to behold, these were hidden in the sublime shadow 
 of the preternatural eclipse ; and if His suffering at last 
 
272 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 vented itself in outcries too awful for man to hear, these 
 were drowned in the roll of the earthquake that accompanied 
 the sacrifice. 
 
 To what else than this aesthetics of redemption does the 
 apostle refer when he says, " And as it is appointed unto 
 men once to die, but after death the judgment, so Christ 
 was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them 
 that look for him shall he appear the second time without 
 sin unto salvation " ? He adverts to the beauty of the ar- 
 rangement whereby the eternal Son of God was able to 
 make the atonement by just living such a life as ours, and 
 dying such a death as our own ; so that a work of all others 
 the most stupendous and anomalous was effected without 
 breaking up the uniformities of the world. Owing to His 
 majesty He could accomplish redemption by simply passing 
 through the ordinary stages and phases of this humanity of 
 ours. 
 
 If the divinity of Christ averted the ghastliness of expi- 
 ation, the expiation, on the other hand, by making an ob- 
 scuration necessary, averted the unendurable glory that 
 must otherwise have emanated from the divinity. For here 
 was another problem in redemption. How was such a 
 stupendous fact as the appearance of the Son of God upon 
 our earth to be made consistent with the proprieties of this 
 ordinary system of things ? Could our earth bear the en- 
 trance of such a Visitant ? Could its inhabitants endure 
 such an approximation of the Deity ? It is all very well 
 that we should have a sun in the firmament over our heads 
 so long as it remains at its present incalculable distance. 
 There it irradiates and cheers us. But nothing could be 
 conceived more disastrous to the human family than that it 
 should draw near to us in the enormity of its disc. And 
 such seemed the consequence to be apprehended from the 
 manifestation of God's eternal Son. How, above all, was it 
 possible that He should live for more than thirty years in our 
 world ? Might human society bear this long sojourning of 
 
THE ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 273 
 
 such a Visitant ? and might the land He dwelt and walked 
 upon bear the pressure of the pilgrimage of nations which 
 would doubtless be congregated around Him ? In conse- 
 quence of the very work, however, which Jesus came to 
 accomplish, it was necessary that there should be a complete 
 obscuration of His divine glory, and thus instead of a stag- 
 gering portent He presented the appearance of nothing more 
 than a common man passing over the stage of life, and de- 
 parting in an ordinary dissolution. We cannot but marvel 
 at the aesthetical manner in which redemption was thus ac- 
 complished. " He was in the world, and the world was 
 made by him, and the world knew him not." Not only 
 did God discover a way by which His eternal Son could be 
 manifested on our earth without producing the disastrous 
 effects of an unendurable prodigy, but the scheme of re- 
 demption was such that, in its essential prosecution, it so fell 
 out that His Son was necessarily divested of the splendours 
 of Deity just in His progress through our world — there was 
 at this point an eclipse, so that nothing appeared but his 
 humanity ; and He was received up into heaven at that very 
 point of time when, emerging from His obscuration, He be- 
 came a spectacle fit only " to be seen of angels." There is 
 no movement parallel to this in beauty and sublimity in all 
 the wonders of the astronomical universe. 
 
 The singular fact here adverted to, that the humiliation 
 necessary in the Son of God in order to His making the 
 atonement, accomplished the indirect and secondary purpose 
 of His appearing in the only way according to which He 
 could have appeared in our world at all consistently with the 
 proprieties or aesthetics of this life, might seem enough of 
 itself to prove the divinity of the scheme of redemption 
 generally received amongst us. Whoever amongst men in- 
 vented this scheme must have been very wise indeed ; for 
 what have they found out ? They have discovered a way 
 by which a Divine Person might be incarnate in our world, 
 and live more than thirty years in it, without disturbing the 
 
 19 
 
274 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 social system, as it presently goes forward. They have 
 found more. They have discovered that the obscuration 
 necessary for expiatory purposes exactly gives us the result 
 required — the result, namely, of what may be called an 
 aesthetical earthly life in a Divine Person incarnate. 
 
 It was not only the ghastliness of expiation that needed 
 to be averted. Although the vindication of justice by God 
 the Father, in subjecting His Son to death, was in itself 
 a glorious act, the transaction required (if it were to be 
 divested of a revolting character) to be managed aestheti- 
 cally, or with a certain regard to appearances. It is well 
 known that the infidel has endeavoured to raise a prejudice, 
 if not to establish an argument against the scheme of re- 
 demption generally received amongst us, by dwelling upon 
 what he considers the monstrous position in which it repre- 
 sents the Father and the Son — the one being no other than 
 the executioner of the other, and the cross the gibbet. Let 
 us consider for a moment the adjustments of Infinite Wisdom 
 for averting what must otherwise have assumed an offensive 
 aspect. Although it was necessary that God the Father 
 should be vindicator of the law, and that He should deal as 
 an offended Judge with the Surety, nothing prevented Him 
 from employing an intermediate agency for the infliction of 
 it. It may be very true, and we grant it to the objectors, 
 that the crucifixion took place by appointment of God the 
 Father; but it is equally true, and they must grant it, and 
 cannot fail to feel it, that it was not God who with His own 
 hands erected the cross. What might otherwise have been 
 somewhat abhorrent to the sensitive imagination of infidelity 
 is thus (greatly to its relief, shall we say, or to its confusion?) 
 taken away by the veil of an interposed agency. But this is 
 not all. The magistrate employs such an agency to put the 
 sentence of the law into execution. But God withdrew 
 Himself still farther than this from any visible connection 
 with His Son's death. He employed an intervening wicked 
 agency. It was by such an agency that His Son's death was 
 
THE AESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 275 
 
 brought about. It was by men acting under the influence of 
 enmity to God, and in express contrariness to His command- 
 ment — although secretly executing His purpose — it was by 
 the hands of ungodliness and sneering infidelity itself. Thus 
 so far are we from being revolted by the spectacle of God the 
 Father executing judgment upon His own Son, that we are 
 filled with indignation against His enemies who iniquitously 
 compassed this execution ; and the crucifixion, instead of 
 appearing in the light of a monstrosity of Divine justice, 
 meets the eye as a monstrosity of man's unrighteousness. 
 
 Another point more in the aesthetics of the redemption 
 itself. God's plan in the original covenant He made with 
 the human family was to deal with us all federally in Adam, 
 so that, if he stood and obeyed, eternal life was to be ours 
 by one man. Now when that man fell who had been con- 
 stituted the federal head of the race, universal ruin seemed 
 to be as irreparable as it was certain. Occasion of triumph 
 to the highest was given to the great adversary of God, for 
 it seemed as if this representative scheme had turned out to 
 be nothing else than a step whereby, the whole human family 
 being reduced to one neck, he could summarily cut it off 
 and destroy it. How any second contrivance could be made 
 to retrieve matters, was inconceivable. Yet God achieved it 
 by one simple arrangement, and this an arrangement exactly 
 analogous to the first. As He said, " Let there be light," 
 and the darkness of creation chaos was dispelled, so in this 
 case He said, " Let there be another man," and the whole 
 consequences of the Fall were rolled back. We cannot 
 suppose anything more humiliating to the arch - adversary 
 than this, that when he was triumphing in the overthrow of 
 the human family by one man, the Almighty should wrest 
 the whole victory out of his hands by the immediate sub- 
 stitution of another man, who had all the conditions in His 
 wonderful mediatory person for averting the consequences 
 of the Fall. In his famous passage in the fifth chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Romans, where Paul adverts to the 
 
 19* 
 
276 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 analogy between the method of our Fall and the method of 
 our deliverance from it, we cannot doubt that he has in his 
 eye the aesthetics of the arrangement, and is calling upon 
 us to notice how in redemption we have an evidence of 
 that singular beauty of operation that is the Almighty's 
 characteristic style. 
 
 The Application of Redemption. — The contrivance adopted 
 by God for disciplining the redeemed, and spiritually fitting 
 them for entering upon the inheritance of heaven, is one the 
 beauty of which cannot fail to strike every attentive observer. 
 We have sometimes thought that it admits of being illus- 
 trated by the device He employed for disciplining the Jews 
 for Canaan. How that was to be accomplished was a 
 problem no created wisdom could have solved. God solved 
 it at once in what may be called an sesthetical manner. All 
 that is necessary is that they be made to pass through that 
 wilderness which already geographically lay between Egypt 
 and Canaan. So large a multitude, plunged into the desert, 
 will at once be cast helpless upon Him. The wilderness will 
 itself prove, and humble, and try them, and His power will 
 be glorified at the same time. The wisdom which thus finds 
 means immediately before it, without needing to go to a 
 distance, works aesthetically. The sensation of admiration is 
 produced; we involuntarily exclaim, " How beautiful! this 
 is the doing of the Lord." 
 
 So in the matter now before us, when the question was 
 how the redeemed were to be prepared and made meet for 
 heaven, God's solution was that they should just pass 
 through this world, turned as it has been into a wilderness 
 by the Fall. No need of any new instrumentality being 
 provided. The consequences of the Fall — afflictions in all 
 their various forms, and death — will be themselves the very 
 best means for their trial and preparation. It so happens, 
 and cannot be denied, that the same conditions of the world 
 which are the penal result of the Fall, which in themselves 
 prove to the unsaved the awful preliminaries and prepara- 
 
THE AESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 277 
 
 tions of eternal ruin, admit of becoming gracious and salutary 
 conditions to those who, being interested in God's recon- 
 ciliation and in gospel hopes, look upon them in an entirely 
 different light, and are carried triumphantly through them, 
 and find them contributive in many ways to their spiritual 
 welfare. Now, can we sufficiently admire the operation of 
 God by which the consequences of the Fall become the 
 machinery of redemption ? 
 
 To any understanding but the understanding that is 
 infinite, it might have appeared that if the human family 
 was to consist of two sections, the one of which was to be 
 saved and the other left to perish, they would require to be 
 divided by a physical wall of separation, in order to their 
 being placed under entirely different outward conditions. 
 But from the remarks now made it appears that the same 
 essential conditions become answerable enough for the pur- 
 pose of salvation as prelude and prepare the eternal doom 
 of the reprobate. Accordingly, the redeemed are left inter- 
 mingled with others in the most promiscuous way — in the 
 same families as well as in the same tribes and nations — 
 and yet their sanctification is perfectly accomplished by the 
 same means, which, alongside of them, issue in nothing but 
 induracy and ruin. 
 
 And here that reference has been made to the fact of there 
 being an election of some to everlasting life, while others are 
 passed by — we might advert to the sesthetical solution 
 found by God for the great problem — How was this sove- 
 reign redemption to be carried out without such an enmity 
 and jealousy being excited in the minds of the reprobate as 
 would lead to the extermination of the elect ? Even as it 
 is, we know that there is an enmity existing between the two 
 seeds. But it has bounds. It evaporates in temporary per- 
 secutions ; it exhausts itself in Domitian, or Waldensian, or 
 Malaganese periods. And how has God succeeded in thus 
 moderating its effects ? This has been accomplished by the 
 arrangement well known to have been adopted, that while 
 
278 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 redemption was limited in its objects as to purpose, it is 
 administered outwardly to the world in the shape of a 
 universal invitation and offer. Had the call or offer been 
 limited, the consequences must have been fatal. As it is, 
 the mouths of such as really after all belong to the reprobate 
 are shut against complaint. Generally speaking, they go on 
 under the impression that they are saved as well as we; 
 and though this delusion be fatal to themselves, it is so far 
 the safety of others. If you add to this that the jealousy of 
 the reprobate is prevented and quieted down by the" identity 
 of outward condition in which, as already stated, God's elect 
 are placed along with them, you perceive the whole admir- 
 able contrivance whereby God's purpose, sovereign as it is, 
 is accomplished without any unnecessary division, or fatal 
 and exterminating struggle in society. 
 
 The Display of the Divine Perfections in Redemption. — This 
 is a point in the aesthetics of redemption which has been 
 often adverted to. The cross affords the only solution of 
 the problem how God can be infinitely just, and yet the 
 justifier of the ungodly. The solution is such as to be 
 assthetical. The Gordian knot is not cut by the sword of 
 God's prerogative arbitrarily exercised, but loosed by His 
 wisdom. The solution carries irresistible evidence of being 
 the true one, and evidence as irresistible of being one which 
 created intelligence never could have devised. On the 
 cross there is such a meeting of Divine attributes without 
 collision ; such a mutual embracing of each other in a 
 transaction where they seemed certain to clash ; such an 
 increased illustration of them all in the accomplishment of 
 an end where it seemed impossible that they should not 
 be tarnished ; and such new displays altogether of the 
 Divine perfections ; that, as we may say light never was 
 discovered till Newton divided the ray, so may we say that 
 God was unknown to us till His glory was refracted upon 
 the cross. What a true painter has God proved Himself 
 to be in saving us ! He has set the chief manifestation of 
 
THE ^ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 279 
 
 His glory upon the dark background of the Fall. He has 
 set the highest display of His wisdom over against the 
 foolishness of the Cross. He has given His highest act of 
 love to man, the foil of being at the same time the foulest 
 deed of man's depravity. 
 
 The Attestations of Redemption. — Redemption was to be 
 brought in by the eternal Son of God being born of a 
 woman, made flesh, made under the law, made sin, suffering 
 and dying. It was necessary, of course, that when this 
 Redeemer appeared in the flesh He should be sufficiently 
 attested to be a Divine Person. But how this could be done 
 was a problem which would have baffled the understanding 
 of all God's creatures to solve. Coming into the world, as 
 He must do in such a case, a child even as other children, 
 and passing through the various stages of human growth, 
 what prodigious works must be done by Him ; what pro- 
 digious manifestations of glory, one way or another, must 
 take place, ere He could be sufficiently evidenced to be God 
 as well as man. Could His contemporaries endure these ? 
 and, more than all, how could they be supposed to subject 
 so glorious a one to the sufferings and death which yet were 
 indispensable ? 
 
 This was the difficulty. Here is the aesthetics of its 
 solution. His divinity was not to be attested so much by a 
 display of His divine glory when He appeared. Indeed, He 
 was to appear in a very humbled state. It was to be attested 
 by His fulfilling in the outward conditions under which He 
 appeared the predictions of preceding ages. Once let Him 
 be found to fulfil these conditions, and immediately He has 
 the benefit of the whole supernatural that had been spread 
 over the antecedent centuries ; for whatever was extra- 
 ordinay or miraculous there was all connected one way or 
 another with the Messiah who was to appear. Now this 
 kind of attestation, while in itself it was the most satisfac- 
 tory of all, was not of a kind fitted to startle or overwhelm 
 the carnal mind of His contemporaries, who, instead of 
 
280 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 recognising in His "visage, so marred more than other 
 men," the link that connected Him with the whole super- 
 natural of the Old Testament, were offended by it. Mean- 
 while, in hiding their faces from Him, and afterwards 
 crucifying Him, they were only attesting His Messiahship. 
 
 While our Lord Jesus Christ, by fulfilling prophecy in the 
 outward conditions under which He appeared, served Himself 
 heir to all the stupendous signs and wonders wrought by the 
 prophets who foretold His coming, it is noticeable that His 
 own miracles were of a much humbler and less imposing 
 character to the eye than those of a former economy ; and 
 this only stumbled the Jews, while yet they afforded in reality 
 the most satisfactory attestations of all, as illustrative of His 
 gracious and redemptive mission. 
 
 I might have referred here to the miracles of the Bible in 
 general as bearing the characteristic impress of the Deity. 
 
 The province of the miraculous and the extraordinary did 
 not seem to be one where our love of the tasteful or the 
 beautiful could very well be gratified. All our ideas of the 
 lovely and attractive are associated with the ordinary con- 
 ditions of earthly phenomena; and must they not be put to 
 flight, and give way to mere amazement and consternation 
 upon the reversal of nature's laws ? In such a department, 
 if our trembling reason be convinced, it seems too much to 
 ask that our imagination should be delighted. 
 
 We may judge how difficult it is to observe the laws of 
 beauty in the miraculous by the grotesqueness of the 
 miracles which superstition has suggested or imposture 
 fabricated. They present us with an abundant display of 
 power of a certain kind, but they recommend themselves as 
 little to our taste as they do to our convictions. There may 
 be something graceful about the legends or fables of a super- 
 stitious antiquity, but they revolt our reason, and are in- 
 debted much to the embellishments of the narrator. 
 
 Such, however, is the nature of the miraculous, as it meets 
 us in the Bible ; .so sparingly is it introduced, and with such 
 
THE ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 regard always to strong necessities existing for its appear- 
 ance ; so skilfully is it arranged in the hands of Him who is 
 able to accommodate even the supernatural to humanity, 
 and throw over it a beauty of its own kind, that the most 
 picturesque passages in Scripture are those that record 
 these stupendous phenomena. The extraordinary inter- 
 positions we read of under the Old Testament, as well as 
 the New, come in so seasonably to meet the necessities of 
 a suffering Church, or to humble the pride of outrageous 
 oppression, or to relieve anguished humanity, that, instead of 
 impressing us as a monstrous excrescence upon the face 
 of common providence, they seem rather to remove its 
 sovereign and trying inequalities — to present us for the 
 moment with a perfect providence, which is less mysterious 
 than the other whose uniformity is broken up. 
 
 Space will not admit of condescending upon instances. It 
 is enough to say that the painter has always found the most 
 striking subjects for displaying his art in the extraordinary 
 scenes of our Saviour's life. God has remained true to His 
 style ; and we have this remarkable issue as regards the 
 miracles of Christianity, that while all candid persons are 
 convinced by the greatness of them, their beauty is acknow- 
 ledged even by the infidel. 
 
 The Record of Redemption. — To come now to the written 
 Record, or the Scriptures, in any argument maintained with 
 infidelity, the question must turn very much upon the 
 character of the Bible, as a composition. Does it bear the 
 characteristic of God's style ? What of its aesthetics ? 
 
 The whole matter of the revelation contained in it might 
 have been there, while at the same time no regard might 
 have been paid to the graces of manner, the beauties or 
 sublimities of writing. Upon that supposition the Bible 
 would have rested its claim to superiority upon the weighti- 
 n-ess of its contents, its supernatural discoveries, its perfect 
 morality, its fulfilled prophecies. Nor in claiming supe- 
 riority upon this ground, in the total absence of aesthetical 
 
282 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 excellence, would it have placed itself upon a very peculiar 
 footing of acceptance with the public. For the fact is we 
 do not generally expect that works communicating the 
 deepest discoveries should unite elegance of manner with 
 greatness of matter. We do not quarrel with the works of 
 Sir Isaac Newton because they do not sparkle with beauty : 
 they solve the mystery of the stars, if, in composition, they 
 do not reflect their lustre. We pardon the metaphysician of 
 America the plainness of his style. Excellences of different 
 kinds are not expected to be combined. We go for the 
 sublime to Milton, and for the profound to Newton ; we go 
 for beauty to Shakespeare, and for demonstration to 
 Edwards. 
 
 Beauty characterises the Bible. Truths are not an- 
 nounced there in their nakedness ; nor are its high mysteries 
 before us in an ungainly abstractness, but invested with the 
 charms of statement and illustration. The histories are 
 always graphic — a series of Divine paintings. The men 
 whose lives it records form a gallery of magnificent portraits. 
 The argumentative parts are not dry or tedious ; there is the 
 beautiful transition, the lively interrogation, the exclamation, 
 the antithesis, the unexpected appeal, the thrilling climax. 
 The religious instruction is conveyed in striking parables 
 and fresh illustrations, that indelibly impress the memory. 
 Respect is paid to beauty in the prophetical revelations ; 
 and, as if it were not enough to benefit us with the prophecy, 
 we have the sublime abruptness of the prophet — all the 
 eloquence of humanity under the frenzy of the Divine vision. 
 There is a sublime beauty, too, in the very symbols of 
 prophecy — as in the Apocalypse of John — so that those who 
 are utterly incapable of understanding their exact reference 
 are yet entranced by the splendour of the imagery; just as 
 the man who is ignorant of astronomy is impressed not- 
 withstanding by the loveliness of the constellations. 
 
 But much more than this must be predicable of the Bible 
 as a composition, ere we can say that its beauty is such as 
 
THE ^ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 283 
 
 to attest it to have come from God. We must be able to 
 show that its beauties are superhuman, and altogether 
 analogous to those that meet us in creation work. 
 
 This we are prepared to do. Look to any of those objects 
 that are lovely in nature— the flowers, for example — and we 
 at once perceive the difference between them and any pro- 
 duction of man, however admirable. There is no compari- 
 son to be instituted between the finest manufactures and the 
 textures of vegetation — between the finest colourings of the 
 painter and the essential hues of nature. With regard to 
 the former, there is a comparative coarseness about them in 
 their utmost perfection. We perceive the presence of artifice 
 with the naked eye ; and if we apply the microscope, we 
 detect the shortcoming. The same may be said of all 
 human authors, as compared with the Bible. We account 
 Milton and Shakespeare masters in their art. But we may 
 all recognise the artifice that is in their compositions. It is 
 concealed, but only within certain limits. When we apply 
 the microscope of a rigid criticism (such a criticism as was 
 never intended, I admit, to be applied to the productions of 
 human genius) we soon see an end of their perfection. But 
 no man has ever detected artifice in the beauties of the 
 Bible. He might as well expect to discover a certain gross- 
 ness in the textures of vegetation or the loveliness of the 
 new-blown rose. In other words, the grace or charm is of 
 that perfectly essential and unartificial description that dis- 
 tinguishes nature itself. 
 
 We remarked already that in the department of creation 
 we cannot separate the beautiful from the useful. The earth 
 is attractive by its verdure, but the grass that adorns it is 
 the food of the creatures that live upon its surface. It is 
 variegated by the blue and winding streams, but these are 
 the sources of its irrigation. Thus there is never an effort 
 after the attainment of beauty, for its own sake : we could 
 not divest nature of its charms without destroying the 
 essential system of things before us. And this is true of the 
 
284 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Bible. In the most masterly productions of human genius, 
 we find that the beauty of them is a species of embellish- 
 ment. But in the Bible there is not a single figure, or 
 illustration, or expression, in which the lynx eye of infidelity 
 will discover the infirmity of decoration. The beauty is 
 perfectly inwoven with, and inseparable from, the truth or 
 the consolation of the Scriptures. What thrills the amateur 
 of graceful expression as being exquisitely beautiful is 
 appealed to by the controversial theologian as having in 
 every word an important' bearing upon some point of faith, 
 or is clung to by the dying saint as fraught with comfort to 
 his soul. 
 
 Finally, many of the subjects that are exhibited to us in 
 the Bible arrayed in a species of radiant beauty are of such 
 a stupendous nature that man has never even attempted to 
 pourtray them. When, from surveying the earth, we turn 
 to the skies, and perceive that they are garnished and adorned, 
 we feel at once that this must have been done by the Spirit 
 of the Lord, because the region in which this decoration 
 presents itself is beyond the access of the creature. The 
 pen of inspiration has treated of some subjects handled by 
 common writers, and invested them with Divine attractions ; 
 but occasionally it describes to us "things which eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the 
 heart of man to conceive." The supernatural truths of the 
 Bible come to us clothed in a certain mysterious beauty. 
 All Divine and heavenly things body themselves forth in a 
 simple, majestic form in the record of the Spirit. The 
 description of the creation is such as could only have been 
 given us by the Creator ; the account we have of the gene- 
 ration of Jesus Christ could have been given us by none but 
 Him who sent Him into the world. 
 
 We leave it with the reader to say whether the inquiry we 
 have prosecuted do not make out that there is the aesthetical 
 analogy to God's other works which was to be looked for in 
 the work of Redemption. Does not the supernatural mani- 
 
THE ESTHETICS OF REDEMPTION. 285 
 
 festation which God has made of Himself in the Church 
 bear the essential characteristic of that other manifestation 
 He has made of Himself in the natural world ? Great 
 things have been done, and there is a marvellous beauty in 
 the way in which they have been accomplished. " New 
 heavens and a new earth have been created," and we 
 encounter the same immensity of conception and inimitable 
 tastefulness in execution. Indeed, compared with this 
 strange work of Jehovah, His former works are not to be 
 remembered nor brought into mind, and we may say, 
 " Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary." 
 
THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 VII. 
 
 A WORD TO GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE 
 MACDONALD. 
 
 / "T~^ HE present state of our lighter literature is such as to 
 A excite alarm in the minds of all who jealously watch 
 over the principles of the community. We do not refer at 
 present to the flagitious or immoral tendency of our poetry 
 or our novels. In our higher literature there is less of this 
 than prevailed formerly. " Don Juan " would not be toler- 
 ated. The taste for Giaours and Corsairs is obsolete. We 
 must all rejoice that this unclean spirit is gone out of the 
 land, and that we have a band of poets and novelists who, 
 instead of allying vice in their heroes with the highest and 
 most brilliant endowments, seek rather to exalt virtue when 
 associated with the humblest external circumstances. We 
 do not inquire into the causes which have led to this desir- 
 able reform. For reasons to be immediately mentioned, it 
 cannot be traced to the power directly exerted by evangelical 
 religion upon our literary writers, who, as a rule, are re- 
 markably exempt from its influence. Indirectly, however, it 
 may be connected with evangelical religion ; for as the com- 
 munity has unquestionably been affected by the revival of it, 
 they must in so far accommodate themselves to the constitu- 
 ency for which they write, and must themselves, besides, be 
 so far influenced by the secondary effects of this revival. 
 When the saving power of the gospel has begun to show 
 itself to any extent in the community, we may be sure that 
 even the sections of it which are hostile to evangelical doc- 
 trine will be stirred up to unusual ardour in behalf of such 
 religious tenets as they profess, and in advocating morality 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 287 
 
 upon natural principles. The genuine earnestness which has 
 come down upon the evangelical portion of the community 
 will be confronted with a spurious earnestness in that portion 
 of it which is hostile to evangelism. There is reason more- 
 over to apprehend that when Christianity in its evangelical 
 form is likely to triumph, its great adversary may avail him- 
 self of men of genius and literary endowment to start some 
 new scheme of Christianity, more allied to natural religion, 
 and prosecuted with all the ardour of enthusiasm. If he 
 get them to be patrons of heresy, he cares not though they 
 should be no longer panderers to immorality. 
 
 This is the curse of our modern literature. Sir Walter 
 Scott and others wrote idly enough, but one could not find 
 fault with their orthodoxy. Byron was profligate, but he 
 did not become a vendor of heresy. He had his practical 
 doubts of the truth of the Bible, but never anointed himself 
 to be the apostle of new doctrines; and, if we may believe 
 Madame Guicciolini, he retained secret convictions of the 
 truth of Calvinism, though from his own profligate career 
 he could only forebode the worst to himself from the truth 
 of predestination. It is otherwise with our present writers. 
 Many of our poets and novelists are teaching an erroneous 
 theology with all the earnestness of missionaries. If such a 
 crusade be on foot it would be well to remember that heresy 
 is a worse and more insidious evil than licentiousness, and 
 that it cannot assume a more treacherous form than when 
 conveyed in productions which are beyond the ordinary tri- 
 bunals of theological criticism, and which are recommended 
 to the minds of the young by the irresistible attractions of 
 fancy and genius. If the charge we bring against the writers 
 in question be true, we are justified in interfering, it being 
 they who have begun to deal in theology, and not we who 
 are presuming to traffic with romance. If the time has come 
 when poetasters and tale-writers sport the white neckcloth, 
 why should clergymen hesitate to make appearance in ties of 
 green, or of still livelier colours ? 
 
288 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Before proceeding to prove the libel we have brought 
 forward, it may be necessary to touch upon a great change 
 of a general kind which has come over the bards and no- 
 velists of our country. Formerly their aim was mainly the 
 humbler one of seeking to please. Content to exercise the 
 aesthetical faculty with which they were gifted, they caught 
 and transferred to their page the beautiful, the terrible, and 
 the sublime in nature, or they reflected whatever is attrac- 
 tive and striking in humanity. They presented us with fairer 
 or darker forms of character than meet us in every-day life, 
 thrown into situations considerably above the average of 
 those actually occurrent, with backgrounds of landscape 
 lovelier than strike the eye of actual observation. They 
 did not profess to aim at being moralists or preachers. They 
 knew that there were others upon whom these more serious 
 functions devolved ; and although they did not altogether 
 eschew the useful, or the inculcation of the moral lesson, 
 they aimed chiefly at producing pleasure. Lighter literature 
 assumed the character of a relaxation. We took our theo- 
 logy from the pulpit or from the productions of our divines. 
 We took our morality from a similar source, or from the 
 essays of the moralist. But when at our after-dinner hour 
 we had thrown ourselves down upon the sofa, or poised our 
 legs upon the fireplace, we expected little else from the 
 novel or the poem than an airy recreation. A revolution has 
 taken place. The poets of this age, instead of leading us 
 into the flowery fields of pleasure, are ambitious to aspire to 
 the office of religious teachers. If they do not actually give 
 us long unmeasured lines of proverbs, they indulge in spirit- 
 ual utterances (chiefly of the melancholy kind), or in some- 
 thing between sentimental and theological speculation. This 
 is so far good in its own way — certainly better than invita- 
 tions by the bard to drink of his Falernian wine, or to join 
 with him in admiration of the tresses of his mistress. We 
 have nevertheless a secret persuasion that there is a place 
 and a time for everything under the sun ; and we think that, 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 289 
 
 upon the whole, it would be a healthier symptom of the age 
 if those who tuned their harps would relax their brows some- 
 what, and consider that their peculiar office is to delight and 
 entertain the world rather than to preach or to prophesy. 
 They should consider that in the main their productions 
 occupy the same place in the world of mind as flowers do in 
 the world of nature, which sufficiently answer the end of 
 their creation when they throw an indescribable charm over 
 the face of things. It were desirable to have a more palp- 
 able wall of separation reared between the province of the 
 poet, which is assthetical, and the province of the moralist 
 and the theologian. The peculiarity of the age is that the 
 preaching is becoming sentimental and the poetry theological. 
 We have the more reason to complain, as the moral or reli- 
 gious strains of the bard are not of the healthiest description. 
 In many instances they are the doleful exclamations of one 
 who is seeking light for his troubled soul, and who seems un- 
 able to find it, though the sun of a gracious revelation is 
 shining with meridian splendour above every head, and, it is 
 to be presumed, above his own also. We have no patience 
 for our part with such sceptical rhapsodies, whether they 
 come from Tennyson himself or the host of his imitators 
 who in various periodicals throughout the land pour forth 
 their mawkish, melancholy, and drivelling hexameters. 
 
 Turning to our novelists, there is another change of a very 
 marked kind that has come over the style of their produc- 
 tions. We were wont to be introduced by them to the more 
 aristocratic circles of society, and found ourselves moving 
 among princes and princesses, peers and marchionesses, 
 gentlemen and ladies, at the least. Whatever is most 
 romantic and picturesque in nature was added to all that is 
 imposing in rank and luxury ; the heroine was remarkable 
 for personal charms, and the heroes were distinguished for 
 personal valour. The modern novelist disdains having 
 recourse to such adventitious sources of interest. He boldly 
 transfers his readers to the smoky alleys and miserable 
 
 20 
 
290 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 tenements of our large cities, or to the cottages of the country 
 poor. His principal characters derive their attraction from 
 the moral qualities they possess, and which inhere in some 
 feminine form destitute of any visible attraction, or some 
 rough artisan of ungainly exterior. This, we acknowledge, 
 is a change to the better. Not that we disown to a lurking 
 partiality even yet for the novelist who, like the immortal 
 Sir Walter Scott, avails himself of all that is most charming 
 in the landscape and all that is imposing in polished society. 
 Still we are delighted to follow virtue to its obscurest abode, 
 and are prepared, we humbly trust, to hail its higher emana- 
 tions in the least attractive of either sex. 
 
 But we begin to perceive an attempt on the part of some 
 of our novelists to exaggerate the moral qualities that are 
 supposed by them to underlie our fallen nature, while they 
 aim, on the other hand, to disparage evangelical religion. 
 We have first a systematic effort made to caricature Cal- 
 vinism. Its ministers are introduced as preaching only fire 
 and brimstone. If any of the characters that figure in their 
 narrative be of that persuasion, they are either cheating 
 tradesmen, or savage schoolmasters, or hysterical old women. 
 The effects produced by Calvinistic teaching are represented 
 as being the worst. Meanwhile we have placed over against 
 such odious and partial pictures the hero and approved 
 characters of the piece, who are distinguished by a certain 
 sublime love or moral principle. Whence they have derived 
 it does not appear, but we are left to infer that it is some 
 underlying excellence in fallen humanity. At any rate, we 
 are carefully informed that it came not from any Calvinistic, 
 that is, evangelical source. In short, their professed aim 
 ' manifestly is to subvert the religion taught in our Confes- 
 sions of Faith and Catechisms. To show that these remarks 
 are not groundless, we shall substantiate them in this article 
 by some illustrations. 
 
 We shall begin with " Felix Holt, the Radical," by the 
 authoress of " Adam Bede." The hero of the piece, Felix 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 291 
 
 himself, is described as being, so far as personal appearance 
 is concerned, " a shaggy-headed, large-eyed, strong-limbed 
 young man, without waistcoat or cravat ; while by trade he 
 is a watchmaker, and by birth the son of a quack doctor." 
 These are certainly not the surroundings of a hero of our 
 novels of the olden times. But, as already hinted, we have 
 no quarrel with them. We would be the last persons on 
 earth to deny any man's title to nobility from his wanting a 
 waistcoat, or to judge of a man's nobility by the waistcoat 
 he had. Although we never happened to know a watch- 
 maker who possessed qualities entitling him to the admira- 
 tion of the whole community, we repudiate the idea that 
 there is necessarily anything in the business itself that 
 bars one's way to eminence ; and though one's father may 
 have gulled the public by puffing off quack medicines, he 
 may, for aught we know upon the mysterious subject of 
 generation, turn out to be a hero. With a rough exterior, 
 Felix Holt is represented as possessing an inflexible moral 
 rectitude and very noble sentiments. That these did 
 not proceed from an evangelical source is plain enough. 
 The authoress is careful to inform us that he had joined 
 no Church. " He saw distinctly, as he said himself, that 
 he could do something better." He did not always go to 
 chapel, and he was not in the habit of reading " Howe's 
 Temple." In thus dissociating any excellence he pos- 
 sessed from such a disreputable source as evangelism or 
 any ordinary evangelical ministration, our authoress has 
 dealt wisely according to her generation as a novelist. It 
 gratifies the pride of the human heart to contemplate a 
 morality which is not the offspring of grace, but our own 
 manufacture. We would recommend this device to every 
 writer of novels who wishes to be popular. He must pander 
 to the pride of life ; nor does it signify much whether he do 
 this by introducing a valorous knight -errant or a watch- 
 maker with moral sentiments which are indigenous. But, as 
 
 20 * 
 
292 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 he hopes for success, let not the man whose morality is to 
 produce admiration be a reader of " Howe's Temple," or a 
 joined member of any of our Churches. This by the way. 
 Felix Holt has an opportunity of exercising his powers as a 
 moral reformer upon Esther, the heroine of the novel, who 
 was in every respect his opposite, affecting the fine lady, 
 proud of her small feet, and her long neck, and her plaited 
 curls — sentimental, moreover, in her tastes, and a devoted 
 admirer of Lord Byron. Supposed to be the daughter of the 
 Rev. Rufus Lyon, minister of the Independent Chapel, 
 Malthouse Yard, in the market-town of Treby Magna, she 
 spent the days of her early vanity under his roof, and we are 
 informed of his unfortunate failure to regenerate her, and 
 the cause of it. " Her father's desire for her conversion had 
 never moved her. She saw that he adored her all the while, 
 and he never checked her unregenerate acts as if they 
 degraded her on earth, but only mourned over them as 
 unfitting her for heaven. Unfitness for heaven (spoken of 
 as Jerusalem and glory), the prayers of a good little father, 
 whose thoughts and motives seemed to her like the life of 
 Dr. Doddridge, which she was content to leave unread, did 
 not attack her self-respect and self-satisfaction." Be it 
 observed that the Rev. Rufus Lyon is admitted to be a 
 worthy man — a worthy little man — notwithstanding his 
 evangelical sentiments. Felix, who was neither a minister 
 nor a member of the Church, nor a reader of Doddridge or 
 " Howe's Temple," accomplishes the meritorious work by 
 another and a more excellent way. Rough as a bear, and 
 faithful as John the Baptist (without any of his doctrinal 
 nonsense), from his very first interview with Esther he 
 challenges her for her vanity, unveils to her the frivolity of 
 her life, satirises her fine manners and her fine sensibilities, 
 and seeks to impress her with the truth that life is a solemn 
 thing — either a blessing or a curse to many — and to be spent 
 with a due consideration of the myriads of men and women 
 oppressed by wrong and misery, or tainted with pollution. 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 293 
 
 In this he certainly does the young lady a good service, 
 showing himself to be an excellent moral instructor; and he 
 sets a good example of a new method withal of courtship, 
 which in this case proved to be successful, and which we 
 would recommend to all young men, whether they may belong 
 to trade or to the liberal professions. But our authoress, not 
 satisfied with claiming thus much for Felix Holt, represents 
 him as having by this process accomplished the conversion 
 of Esther ! Take the following as rather a good illustration 
 of the sentimental view of the new birth which is fast gaining 
 ground with some of our theological novelists. The saving 
 change of heart (shall we call it ?) that begins to take place 
 with Esther is thus described as it showed itself to the 
 gratified eyes of the Rev. Rufus Lyon. 
 
 " Let me lift your porridge from before the fire, and stay 
 with you, father. You think I'm so naughty that I don't 
 like doing anything for you," said Esther, rather sadly, to 
 him. " Child, what has happened ? You have become the 
 image of your mother to-night," said the minister, in a loud 
 whisper. The tears came and relieved him. " She was 
 very good to you?" asked Esther, softly. "Yes, dear, 
 She did not reject my affection. She thought not scorn of 
 my love." " Father, I have not been good to you, but I will 
 be — I will be," said Esther, laying her head in his bosom. 
 When Esther was lying down that night she felt as if the 
 little incidents between herself and her father in this society 
 had made it an epoch. Very slight words and deeds may 
 have a sacramental efficacy, if we can cast our self-love be- 
 hind us in order to say and do them. And it has been well 
 observed through many ages that the beginning of compunc- 
 tion is the beginning of a new life." 
 
 Upon another occasion of a like kind the minister cannot 
 conceal his joy. " Surely the work of grace is begun in her; 
 surely here is a heart that the Lord has touched." Now, 
 without commenting upon the nature of this notable con- 
 version, it is plain that we are called upon, from the narra- 
 
294 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 tive, to believe that it had no connection with the atoning 
 blood of Jesus, or the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, but 
 was accomplished solely by good moral exhortations from 
 Felix Holt ; nay, as the minister of the Independent chapel 
 had administered the gospel remedies, and is represented 
 as having failed, there is an offensive insult thrown upon 
 the evangelical system. As if to aggravate the insult, we 
 are told that the minister had an. old servant, Lyddy, who 
 read " Alleine's Alarm " in the kitchen, and who is described 
 as "crying over her want of assurance, instead of brushing 
 the clothes and putting out the clean cravat ; always saying 
 that her righteousness is filthy rags, and really I don't think 
 that is a very strong expression for it — I am sure it is dusty 
 clothes and furniture." 
 
 We shall not insist further upon this novel, the merits of 
 which as a whole, and as a literary composition, it will not 
 be once supposed that we undertake to discuss. It bears 
 unquestionable impress of the strong masculine sense and 
 original genius of the authoress of Adam Bede ; and though 
 a large portion of the work strikes us as being heavily 
 written, the conclusion sufficiently shows the singular power 
 she possesses of commanding our moral sympathies. What 
 we have to do with is the religious tendency of the novel. 
 It contains an attempt to undermine evangelical religion by 
 the unjustifiable process of caricature, and to substitute in 
 its place a mere moral sentimentalism. 
 
 Belonging to the same school is George Macdonald, a 
 writer whose talents have raised him to a very considerable 
 reputation. As a novelist, he cannot indeed be reckoned as 
 sustaining high rank. Wanting in the creative or inventive 
 faculty, he seems incapable of fabricating a plot which, in 
 its gradual development, may absorb the interest, and finally 
 thrill the heart of the reader ; but what is wanting as a 
 whole is so far compensated by the parts. His works abound 
 in descriptions of nature radiant with a certain spiritual 
 beauty, and in descriptions of life-scenes most graphic and 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 295 
 
 original. We have conversations, those of them especially 
 in the Scotch language, which for humour and strength of 
 expression will bear comparison with those of Professor 
 Wilson and Sir Walter Scott. The fault that sadly mars 
 all is a constant aiming after philosophy. He cannot accept 
 of anything in nature or human life, as ordinary persons are 
 willing to accept them, but must find some deeper lesson 
 behind all — something which is a mystery; and yet this 
 miserable affectation of his, and hunting after something 
 profound, is evidently considered by him to be what he 
 constantly harps about — the " childlike." 
 
 But it is with the theology of George Macdonald that we 
 have to do — the great design of all his works being to 
 disseminate his religious opinions, which are most unsound 
 and dangerous. His intense dislike of evangelical doctrine, 
 as we understand it in Scotland, leaves us no reason to 
 wonder that he should say of our Shorter Catechism : " For ' 
 my part, I wish the spiritual engineers who constructed the 
 Shorter Catechism had, after laying the grandest foundation 
 stone that truth could afford them, glorified God by going 
 no farther. Certainly many a man would have enjoyed Him 
 sooner, if it had not been for their work." 
 
 In calling attention to his novels, I might just confine 
 myself, by way of specimen, to two of the best known of 
 them—" Alec Forbes " and " David Elginbrod." 
 
 To begin with " Alec Forbes," one of his most popular 
 stories, the heroine, Annie Anderson, a Scotch orphan in 
 humble life, possesses, of course, no personal attractions, 
 On the other hand, as our readers who have any knowledge 
 of this class of novel-writers might anticipate, she is proved 
 to possess a quiet, profound, moral nature of her own — an 
 underlying righteousness — which is, in the issue, to com- 
 mand our unlimited admiration. The great object of the 
 writer is to show, by a series of scenes of his own invention, 
 that Annie Anderson is nothing bettered by any contact she 
 comes into with evangelism or Calvinism; or, more properly 
 
296 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 speaking, to expose the injury she experienced from those 
 who were its fanatical ministers, or the contemptible dis- 
 ciples of that system of religion. 
 
 Annie Anderson, when a child, found herself in the hands 
 of a savage schoolmaster, Murdoch, or, as the scholars called 
 him, Murder Malison. His savage disposition is represented 
 as growing out of his Calvinistic tenets ; for every sin, as 
 the catechism teaches, " deserves God's wrath and curse 
 both in this life and that which is to come," and the master 
 was only a co-worker with God in every penalty he inflicted 
 on his pupils. Our author ingeniously goes on to observe 
 that all the peculiarities of the Calvinistic creed may be 
 traced in our Scotch pedagogues of the older type, acting as 
 they did, for example : first, of their mere good pleasure ; 
 next, conformably to the doctrine of election, having their 
 favourites among the boys ; and finally, for their own glory, 
 skelping a few unfortunate, pitiful, and cowed victims. 
 
 Soon after this, as her evil fate would have it, Annie 
 Anderson pays a visit to the meeting-house of Mr. Cowie, 
 an Independent minister, who chooses for his text : " The 
 wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that 
 forget God." His sermon is described as consisting of vague 
 half-monstrous embodiments of truth (our author's definition 
 of Calvinism), and as filling the mind of the girl with alarm 
 and horror. Not that Mr. Cowie is denied to be a sincere 
 man. But, " I wonder," says oar author, " if we ever will 
 be able to understand the worship of our childhood, that 
 revering upward look, which must have been founded in 
 reality, however much after-experience may have shown the 
 supposed grounds of reverence to be untenable." From 
 these words, though cautiously expressed, it is plain that 
 there is an underlying piety of nature's growth which he 
 considers to be overlooked in the Independent chapel. 
 Accordingly he sympathises with the spirit of the parish 
 minister more, upon whom Annie makes a call for consola- 
 tion, and whom she finds sitting comfortably over his wine. 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 297 
 
 As to those who forget God being cast into hell, he bids her 
 consider whether, because she sometimes forgets her own 
 father, he would deal heavily with her on that account. Our 
 author has his fault, indeed, to find with this clergyman, 
 but it is characteristically expressed, and so as to show that 
 he approves of his illustration. He represents him, indeed, 
 as brought to his right mind by little Annie's visit. " And 
 now the heart of the old man, touched by the motion of the 
 child's heart, yearning after her Father in heaven, and yet 
 scarcely believing that he could be so good as her father on 
 earth, began to stir uneasily within him ; and he went down 
 on his knees, and hid his face in his hands." Our readers 
 will agree with us that this parish minister is well called by 
 the writer one of " God's babies." 
 
 The hero of the story, Alec Forbes of Howglen, is intro- 
 duced to us as a boy somewhat older than the orphan, who 
 champions her from the cruelty of Murdoch Malison and the 
 persecutions of the scholars, and establishes himself from 
 the first in her affections. He is above her in station, how- 
 ever, and removing afterwards as a medical student to a 
 northern university, seems soon to forget her amidst the 
 gaieties of his career. He there falls in with a very singular 
 companion, who lodges in the garret of his landlady: an 
 eccentric genius, who acted as librarian of the college, and 
 was as accomplished a scholar as he was a confirmed devotee 
 of the bottle. Ensconced among his books in the upper 
 story, this deformed figure of a philosopher drew many a 
 visit from Alec Forbes, both fascinating him by his wit, and 
 assisting him in his studies — ay, and until the tumblers of 
 steaming toddy had obfuscated his faculties, when he gave 
 him an instant and peremptory dismissal. Mr. Cupples is 
 as good an illustration as could be desired of one who, 
 through dissipation, has become a wreck and gone to seed; 
 and who, when drunk, presents his boon companions with a 
 brilliancy of talent only to be compared to the spectacle 
 which a ship exhibits when the spirit-room has taken fire 
 
298 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 and gone up in a sudden conflagration at sea. Not the least 
 affecting feature in his intercourse with the medical student 
 was the solemn advices he gave him to abstain from ardent 
 spirits. These were ere long seen to have been necessary, for 
 Alec, owing to a series of mortifying adventures, bade adieu 
 to morality, and abandoned himself to the profligacies of the 
 city. There were now two drunkards in the same lodgings. 
 But at this juncture a singular scene took place, which 
 issued suddenly in the salvation of them both. Our novelist 
 considers this doubtless as the most instructive part of his 
 book, and as discovering certain latent principles in our 
 nature, from which he augurs more good than from the 
 doctrines of the gospel ; but he must forgive us if we cannot 
 read it without some feeling of the ludicrous. In short, 
 on one occasion, when seated together in the garret, Mr. 
 Cupples made a proposal which, considering his habits, was 
 magnanimous to a degree. He swore to renounce his pota- 
 tions if his young friend would do the same. Instantly the 
 covenant was made, and " bang went the bottle into the 
 court -yard." " Thank God!" said Mr. Cupples, as the clash 
 reached his ears. " Both their hearts," adds our author, 
 " were touched by one good and strong spirit — essential life 
 and humanity. That spirit was love, which, at the long 
 last, will expel whatsoever opposeth itself." It is very 
 noticeable that he attaches more virtue to this love that lies 
 in our humanity than to all the truths in our Confession of 
 Faith. In another part of the work we learn that Murdoch 
 or Murder Malison, who owed all his savage propensities to 
 the Westminster document, was reformed and made a new 
 creature by a like process. A poor scholar of his is lamed 
 for life by a kick he gives him in one of his Calvinistic 
 furors. After a long absence in consequence he appears in 
 the schoolroom again, pale, haggard, mild, and forgiving. 
 Murdoch is struck to the heart. A deep affection springs up 
 between them ; and this singular pedagogue, who had 
 become a devil by the Shorter Catechism, becomes a saint 
 under the influence of pity and remorse ! 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 299 
 
 We read more wonderful things yet of Mr. Cupples. Alec 
 Forbes, shortly after the scenes we have detailed, being 
 taken with a dangerous sickness, returns to Howglen, to be 
 watched over there by his mother and by Annie Anderson. 
 One night the latter, in her lone vigils over the invalid, 
 overhears a subdued voice singing outside : — 
 
 I waited for the Lord my God, 
 
 And patiently did bear ; 
 At length to me He did incline 
 
 My voice and cry to hear. 
 He took me from a fearful pit, 
 
 And from the miry clay ; 
 And on a rock He set my feet, 
 
 Establishing my way. 
 
 This was the reformed librarian, who had first broken his 
 bottle, and was now singing psalms. Our readers shall have 
 the rationale of it, so far as the reformation had yet gone. 
 " A playful humanity radiated from him, the result of that 
 powerfullest of all restoratives — giving of what one has to 
 him that has not. Indeed, his reformation had begun with 
 this. St. Paul taught a thief to labour that he might have 
 to give. Love taught Mr. Cupples to deny himself, that he 
 might rescue his friend, and presently he had found his feet 
 touching the rock. If he had not yet learned to look straight 
 to heaven, his eyes wandered not unfrequently towards that 
 spiritual horizon upon which things earthly and heavenly 
 meet and embrace." Thus there is no fear of Mr. Cupples, 
 who, having begun his own reformation, will no doubt 
 finish it. 
 
 The conversion of Alec Forbes himself is given as follows. 
 "One lovely morning, when the green corn lay soaking in the 
 yellow sunlight, and the sky rose above the earth, deep and 
 pure and tender, like the thought of God about it, Alec became 
 suddenly aware that life was good and the world beautiful. 
 . . . He was blessed ; so easily can God make a man happy. 
 The past had dropped from him like a wild but weary and 
 sordid dream. He was re-born, a new child, a new bright 
 
300 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 world with a glowing summer to revel in. . . . He would 
 be a good child henceforth, for one bunch of sun-rays was 
 enough to be happy upon." We are told that Annie, who 
 at this time entered, gazed for a moment, fled to her own 
 room, and burst into adoring tears. " For she had seen the 
 face of God, and that face was love — love like the human, 
 only deeper, deeper, tenderer, lovelier, stronger. He has 
 been wi' me a' the time, my God. He gied me my father; 
 . . . and He has been wi' me I kenna how lang ; and He 
 is wi' me noo ; and I hae seen His face again ; and I'll try 
 sair to be a gude bairn. Eh, me ! It's jist wonderfu' ! 
 And God's jist naething but God Himsel'." 
 
 We have given but a cursory sketch of this novel, but, 
 judging by the sample, what are we to think of it ? I say 
 nothing of the caricatures of Calvinism with which it 
 abounds, for one might have charitably inferred that these 
 were suggested by unfortunate specimens of its discipleship 
 which George Macdonald had met with, though he must 
 have haunted peculiar places to meet with them, and have 
 had narrow opportunities of observation in his life not to 
 have been able to correct the impression produced by them. 
 But the fact is that our fault is not so much with what he 
 condemns as with what he approves. He advocates a 
 religion which ignores the existence of any awful contro- 
 versy occasioned by sin, and is thus not more antagonistic 
 to the whole teachings of the Bible than it is to the judg- 
 ments of God manifest in this death-reigning world into 
 which he sends forth these sentimental and flimsy novels 
 of his ; flimsy we call them, only because they profess 
 to be religious. In attaching importance, besides, to such 
 impulsive acts of benevolence as he ascribes to Mr. Cupples, 
 or to such natural piety as he describes in Annie Anderson, 
 he shows that he has not yet searched out the recesses of 
 our plausible fallen humanity ; this, again, because he has 
 not been humble enough to take in his hand the only torch 
 which illuminates them as with fire. 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 301 
 
 " David Elginbrod," by the same author, is a novel distin- 
 guished by powers of imagination equally great, and theo- 
 logical perversities quite as inexcusable. We are introduced 
 to characters nearly identical, for in all his tales we meet 
 with the reproduction of the same theological contrasts. 
 Margaret Elginbrod, daughter of David Elginbrod, the 
 steward and head gardener to the Laird of Tirriegraffit, is a 
 second Annie Anderson, with the addition of a higher poetical 
 refinement, making her more interesting, but less natural if 
 one considers her station in life, and quite confounding to the 
 laird's tutor in his first interview with her. Seeing him with 
 his eyes directed to the top of the beech trees in the forest 
 where they meet, she asks, " What were you seeing up 
 there?" — a poser certainly to the accomplished precep- 
 tor, who, however, very manfully and, as we humbly think, 
 very properly confesses to being engaged in admiring the 
 contrast between the light green leaves and the shadows. 
 This comes far short of satisfying Margaret's Wordsworthian 
 genius. " I aye expect to see something in this fir wood." 
 Tutor : " What kind of a thing ? " Margaret : " That's jist 
 what I dinna ken. The whole place aye seems fu' o' a pre- 
 sence ; an' it's a hantle mair to me nor the kirk, and the 
 sermon foreby ; an', for the singing, the soun' i' the fir taps is 
 far mair solemn and sweet at the same time, an' muckle 
 mair like praising God, than a' the psalms thegither." A 
 kind of mawkish sentimentality goes a great way with our 
 author, who seems perfectly in earnest when he brings this 
 candidly expressed preference of Margaret's under our eye 
 as an example of enlightened and enlarged religious experi- 
 ence. But David Elginbrod himself is the most prominent 
 figure in this novel, upon which the power of the artist has 
 been chiefly put forth. " His carriage was full of dignity and 
 a certain rustic refinement ; his voice was wonderfully gentle, 
 but deep, and slowest when most impassioned. He seemed 
 to have come of some gigantic antediluvian breed ; there was 
 something of the Titan slumbering about him. He would have 
 
302 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 been a stern man, but for an unusual amount of reverence 
 that seemed to overflood his sternness and change it into 
 strong love." The prayer he is represented as offering up, 
 when first introduced to our notice, may best perhaps convey 
 an idea to us of this robust and somewhat eccentric saint. 
 " An' noo, for a' our wrang-doings, an' ill meanings, for a' our 
 sins, and trespasses o' many sorts, dinna forget them, God, 
 till Thou pits them a' right ; an' syne exerceese Thy michty 
 power e'en ower Thine ainsel', an' clean forget them a'the- 
 gither ; cast them ahin' Thy back, whaur e'en Thine ain een 
 shall ne'er see them again, that we may walk bold and up- 
 right before Thee for evermore, an' see the face o' Him wha 
 was as muckle God in doin' Thy biddin', as gin He had been 
 ordering a' things Himsel'. For His sake, Amen." This is 
 certainly rather a peremptory style of instructing the Al- 
 mighty as to the best way of proceeding with his sins, and 
 shows that according to David's theology there was small 
 need of the blood, or for anything more than an exercise of 
 magnanimity, or, as he somewhat irreverently expresses it, 
 a royal act of self-control. He shows a spice of the same 
 spirit as inspired his ancestor who wrote his own epitaph 
 — an epitaph which pithily expresses indeed much of the 
 theology of George Macdonald: — 
 
 Here lie I, Martin Elginbrod, 
 Hae mercy on my soul, O God; 
 As I wad do were I Lord God, 
 And ye were Martin Elginbrod. 
 
 David is represented as not satisfied with the preaching of 
 cur Scots divines upon the subject of justification. 
 
 " This is just my opinion of it in sma' — that man, and 
 that man only is justified, who pits himself into the Lord's 
 hands to be sanctified. Noo; an' that '11 no be dune by 
 pittin' a robe o' righteousness upon him afore he's gotten a 
 clean skin beneath. As gin a father couldna bide to see the 
 puir scabbit skin o' his ain wee bit bairnie; ay, or o' his 
 prodigal son either, but had to hap it a' up afore he could 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 303 
 
 let it come near him There's a notion in't (that is, in 
 
 the way Scots ministers speak of justification) o' hidin' sin 
 frae God Himsel'. They speak so that the puir bairn canna see 
 the Father Himsel', stannin' wi' His airms streekit oot as wide 
 as the heavens, to tak' the worn crater, and the mair sinner 
 the mair welcome hame to His ain heart. Gin a body would 
 leave a' that, an' jist get folk persuaded to speak a word or 
 two to God 'lane, the loss would be unco' sma'." 
 
 This representation of the preaching of Scots ministers is 
 unfair, for as to any atoning righteousness of Christ inter- 
 posed in the matter of our justification, they all speak of it 
 as having been graciously provided by the Father Himself, 
 who, seeing the sinner lying in his pollution and guilt, not 
 only washes away the former (which exhausts George Mac- 
 donald's idea of benevolence), but covers the other. But 
 passing from these matters, we would observe upon David 
 Elginbrod, as the one character of the novel most powerfully 
 drawn, that unquestionably no nobler subject can engage the 
 artist's pencil than one of the sturdy and unsophisticated 
 specimens of religion to be found among our Scottish 
 peasantry; but that they have hitherto been found only in 
 connection with Calvinism (witness the Covenanters, with 
 their breed of genuine descendants) ; and that this attempt 
 of George Macdonald's to graft his lax heresies upon the 
 grand stock of character which such men suggested to him 
 is both unfair and produces a ludicrous effect. David Elgin- 
 brod, with his strong basis of religious character on the one 
 hand, and his effeminate, silly sentimentalisms on the other, 
 about the Father " stannin' wi' His airms streekit out as wide 
 as the heavens," to receive the sinner without the need of 
 any interposed Mediator (for that is the upshot of it), is a 
 phenomenon as yet unknown in our hamlets — such heresies 
 being found floating (if at all) only in the minds of a few of 
 the most feeble and feckless men of the generation. 
 
 Another man who is held up to us in this novel as a 
 paragon of Christian excellence is one Falconer, who, 
 
304 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 among other acts of kindness shown to the tutor of Turrie- 
 graffit in his difficulties, having paid his railway -ticket, 
 commends himself to our author as a veritable follower of 
 Him who was "a hiding-place from the wind and a covert 
 from the tempest." " Of Him," that is, the Son of man, 
 says our author, " Falconer had already learned this truth 
 in the inward parts, and had found in the process of learning 
 it that this was the true nature which God had made His 
 from the first — no new thing superinduced upon it. He had 
 but to clear away the rubbish of worldliness, cleaving more 
 or less to the best nature for a time, and so to find himself." 
 The sagacious reader will not be astonished to hear that 
 this Christian gentleman who had " found himself " — in the 
 shape of a nature good enough from the beginning, after lifting 
 off a trifle of rubbish that lay above it — professed theological 
 views of a very peculiar kind. With these he is represented 
 as indoctrinating Hugh Sutherland, the tutor, and, in our 
 judgment, does him more damage thereby than all his rail- 
 way-ticket was worth in the way of advantage. He suggests 
 the idea of hell being a place of reformation. He denies the 
 existence of it as a place of eternal punishment, and in the 
 following dream gives a glowing description of the excellent 
 clergyman whose ministrations he honoured with his attend- 
 ance, and who championed the same views. 
 
 " I saw a crowd of priests and laymen speeding, hurrying, 
 darting away, upon a steep crumbling height. Mitres, hoods, 
 and hats rolled behind them to the bottom. Beneath, and 
 right in the course of the fire (that was advancing), stands 
 one man upon a little rock which goes down to the centre 
 of the great world, and faces the approaching flames. He 
 stands bareheaded, his eyes bright with faith in God, and 
 his mighty mouth that utters the truth fixed in holy defiance. 
 His denial comes from no fear or weak dislike to that which 
 is painful. On neither side will he tell lies for peace. He 
 is ready to be lost for his fellow-men. In the name of God, 
 he rebukes the flames of hell. The fugitives pause on the 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 305 
 
 top, call him lying prophet, and shout evil, opprobrious 
 names at the man, who counts not his own life dear to him, 
 who has forgotten his own soul in his sacred devotion to 
 men. Be sure that, come what may of the rest, that man 
 is safe, for he is delivered already from the only devil that 
 can make hell a torture — the devil of selfishness. . . . He 
 trusts God so absolutely that he leaves his salvation to Him, 
 utterly, fearlessly ; and, forgetting it as being no concern of 
 his, sets himself to the work that God has given him to do, 
 even as the Lord before him, counting that alone worthy of 
 his care. He will not have it that his Father in heaven is 
 not perfect. He believes certainly that God loves — yea, is 
 love — and therefore that hell itself must be subservient to 
 that love, and but an embodiment of it ; that the grand work 
 of justice is to make way for a love which will give to every 
 man that which is right, and ten times more, even if it 
 should be by means of awful suffering — a suffering which 
 the love of the Father will not shun, either for Himself or 
 His children, but will eagerly meet for their sakes, that He 
 may give them all that is in His heart." 
 
 With regard to the sentiments contained in this quotation, 
 and which the author has of late still more plainly and 
 openly avowed, we can scarcely trust ourselves to cha- 
 racterise them, because we are unwilling to come down 
 heavily upon one whose very way of expressing himself 
 shows the morbid sentimentality that has led him to adopt 
 them. But we are not the less bound to brand them 
 with condemnation. A very general belief seems to prevail 
 amongst the admirers of George Macdonaldth at he has 
 simply been stumbled by the offensive way in which certain 
 Calvinists state the doctrine of everlasting punishments. 
 But such passages as the above must convince them that 
 he denies the doctrine itself, and that his quarrel is there- 
 fore with all the Evangelical Churches at home and abroad. 
 We are not surprised that they should have fallen into 
 this charitable mistake, but we do confess to a feeling 
 
 21 
 
306 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 of surprise that this writer himself, otherwise characterised 
 by manliness and ingenuousness, should have fostered this 
 delusion ; for all his criticisms upon Calvinist preachers and 
 Calvinistic disciples proceed upon it, and the edge of them 
 would at once have been taken away if he had allowed his 
 readers to suppose that he was condemning the doctrine 
 itself of eternal punishment. In the quotation we have just 
 made, he not only denies that there is a place of everlasting 
 punishment, but this clergyman in the dream is represented 
 as a hero because he denies it. His sublime vocation is not 
 to warn men to escape the flames of hell (which has usually 
 been considered the vocation of Christian ministers), but, 
 according to his own strange language, " to rebuke the 
 flames of hell," in the sense of stoutly preaching that there 
 is no such place. With a certain offensiveness of language, 
 which George Macdonald considers, perhaps, that we are 
 bound to receive from an intense man, he represents him 
 as not altogether without a secret doubt in his own mind 
 that, after all, he may be wrong in making the denial ; 
 but as willing to be lost, if that were necessary, in so good a 
 cause, even as against the Almighty. " On neither side will 
 he tell lies for peace. He is ready to be lost for his fellow- 
 men. Be sure that, come what may of the rest, that man is 
 safe, for he is delivered already from the only devil that can 
 make hell a torture — the devil of selfishness." Our author 
 seems to think that there is no other devil than selfishness ; 
 but he may rest satisfied that there are many devils — 
 unwillingness to receive God's testimony being one. But 
 we have no inclination to follow him in this particular style 
 of writing, which is surely as unedifying as it is contrary to 
 good taste. 
 
 In condemning the class of novels spoken of in this 
 essay, we wish it to be understood, first of all, that we 
 dislike the sentimental, and silly, and childish representa- 
 tions given us of conversion and kindred subjects. Reli- 
 gious novels form a very questionable sort of production 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 307 
 
 at best ; but, in the case before us, it is not merely that 
 sacred matters are brought into grotesque connection with 
 things of a lighter character, they are themselves dwarfed 
 down into insignificance and contempt. We are aware of 
 the defence likely to be made by the authors in question. 
 They will retort that the error lies on our part, who would 
 represent conversion as being some mysterious, supernatural 
 change, lying outside the range of common experience ; and 
 in general more as a thing of gloom or transcendentalism 
 than as something joyful, and pervading the lowliest acts of 
 this life. Now it is true that our religion, if genuine, will 
 go down to the commonest and most trivial of our actions, 
 affecting the very words we speak in the house, and the 
 tempers we show in our domestic moments ; but we are 
 never to forget that there are graver and more important 
 relations in which we stand to God, to eternity, to the 
 Divine law, and to the Divine law as broken — we are never 
 to forget that man, notwithstanding his connection with the 
 littles and commonplaces of this life, has also a solemn 
 connection with objects infinitely higher ; and, keeping these 
 things in view, we shall find that there enters something 
 more serious into experimental religion than we meet with 
 in their sentimental and ridiculous descriptions of it. There 
 is a deceptive appearance of great profoundness in the im- 
 portance they attach to a religion showing itself in the 
 department of the childish and the small — a religion such 
 as finds God in " the sough of fir-trees," and makes us 
 " a hiding-place from the tempest " to a brother who is un- 
 able to pay his railway fare. It is something of the same 
 delusion in theology as Wordsworth fell into in poetry, nor 
 are we altogether without a certain conviction that we are 
 to trace to that poet, in some measure, the tendency that 
 has appeared in our modern bards and novelists to sub- 
 stitute the shallows of natural religion for the glorious mys- 
 teries and depths of evangelical theology. 
 
 But the extracts we have given prove besides that there 
 
3o8 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 is an insidious strain of heresy pervading our lighter litera- 
 ture. None will consider that it is to be viewed without 
 alarm because this is the department in which it appears ? 
 None,., surely, will think to allay our apprehension by re- 
 minding us that men do not go to novels for their theo- 
 logy ? We profess not to belong to the number of those 
 who think that if truth have possession of the pulpit, heresy 
 may sport itself in the drawing-room. We take our sons 
 and daughters to church with us to hear the clergyman who 
 powerfully warns them to flee from the wrath to come ; but 
 if they bring with them from the circulating library the 
 volumes that both deny the doctrine they have heard and 
 throw contempt upon the preacher of it, this last ministra- 
 tion will at least have two powerful allies in the genius of the 
 novelist and the depravity of their own hearts. Grant that 
 the more solid reading of the generation is sound, what 
 signifies this if the lighter literature be heretical ? What 
 though the main courses of the repast be unobjectionable, 
 if there be poison in the confectioneries ? If the writers I 
 refer to wish to introduce religion into their novels, they are 
 of course at liberty to do so ; but if they mean to bring in a 
 new religion, the graveness of the task, not to say common 
 honesty, would suggest that they should attempt it by some 
 elaborate work of demonstration. A novel is not a fair way 
 of propagating new religious views. What is first demon- 
 strated may be afterwards painted. But there is nothing, 
 of course, more easy than to set off any religious views by a 
 novel, where the characters, being the pure invention of the 
 writer, can be made so to speak and so to act as to present 
 those views to advantage, and to make their opposites 
 ridiculous. 
 
 We may be reminded that the author last mentioned has 
 published his sentiments in a more didactic form in his 
 small volume entitled " Unspoken Discourses." That work 
 we accept as an open and manly avowal of his religious 
 tenets; but none who have read it will assert that it contains 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 309 
 
 the vestige of a systematic attempt to support them by 
 argument. The volume is stamped with the literary cha- 
 racteristics of the author — a Carlylian intensity, a burning 
 earnestness, a singular beauty and strength and originality 
 of style ; but while these are powerful for enforcement and 
 illustration, they cannot supply the only thing we waited 
 for with anxiety: we mean, of course, demonstration. In 
 his discourse, for example, upon the text, " Our God is a 
 consuming fire," we have his peculiar views broadly and 
 boldly stated — that there is no such thing as a penal dealing 
 of God with sinners, and no such thing as everlasting 
 punishments. He grants that the love of God is inexorable, 
 and leads Him to punish sin with great severity in this life 
 and in that which is to come ; but he maintains that this 
 punishment is sanctifying and intended to sanctify, and he 
 maintains that it is carried on in the next world only for a 
 certain period. He holds, therefore, by a purgatory, and is, 
 in this sense, as bad as the Papists ; but he denies a hell, 
 and is, in this sense, worse than the heathen. These are 
 strange doctrines to be openly avowed in Scotland ; but our 
 fault is with the still stranger fact that this author does not 
 consider it to be necessary to support them by argument from 
 reason or Scripture, but merely to enforce and embellish 
 them, and to establish them by an appeal to the passions or 
 feelings. As instances of this, take the following short 
 quotations from his volume : — 
 
 P. 49 : " But at length, Godl wilt Thou not cast death 
 and hell into the lake of fire, even into Thine own consum- 
 ing Self? Death shall then die everlastingly. 
 
 And hell itself shall pass away, 
 
 And leave her dolorous mourners to the peering day. 
 
 Then indeed wilt Thou be all in all. For then our poor 
 brothers and sisters, every one, O God ! we trust in Thee, 
 the Consuming Fire, shall have been burnt clean and brought 
 home. For if their moans, myriads of ages away, would 
 
3io THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 turn heaven for us into hell, shall a man be more merciful 
 than God ? Shall, of all His glories, His mercy alone not 
 be infinite ? " 
 
 To the same effect, take p. 229 : " Will God look calmly, 
 and have His children look calmly too, upon the ascending 
 torments of our strong brothers, our beautiful sisters ! O 
 brother, believe it not. Christ, the redeemed would cry, 
 where art Thou, our strong Jesus ? Come, our grand 
 Brother. See the suffering brothers down below ! see the 
 tormented sisters ! Come, Lord of life ! Monarch of suffer- 
 ing ! Redeem them. For us, we will go down into the 
 burning, and see whether we cannot at least carry through 
 the burning flames a drop of water to cool their tongues." 
 
 We have no intention of characterising these passages— 
 not even the last sentence of them, which sounds strangely 
 alongside of our Lord's teaching in the well-known parable. 
 There is no accounting for taste, and George Macdonald is 
 entitled to adopt his own standard. However, there is only 
 one way of reasoning, and we cannot allow even him to 
 proceed as if there were another. To reason with the heart 
 instead of the head is always dangerous, but never more so 
 than upon a subject like this. Did it never strike him that 
 such a rhetorical appeal as this of his might have been made 
 just as well against the idea of the whole human family 
 being swept away in their successive generations by bodily 
 death into one huge tomb ? It might have been said : " We 
 correct sin very gently, with the frown upon our brow, or 
 with the birch in our hand ; and shall God be less merciful 
 than we, and look calmly upon our strong brothers and 
 beautiful sisters going down in all manner of deaths through 
 all their successive generations to one sepulchre ? " This is 
 undeniably God's procedure notwithstanding. Does this 
 dispensation of all faces changed to clay, of the winding- 
 sheet, of universal mortality descending through the ages, 
 tally with George Macdonald's theory ? It will not do for 
 him to allege that it tallies sufficiently with what he holds of 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 311 
 
 the severity of the Almighty's processes of sanctification. 
 The question is whether the standard he applies, and. by 
 which he thinks to explode the doctrine of everlasting 
 punishments, is not found to be egregiously fallacious when 
 applied to the case we have just referred to ? He, no doubt, 
 accepts in his creed of a certain inexorableness in God's 
 dealing, because undeniable facts in the world before us 
 have forced him to do so ; but, supposing the death- 
 dispensation to which I have referred to have been sub- 
 jected beforehand to his credence, the question is whether he 
 would ever have consented to believe in it had he proceeded 
 to judge of it by this fantastic and sentimental criterion of 
 his own ? What follows ? If left to ourselves we never 
 would have anticipated the heat of such an anger as has 
 gone forth upon ^the body; and the destruction of the soul 
 may be something also which infinitely surpasses all our 
 anticipations of it. 
 
 The author of these Discourses, which were never spoken, 
 and which, for his sake, we sincerely regret were ever 
 written, brings forward no arguments from the Bible to 
 support his tenets. But, more than this, he denies that the 
 Bible is the standard of our faith. This he does in a dis- 
 course entitled " The Higher Faith," by which he means a 
 faith higher than that which is bounded by God's written 
 Record. 
 
 P. 52 : " Sad indeed would the whole matter be, if the 
 Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. . . . 
 The Bible nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the word, 
 the way, the truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inex- 
 haustible, the ever-unfolding revelation of God. ... If we 
 were once filled with the mind of Christ, we should know 
 that the Bible had done its work, was fulfilled, and had for 
 us passed away. Till we have known Him, let us hold the 
 Bible dear, as the moon of our darkness by which we travel* 
 towards the east." 
 
 This is intelligible enough. According to the view here 
 
3 12 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 propounded, the Bible is only an elementary revelation in- 
 tended to lead us to Christ. When we come to Christ we 
 are to expect to have many things revealed to us which 
 are not contained there. He considers such of us as limit 
 our faith to the Bible as having what he calls the Lower 
 Faith. He has himself attained to an eminence, and he 
 seems to know it. " I am quoting your own Bible," he says, 
 with an air of self-complacency in one place, when con- 
 descending to quote a text from it in support of his views ! 
 Meanwhile, observe how conveniently this theory of revela- 
 tion shields his heresies. When he denies the doctrine of 
 everlasting punishments, for example, and we tell him that 
 it is plainly taught in the Bible, " Which Bible," he asks, 
 " do you mean ? Is it merely the Bible received by all 
 Christendom, or is it George Macdonald's Bible ? " 
 
 So much for his views upon the rule of faith. We trust 
 in charity that no reader expects us to enter into a dis- 
 cussion upon that subject. When we enter upon such a 
 discussion it will be in connection with some production that 
 has the face of argument. As for these discourses, with all 
 their intense, indeed agonizing sentimentality and beauty of 
 diction, they are too slender performances to be heavily dealt 
 with. They will be great favourites with girls who have 
 left or are leaving the boarding-school, and with young men 
 whose beards are in the downy state. We would not have 
 referred to them were it not that their publication has left 
 the community now in no doubt of the sentiments enter- 
 tained by their author, and we might otherwise have been 
 branded as uncharitable, had we asserted them to be con- 
 tained in his novels. 
 
 We know what will be said by some— that we have been 
 too severe — that we have confined ourselves almost alto- 
 gether to the condemnatory. Our answer is that when an 
 author has been well nigh universally and unconditionally 
 praised, one writer may surely be allowed to qualify the 
 admiration by calling attention to his errors. If every 
 
GEORGE ELIOT AND GEORGE MACDONALD. 313 
 
 periodical in the land had come out against his erroneous 
 leanings — if he had been severely handled in the public 
 prints — chivalry would have dictated the necessity of coming 
 forward to the help of a persecuted Writer; but when scarcely 
 one publication has whispered of anything wrong — when at 
 one time we see him lionized, and at another sitting in the 
 same chariot with the editors of our recognised evangelical 
 periodicals — we think that there is far more necessity for 
 faithful exposure than for general adulation. 
 
 We are by no means insensible to the imposing moral 
 qualities of this author, as these are reflected in his writings, 
 but unfortunately they are always accompanied by some 
 perversity which brings him into collision with the teachings 
 of the Bible, and arrests and countermands our admiration. 
 In his choice of his heroes and heroines, how completely does 
 he show himself above the weakness of being guided by re- 
 gard to adventitious qualities. With him a poor man is as 
 great as a rich man — a plain-looking woman and a beauty is 
 all one : rank is nothing. But, on the other hand, we find in 
 the issue that these heroes and heroines are sickly specimens 
 of sentimental religion, which he has got up in order to 
 outshine and supplant the blood-washed and regenerate ones 
 whom our Bible commends to our acceptance. How de- 
 lightful to hear him talk about the childlike. But we are 
 shocked to find that those whom he denominates " God's 
 babies " are the concentration of pride, inasmuch as they re- 
 ject the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, though these are 
 revealed to us by the Almighty Himself. How glowing — 
 how burning appears to be his benevolence ; but we find ere 
 long that it is not the benevolence which leads him to rescue 
 the perishing from the flames of hell, but something under 
 the influence of which he must needs go down to hell itself 
 in order to save those whose destruction God has declared to 
 be sealed. We protest that none can admire more than we 
 do the descriptions he gives us of nature — quite his own— all 
 sparkling with the dews of sentiment ; but when he hoists his 
 
314 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 tight rope of daring theological speculation, and proceeds to 
 mount it, that he may show how nimbly he can walk over it, 
 our admiration is at an end ; and when we see him stretch it 
 above a gulf infinitely more fearful than that into which the 
 Niagara Falls descend, and cross and recross it, balancing 
 himself with Denison Maurice's pole, we not only condemn 
 him, but cannot hold the community which goes out to see 
 him, guiltless. 
 
 Enough, however, and more than enough of this author ; 
 for it would have scarcely been necessary to sound the trum- 
 pet of alarm had he stood alone, in our day, in broaching 
 these sentiments. It is well known that the whole air is in- 
 fected with the same heresies; and our poets and novelists, 
 being a susceptible generation, are only the first to catch 
 every wind of doctrine that blows, whether of truth or error. 
 What then ? Shall we despond ? He who raised up of 
 old the men that went forth irresistible from the threshing- 
 floor — men that had in their hair the strength of armies — 
 is able to raise up for us in the realms of literature men 
 of another stamp than those who possess the ear of the 
 generation — for who are they ? Sentimental sceptics for the 
 most part — worshippers of earnestness for its own sake — 
 fire-worshippers, and nothing else. We have enough of them 
 in all conscience ; men who dream that they have a mission 
 from heaven to " ring in the Christ that is to come." God 
 help them ! We are satisfied enough with Him whom the 
 angels rang in 2000 years ago, and who has been sufficiently 
 well known in Scotland, and in England too, long ere they 
 were born. 
 
3iS 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 
 
 " TT is pleasant to many minds to leave the tame, un- 
 X romantic shores of common belief, and to start on a 
 voyage of discovery over the boundless ocean of intellectual 
 speculation. But there is danger also in this enterprise. 
 The dreary land of universal scepticism ; the chaos of no 
 faith, and the black regions of despair are somewhere out 
 in those seas, and many have ventured there who never 
 returned. I know some who started with the canvas well 
 in the breeze ; proudly they passed over the bar, and looked 
 back patronisingly upon the shores of common belief. They 
 sailed ; the winds arose ; the hurricanes blew ; the thunders 
 roared ; the lightnings played ; they ended in chaos and 
 eternal night. Luther said, ' Better not flutter too high, 
 but somewhat near Calvary and the cross.' " — Rev. Thos. 
 Jones, on opening the Congregational Union of England 
 and Wales. 
 
 The sentences prefixed to this essay are instructive, and 
 show that the man who uttered them knew the words neces- 
 sary to be addressed, whether to Congregational Unions or 
 to General Assemblies of Presbyterian Churches at the 
 present time. The senior ministers occupying the benches 
 at such annual gatherings may be secure in their orthodoxy. 
 Anchored in the truth, they feel, in fact, only too secure, 
 and can scarcely suppose that the younger brethren who sit 
 around them should be moved away from it. They forget 
 that the evangelical doctrines, forming the things of the 
 Spirit of God, are as unintelligible to human reason as any 
 
316 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 science is to those who are ignorant of its terminology. 
 They forget that, having been educated themselves in an 
 evangelical creed, they have come to receive as unquestion- 
 ably true what to the understanding is foolishness, and that 
 the Spirit of grace (if the blessed fact be indeed so) has 
 enlightened them to see its wisdom. Without at all meaning 
 to question the piety of the younger clergy, it is to be remem- 
 bered that the Spirit of God does not necessarily take pos- 
 session of each succeeding race ; that if He depart for any 
 interval of time, the doctrines become of course foolishness 
 again, and that there is infinite danger of a recurrence to 
 heresy. We think that the Rev. Thomas Jones has sounded 
 the right note of warning. 
 
 But what we need, after all, is not so much a general 
 warning of this nature, as faithfulness in challenging the 
 individual errorist when he appears. Not that a charge of 
 unfaithfulness in this respect can be brought against the 
 courts of our Churches. It is noticeable of those Churches 
 which have any courts at all, or any pretensions to discipline, 
 that no sooner has the youngest minister shown the heretical 
 tendency than he is met by something of the prospect, more 
 or less distant, of a libel. This is well. It is a salutary 
 check upon the overweening vanity and the superficial 
 speculativeness that would otherwise increase to more 
 ungodliness. But the press is to be blamed ; nor is it the 
 secular press merely, or so much. There is scarcely a 
 review or magazine of a theological character that speaks 
 out very decisively or flatly against a heretical publication. 
 So many strange opinions are abroad, not upon small points, 
 but points of eternal importance; infidelity and loose opinions 
 are so rampant, that it is plain a battle of the hottest 
 description is very near at hand. In these circumstances 
 the worst is that the battle- spirit is lost among us. We 
 have become excessively liberal, and disposed to allow ques- 
 tionable doctrines to pass without censure. This for forty 
 years back. Since that time the tide has been running fast 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 317 
 
 towards nothing but the gratification of our benevolent 
 sentiments; while error and infidelity, taking advantage of 
 this invincible good nature, disport themselves on every side. 
 The man we most need is the man who died at the period I 
 have referred to — the greatest champion of truth in our 
 century, and yet for whom (a very significant fact) no 
 monument of national gratitude has been erected, nor has 
 even his biography been written ! * 
 
 These preliminary remarks may appear to our readers to 
 forebode a very truculent handling of the Brighton incumbent 
 whose name is placed as the title to this essay. We solemnly 
 abjure all intentions of the kind. Indeed, no man has 
 appeared in the present day whose personal qualities are 
 likelier to save him from hostile criticism than he who is 
 now to be the subject of our consideration. It is not much 
 to say that he was amiable. He inherited a certain noble- 
 ness of character, and his talents were so much allied with 
 the intensest sensitiveness of the imagination, that we cannot 
 conceive of any writer, however bent he might be upon con- 
 demnation, failing to extend to him the utmost latitude of 
 forbearance. We confess to loving him from the com- 
 mencement. His was a veritable boyhood. A soldier's son, 
 delighting from the first in the boom of the cannon, one 
 thinks he sees the glow of countenance and the triumphant 
 stride with which the little fellow accompanied his father's 
 gamekeeper in the moonlight expeditions near to Leith. 
 When he grew up, it is impossible not to sympathise 
 with the struggle he underwent in renouncing the military 
 profession, that he might devote himself to the ministry. 
 Two opinions may be entertained as to the wisdom of the 
 decision he formed. Passionately attached to the other 
 profession, a passion that awoke in after years at the very 
 sight of the red coat, there was no reason why he should 
 have abandoned it because of the temptations to be found in 
 the army. Temptations are to be found in every profession, 
 
 * The Rev. Dr. Andrew Thomson, formerly of St. George's, Edinburgh. 
 
3iS THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 and we shall have occasion to see that he fell under those 
 he met with in the ministry. No more foolish advice is often 
 given than by pious friends. " Do as your father likes, and 
 pray to God to direct him aright," was the sage counsel 
 given to young Robertson by one of these. The consequence 
 was that having prayed God to direct his father, and thus 
 surrendered the benefit of his own judgment, he came to 
 the resolution of giving up the commission he had in his 
 pocket. What kind of a minister one may make who is born 
 to be an officer of artillery none can tell ; but pious parents 
 would do well to consider that their children glorify God 
 most by pursuing the profession they decidedly incline to. 
 However, there can be only one opinion as to the gentleness 
 and self-sacrificing denial exercised by the young soldier in 
 yielding to the entreaties of his father and friends, and we 
 advert to this as another reason why none of us can fail to 
 love him. The personal interest felt in him increases with 
 the dash of religious melancholy in his character, and be- 
 comes painfully intense in connection with the isolation in 
 which his peculiar opinions placed him, the anguish of his 
 last illness, and his premature departure from the world. 
 
 If it be true, as we fear can be indisputably established, 
 that he made shipwreck of the evangelical faith, his ami- 
 ableness and personal accomplishments, while entitling him 
 to the utmost gentleness of treatment, render him all the 
 more dangerous an example to young men, and especially to 
 young clergymen. Hence the necessity of our treatment 
 of him, on the other hand, being characterised by decision 
 and faithfulness. His sermons have obtained a very large 
 sale in this country. We cannot, for our part, believe that 
 this is chiefly owing to the genius or eloquence distinguishing 
 them. Being for the most part notes of sermons, they are 
 necessarily unfinished productions, nor have they much more 
 to recommend them, in a literary point of view, than a certain 
 freshness, and precision of language, and imaginative beauty. 
 He never soars upon the wing through any considerable 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 319 
 
 space — a falcon flight at best, betokening a keen, quick eye, 
 and a nervous rapidity in darting to short distances. To 
 what, then, are we to trace their popularity ? Destitute as 
 his discourses are of the gospel, they want altogether the 
 essential interest of sermons ; and, again, were they merely 
 philosophical essays, physiological or metaphysical disqui- 
 sitions, they must have been insipid. The secret of their 
 popularity is, that while they want the interest of the gospel, 
 they are imbued with the earnestness of a man who seeks to 
 introduce another gospel, of what kind we shall attempt to 
 show afterwards ; but they have thus captivated the restless 
 and sceptical turn of not a few minds in this age. The more 
 necessary is it to expose the dangerous and most pernicious 
 tendency of the tenets contained in his discourses, and to 
 trace, by way of warning to others, the process by which 
 this writer was seduced into the adoption of them. 
 
 In the earlier part of his career, as is well known, he was 
 evangelical and Calvinistic in his creed. Brought up in 
 those tenets, he retained them, much to his honour, during 
 his curriculum at Oxford, where he was exposed to the 
 danger of infection from the Tractarians, who had begun to 
 broach their peculiar doctrines. Though not insensible to 
 the devoutness characterising some of them, he resisted this 
 first temptation to diverge from the evangelical faith. No- 
 thing could be better than the spirit of the following prayer, 
 drawn up by him at this time : — 
 
 " The enemy has come in like a flood. We look for Thy 
 presence. Do Thou lift up a standard against him. OLord! 
 here in Oxford we believe that he is poisoning the streams, 
 which are to water Thy Church, at their source. Pardon us 
 if we err. lead us into all truth ! But, O our God, if we 
 are not mistaken, if the light which is in us be darkness, how 
 great is that darkness ! Lighten our darkness in this uni- 
 versity with the pure and the glorious light of the gospel o 
 Christ ! Help, Lord, for the faithful have failed from among 
 the children of men. My Father, I am like a child, blown 
 
320 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 about by every wind of doctrine. How long shall I walk as 
 a vain shadow, and disquiet myself in vain ? Let not my 
 inconsistent conduct be a pretext for blasphemy against Thy 
 saints, and persisting in heresy. Hear me, my Lord, and 
 remember ! " 
 
 A prayer this which breathes, if not a very robust, at least 
 a very gentle and beautiful spirit. 
 
 During his first short ministry of a year at Winchester he 
 had undergone no change in his religious views. His labours 
 there were apparently much blessed. Martin and Brainerd 
 were his models, and by his own confession not a few were 
 savingly brought to Christ. At this period we hear no com- 
 plaints from him, such as were afterwards heard, that he 
 could not make himself understood by the people ; nor do 
 we read of any who were startled by his doctrine, and sub- 
 jected him to irritating conversations in the study. He was 
 then preaching that gospel which the poorest perfectly 
 understand, and which the sheep of Christ instinctively know 
 and follow. Happy had it been for him if, contented to 
 pursue this course, he had shunned the more ambitious 
 paths of profitless speculation ! His biographer, Stopford 
 Brooke, who has no sympathy with this stage of his religious 
 history, tells us that at Winchester he was decidedly behind 
 every way ; " that having been trained in a very restricted 
 school of thought and religion, he could not emerge from it 
 without first going down into its depths ; that his letters at 
 this time are not worth reading ; that his thoughts were not 
 marked by any individuality ; and that his sermons did not 
 exhibit much power, being overloaded with analogies of 
 doctrine and conventionalities of university theology." We 
 have no interest leading us specially to deny that Mr. 
 Robertson's genius and natural faculties were undeveloped 
 during the one year he was evangelical at Winchester, but 
 the attempt here made to connect the two things together is 
 simply ridiculous. Several causes of a more obvious kind 
 than his Calvinistic education may account for a man's 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 321 
 
 genius and his peculiar gifts not showing themselves imme- 
 diately. He may be of tardy development. He may con- 
 stitutionally be of a self-diffident turn, which was largely 
 true of the subject of this essay, and thus be slow in dis- 
 cerning his own powers. But we demur altogether to the 
 idea that a man must renounce his evangelism if he would 
 write good letters, and go down into the depths of German 
 mysticism ere he can be original. Who ever showed a 
 more decisive originality than Thomas Chalmers, following 
 a track of fancy and thought entirely his own, without prece- 
 dent, and baffling imitation, while after all he was a disciple 
 of that " very restricted school of thought and of religion," 
 which Stopford Brooke considered fatal to lively corre- 
 spondence and intellectual independence ? It is plain that 
 Robertson of Brighton was from the beginning possessed not 
 only of talent, but passion and imagination. In him sensi- 
 tiveness and strong sentimentality existed from his earliest 
 years. Take, for example, his romantic idealization of 
 womanhood : — 
 
 " The beings that floated before me, robed in vestures 
 more delicate than mine, were beings of another order. The 
 thought of one of them becoming mine was not rapture, but 
 pain. At seven years old woman was a sacred dream, of 
 which I would not talk. Marriage was a degradation. I 
 remember being quite angry on hearing it said of a lovely 
 Swede, the loveliest being I ever saw, that she was likely to 
 get married in England. She gave me her hair, lines, books, 
 and I worshipped her only as I should have done a living 
 rainbow, with no farther feeling. Yet I was then eighteen, 
 and she was to me for years nothing more than a calm, 
 clear, untroubled fiord of beauty, glassing heaven, deep, deep 
 below, so deep that I never dreamed of an attempt to reach 
 the heaven. So I lived. I may truly say that my heart was 
 like the Rhone as it leaves the lake of Geneva." 
 
 None can doubt that the young incumbent of Winchester 
 had the elements in him of genius. Meanwhile there was 
 
 22 
 
322 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 ample scope for the exercise of it in the path he was prose- 
 cuting ; and all the freshness, and even more than the 
 originality of thinking and fancy now apparent in the 
 sermons of the Brighton preacher might have been forth- 
 coming in connection with a sound theology. Let us grant for 
 a moment that the unhappy revolution in his religious senti- 
 ments contributed to the generation of intenser feelings ; that 
 his transition from the old gospel to a new gospel of Germanic 
 origin, by the very agitation and agony of mind it cost 
 him, evoked a genius that might have been otherwise latent. 
 Shall we not say that this was a species of illegitimate 
 force — no more to be prized than the. melancholy intensity 
 of passion inspired in Byron, for example, when he broke 
 loose from the laws by which he ought to have been re- 
 strained, and manufactured a kind of genius out of his own 
 wretchedness ? We are to distinguish between the flash-bril- 
 liancy of the meteor and the round purity of the star that 
 keeps its place ; between the strange fire that burns in too 
 bold a censer and the fire taken from the appointed altar. 
 When a horse, however spirited, has bolted the course, it is 
 out of the race. 
 
 Upon his removal to Cheltenham, Mr. Robertson under- 
 went that singular revolution in his whole religious views 
 which will form the subject of our consideration in this essay. 
 
 Let us examine the account we have of it from the pen of 
 his biographer, who looks upon it with unmingled satis- 
 faction. He tells us that now " he began to hew out his 
 own path to his convictions." This, of course, means that 
 his previous convictions had been reached by paths marked 
 out for him by others. He had come to be convinced of 
 the various evangelical doctrines, not by independent 
 inquiry, but through the blind and prejudiced following of 
 systematic divines in whom he had been educated. The 
 best refutation of this is to be found in the following fact 
 recorded of him when at Oxford by Stopford Brooke him- 
 self. 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 323 
 
 " The necessity of an accurate and critical knowledge of 
 the Bible became more clear to him from this contact with 
 various forms of religious thought {Tractarians, &c). It was 
 his habit when dressing in the morning to commit to 
 memory daily a certain number of verses of the New Testa- 
 ment. In this way, before leaving the university, he had 
 gone twice over the English version, and once and a half 
 through the Greek. With his eminent power of arrange- 
 ment he mentally combined and recombined all the promi- 
 nent texts under fixed heads of subjects. He said long after 
 to a friend, that, owing to this practice, no sooner was any 
 Christian doctrine or duty mentioned in conversation, or 
 suggested to him by what he was writing, than all the 
 passages bearing upon the point seemed to array themselves 
 in order before him." 
 
 Such was the method adopted by him at first, and which 
 marked the formation of his evangelical views. If by " hew- 
 ing out his own path to his convictions," it be meant that, 
 instead of studying and following out the Word of God, he 
 now began to make his own reason his guide, that of course 
 was a plan which, whether begun at Cheltenham or any- 
 where else, would land him eventually in infidelity. If the 
 phrase mean, on the other hand, that he now for the first 
 time became an independent and untrammelled inquirer into 
 the Word of God, it is surely an extraordinary circumstance 
 that at Oxford he should have diligently and for himself com- 
 pared Scripture with Scripture, which is the plain and 
 approved method of independent inquiry. If, indeed, we , 
 had been told that at Cheltenham he took up the Bible a 
 second time, and gave it a more diligent and thorough 
 perusal, we might have felt that his change of views was 
 entitled to be considered as a change to the better. But so 
 far from this, his biographer refers us to the following un- 
 satisfactory and suspicious circumstances, which accom- 
 panied the revolution in his mind. 
 
 First we are told that he had been studying Thomas 
 
 22* 
 
324 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 Carlyle, and was sensibly influenced \>y his writings. " His 
 continual reading of Carlyle marks the state of intellectual 
 ferment in which he now lived. ' I have gained good and 
 energy from that book,' he says, speaking of ' Chartism ; or, 
 the Past and Present.' " Brooke denotes the state of his 
 mind — justly, I suppose — " intellectual fermentation." He 
 adds : " German metaphysics took up some of his time, and 
 usefully." It was now also that he came across a friend 
 " well acquainted with the sudden outbreak in this century of 
 theological and philosophical excitement in Germany. The 
 conversations were frequent and interesting, and it was 
 partly at least due to this friendship that Mr. Robertson 
 escaped from the trammels which had confined his intellect 
 and spirit." 
 
 We who entertain views of things somewhat different 
 from those of Stopford Brooke, can well understand the 
 danger to which Mr. Robertson was exposed by coming into 
 contact with the insidious rationalism of Goethe and his 
 British disciples. Though possessed of a sufficiently keen 
 and subtile intellect, he was not in all respects the best 
 qualified for resistance on this side, being more distinguished 
 by refinement than by robustness of understanding. Various 
 points of his life might be referred to in proof that with all 
 the boldness of physique that marked him, he was self- 
 diffident, and apt to be swayed by the influence of others. 
 Sensitive to a fault, he had allowed himself at this time to 
 be chafed by what he considered the intolerable dogmatism 
 and illiberality of certain of the evangelical party in their 
 treatment of the Tractarians. While he disapproved of the 
 views of the Tractarians, he considered these evangelicals 
 as inferior to them in piety. " They tell lies in the name of 
 God," he said ; " others tell them in the name of the devil; 
 that is all the difference." This excessive irritation under 
 the bad spirit, or faults of those who are sound in the faith 
 is apt to be a stumbling-block ; and, if it becomes so, this is 
 generally a first symptom of heresy, for there must be 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 325 
 
 something infirm about one's doctrinal belief if it be affected , 
 by the tempers or conduct of men, one way or another. 
 Whatever truth there may be in these remarks, certain it is 
 that the contact into which Mr. Robertson was now brought 
 with German speculation shook his belief not only in the 
 evangelical doctrines, but for a time in the very foundations 
 of the Christian religion. According to Stopford Brooke, the 
 first part of this result is, of course, considered as a point of 
 congratulation, while he reckons that the dread struggle he 
 had with infidelity was nothing more than the strong reaction 
 to be expected from the extreme views he had at first taken 
 up. They who agree with us in thinking that the evangelical 
 doctrines are interwoven with the whole framework of 
 Christianity will perfectly understand how the writings and 
 speculations in question should have subverted his faith in 
 both together. Having once parted with the great funda- 
 mental principle of all safe religious inquiry, that God's 
 testimony in the Scriptures is to be implicitly accepted, and 
 not our own fallible judgment, we need not wonder that he 
 threatened to make shipwreck of revelation altogether. The 
 same spirit which makes us stumble at the mysteries, 
 dogmas, or contents of revelation, leads us to stumble at 
 the miracles which attest the revelation. The hard in 
 doctrine, and the hard in the sign and seal, is equally offen- 
 sive to those who have given themselves up to their own 
 reason, or (which is the same thing) to their own heart as 
 the test of what is to be accepted. 
 
 The anguish of mind which Mr. Robertson underwent at 
 this stage of his experience was great. None can doubt the 
 sincerity with which he had held his previous views, in- 
 tensity of conviction being one of his peisonal characteristics ; 
 and when he was tempted to abandon them, it could not be 
 with the same indifference as many others would have done. 
 A letter has been preserved, and is given us in Stopford 
 Brooke's work, from which it appears that the individual 
 already referred to, who had instilled the poison of scepti- 
 
326 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 cism into his mind, and hindered this young minister in his 
 course hitherto well run, had begun, when too late, to dread 
 the tempest he had awakened in the soul of his friend; and 
 the terms in which Mr. Robertson, in his reply, proudly 
 denies that he was indebted to him for his new ideas will 
 scarcely weigh much with the reader. " Set your mind at rest 
 upon one point. Whatever mental trials I may experience, 
 you are not responsible for any. A man must have been 
 profoundly and incredibly ignorant of literature, if these 
 things had presented themselves to him in a few conversa- 
 tions in a new light," &c. 
 
 The method adopted by him when reduced to this state of 
 spiritual paroxysm and confusion was one much to be 
 regretted, and to the last degree ill judged. Having 
 travelled to Germany with the view, as we must suppose, 
 of finding the remedy for his scepticism in the country 
 whence he had contracted the disease, he plunged into the 
 depths of its wild metaphysical speculations. His cure for 
 the present distemper was to pursue metaphysics at Heidel- 
 berg! "I have found minds here," he writes, "that under- 
 stand mine, if they cannot help me ; and, in the conviction 
 that a treasure lies near me in German literature, I am 
 ' digging away night and day at the superincumbent earth, 
 in order hereafter to get into it." If we may believe Stop- 
 ford Brooke, he ultimately succeeded. It was now that he 
 built up what he calls a new temple upon the ruins of 
 evangelism. I shall ere long inquire what praise this 
 structure was entitled to. The same author, observing upon 
 the benefit he derived from his continental travels, says : 
 " In the silence and solitude of the mountains of the Tyrol, 
 his soul, left to explore its own recesses, and to feel its 
 nothingness in the presence of the Infinite, had fixed its 
 foundations deep and strong." It is not much after all that 
 can be brought up out of the recesses of the soul of any one 
 of us ; and after studying the system which he excogitated 
 for himself in the Tyrol mountains, we prefer the other 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 
 
 which Calvin was content to derive from God's Word upon • 
 the lake of Geneva. 
 
 Before passing from this stage in his religious history, we 
 may quote the following passage from an address he after- 
 wards delivered to the Institute of Working Men in Brighton. 
 We quote it not merely as an instance of the higher strains 
 of eloquence he sometimes reached, but as affording a pain- 
 ful picture of the struggle with scepticism into which he 
 fell at this time, for none can doubt that he refeis to his 
 own experience. 
 
 " It is an awful moment when the soul begins to find that 
 the props upon which it has blindly rested so long are many 
 of them rotten, and begins to suspect them all ; when it 
 begins to feel the nothingness of many of the traditionary 
 opinions which have been received with implicit confidence, 
 and in that horrible insecurity begins also to doubt whether 
 there be anything to believe at all. It is an awful hour — 
 let him who has passed through it say how awful — when the 
 life has lost its meaning, and seems shrivelled into a span 
 — when the grave seems to be the end of all — human goodness 
 nothing but a name, and the sky above the universe a dead 
 expanse, black with the void from which God Himself has 
 disappeared. In that fearful loneliness of spirit, when those 
 who should have been his friends and counsellors only frown 
 upon his misgivings, and profanely bid him stifle doubts 
 which, for aught he knows, may arise from the fountain of 
 truth itself— to extinguish as a glare from hell that which, 
 for aught he knows, may be light from heaven — and every- 
 thing seems wrapped in hideous uncertainty, I know but 
 one way in which a man can come forth from his agony 
 scathless : it is by holding fast to those things which are 
 certain still — the grand, simple landmarks of morality. In 
 the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, 
 whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. If there 
 be no God, and no future state, yet even then it is better to 
 be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than to be 
 
328 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 licentious, better to be true than to be false, better to be 
 brave than to be a coward. Blessed beyond all earthly 
 blessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness 
 of the soul, has dared to hold fast to these venerable land- 
 marks. Thrice blessed is he who, when all is drear and 
 cheerless within and without — when his teachers terrify him 
 and his friends shrink from him — has obstinately clung to 
 moral good. Thrice blessed, because his night shall pass 
 into bright clear day." 
 
 Upon this quotation we would remark that there are two 
 cases altogether distinct and never to be confounded, in 
 which men may give way to doubt, and be thrown into a 
 state of painful agitation. The one is when they have been 
 educated in views which are erroneous and contrary to the 
 Word of God, and a partial illumination of the truth begins 
 to lead them to call these views in question. They have 
 found upon a closer examination into the Scriptures that the 
 props on which they had blindly rested so long are rotten, 
 and they begin to feel " the nothingness of the traditionary 
 opinions which had been received with implicit confidence." 
 This produces a painful experience, accompanied with no 
 small alarm at the felt necessity of abandoning views long 
 associated with Heaven's approval, and of approaching to 
 the adoption of others which, though true, had been long 
 looked upon, perhaps, as damnable heresy. With regard to 
 parties who are in this case, every sympathy is due to them, 
 not only in the anguish they undergo, but in the temptation 
 they are exposed to through bigoted teachers and friends, 
 who would have them stifle these noble misgivings of theirs, 
 which have arisen from love of the truth, and to extinguish 
 "as a glare from hell what is really a light from heaven." 
 But while there is this struggle which the man brought up 
 in error experiences on his way to the truth, there is another 
 undergone by the man who has been educated in the truth, 
 and has allowed himself to be shaken by rationalistic or 
 infidel speculations and suggestions. The doctrines in which 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 329 
 
 he was brought up are true, but through this insidious influ- 
 ence he is led to think that they are " rotten." In reality, 
 they are the doctrines of inspiration, but he has been seduced 
 into the idea that they are mere "traditionary opinions," 
 which have somehow got mixed up with the Record. This 
 is a scepticism of quite another kind than the other. There 
 may be all the agony undergone by the man who is the 
 subject of it, as was experienced by the other man, but he 
 is not entitled to the same sympathy from us. The one is 
 the agony of the hero, and the other is the agony of the 
 heretic. The one is the struggle a man undergoes in his 
 noble passage from error to truth ; the other is the ominous 
 and ignominious struggle which a man has in passing, as 
 he yields to the insidious influence of rationalism, from the 
 truth to error. The one is the struggle of him who has cast 
 off human traditions, being enlightened by the Word of God ; 
 the other is the struggle of him who has given ear to the 
 lying spirit of human wisdom, and is nothing else than the 
 penalty he suffers for having abandoned the eternal moorings 
 of his soul. The one was the agony that preceded the 
 Reformation of the sixteenth century, the other is the agony 
 that now accompanies the infidelity of the nineteenth. What 
 one desiderates in the quotation is a distinction that would 
 enable us to know which of the two kinds of agonized scep- 
 ticism it is which Mr. Robertson refers to. If, as is probable, 
 he drew the picture from his own case, we must suppose it 
 is to the last he alludes. But there is something more we 
 would wish to say in qualification of the passage we have 
 quoted. We allude to the invidious way in which the essen- 
 tial principles of morality are placed over against positive 
 revelation, and what may be called the dogma of religion, 
 when it is hinted that suggestions which rise up in the mind 
 against the latter may be light from heaven, while it is taken 
 tor granted that the essential principles of morality are to 
 be received as certain. The state of mind supposed by Mr. 
 Robertson throughout the passage we have quoted is of 
 
33° THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 course that of a man who has unhappily been shaken in his 
 faith as to all the verities of religion, including even the 
 existence of God; and with regard to doubts of this kind that 
 agitate his mind, Mr. Robertson resents the interference of 
 those teachers or friends who would call upon him to stifle 
 these doubts, thus representing the dogmatical department 
 of religion (unlike the practical) as being the province of a 
 legitimate- scepticism. If the doubts referred to bear upon 
 truths established, whether by the written Word of God or 
 the volume of creation, did he mean to assert that such 
 doubts are to be held sacred ? We grant that the moralities 
 of the Decalogue, or what we are to practise, being graven 
 upon our very constitution, have a peculiar certainty attach- 
 ing to them ; but the dogma of religion, or what we are to 
 believe, is set before us with an evidence which, in its own 
 kind, is perfectly sufficient, so that to doubt what ought to 
 be believed is as much a sin as to doubt what ought to be 
 practised. Mr. Robertson, in short, gives countenance to 
 i the idea that scepticism in the dogma of religion is to be 
 respected, and that, in point of fact, the whole region of the 
 dogma is fair field for the wildest speculation, while the great 
 principles of right and wrong in the natural man are the only 
 indubitable thing. Finally, we see well enough how, in the 
 case supposed by Mr. Robertson, the man who has been 
 unhinged in his whole religious belief should still retain his 
 moral sentiments, and we perfectly agree with him that he 
 should continue to act upon them ; but we wholly deny what 
 he seems to assert, that this is likely to right him in his 
 religious course again. He says, " Thrice blessed is he, 
 because his night shall pass into clear, bright day ! " And, 
 again, " I know but this one way in which a man may come 
 forth from his agony scathless." In other words, the hope 
 Mr. Robertson had of a man coming out of that scepticism 
 which has unhinged his faith, is that he holds fast by this at 
 least, " that it is better to be generous than selfish, better to 
 be chaste than licentious, better to be true than to be false, 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 331 
 
 better to be brave than to be a coward." Was ever such a 
 monstrous proposition heard of? To show the fallacy of it, 
 let us suppose that a man has in his possession ten acres of 
 land (for the commandments being ten, let us keep to the 
 number). An immensely wealthy benefactor dies, and leaves 
 him by written testament an estate worth some millions 
 sterling. This testament is unquestionably valid and legal. 
 But a friend, full of conceit and ignorance, deceives the man 
 into the belief that this testament which had filled him with 
 joy is not trustworthy, and he is thrown into just anguish of 
 mind on this account, first as to one part of the evidence in 
 favour of it, then as to another, until at last he is now in a 
 state of entire scepticism with regard to this last will of his 
 altogether. His best and most sensible friends tell him that 
 he should look upon these doubts as to the legality of the 
 testament as being nothing but a miserable delusion ; but he 
 will not listen to their advice, and his agony of mind con- 
 tinues. However, if we may believe Mr. Robertson, there 
 is one thing he is still sure of, and " thrice blessed is he if 
 he hold by it," and that is, that he has the ten acres of land 
 at any rate in actual possession ; nay, let him hold fast by 
 this certainty, and he will come forth from the other agony 
 of the testament scathless, and " night," as regards the other 
 point, " shall pass into clear, bright day ! " How this might 
 chance, or what blessed tendency there would be in his 
 retaining the croft to reassure him of the estate, we leave it 
 with the reader to judge. But there lies at the bottom of all 
 this suggestion of Mr. Robertson the essential fallacy of 
 those who in our day would place revealed religion in a 
 certain invidious opposition to natural religion as regards 
 certainty. 
 
 The great anguish of soul which Mr. Robertson underwent 
 is represented both by his biographer and by himself as 
 having passed over, and given way to a solid satisfaction, 
 derived from the new gospel which he had arrived at. We 
 shall only observe that it does not seem to have been so 
 
332 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 solid and perfect after all, judging from incidental expres- 
 sions. " He had returned to Brighton," says his biographer, 
 " convinced that he had got clear views of truth. In the 
 Tyrol, in 1847, he had despaired ; now, though he was weary 
 of life, he could say, ' I know the right, and even in darkness 
 will steer right on.' " His privilege now, it would appear, 
 was " to steer on in the darkness ; " for it is abundantly 
 evident, from various expressions of his own, that he had 
 1 now lost all certainty in the dogma at least, and steered 
 rather by trust in the supposed infallibility of his own moral 
 sentiments. Hence we find him saying, in the language of 
 Tennyson, who had unfortunately become a theological 
 authority with him, " I am but an infant crying in the dark, 
 and with no language but a cry; nevertheless, I am not 
 afraid of the dark." In his Winchester days he had walked 
 in the light ; now it was in the darkness, only he was not 
 afraid of it ! Perhaps not. We labour under the impression, 
 most of us, enjoying as we do under the Christian dispensa- 
 tion the blazing noontide of revelation, that we are the 
 children of the day ; but Mr. Robertson had now become one 
 of the many children crying in darkness who abound in these 
 times, and with whom we have no sympathy, since the 
 darkness they complain of arises from their having refused 
 God's revelation. 
 
 But it is high time that we should now proceed to consider 
 what was the amount of change which Mr. Robertson under- 
 went in his religious views. We are persuaded that it was 
 far greater than many of his admirers are at all aware of, or 
 than any of his evangelical apologists have suspected. Some 
 think that it was merely the Calvinistic tenets he abjured, 
 and that even these he rather received in a qualified form 
 than rejected. A close examination of his views will con- 
 strain us to acknowledge that he not only departed from 
 evangelical truth, but was largely unhinged upon much more 
 fundamental points. 
 
 One thing is evident, that his faith in miracles, as being 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 333 
 
 in this nineteenth century available evidence for the truth of 
 Christianity, was shaken. He now accepted of Christianity, 
 not as attested by miracle, but upon a new and rationalistic 
 basis. 
 
 In his three Advent sermons, where he shows the bearing 
 of the gospel, as first preached, upon the Greeks, Romans, 
 and Barbarians, he takes notice of the Barbarians as those 
 who laid stress upon the miracle, or the marvellous (in- 
 stanced by the Barbarians of Melita, when they would have 
 worshipped Paul), and he insists upon it as one character- 
 istic of the gospel that it came to depreciate the miracle and 
 the sign. This leads him to notice the maxim of the French 
 sceptic, " that the worship of the supernatural must legiti- 
 mately end in atheism as science progresses." How does he 
 meet the sceptic ? Does he first object to the wording of the 
 libel here brought against the disciple of Christianity, that 
 he "worships" the supernatural? No. Again, supposing 
 the libel amended and properly stated — that the disciple of 
 Christianity believes in the supernatural, so that the maxim 
 now runs that " faith in the supernatural must legitimately 
 end in atheism as science progresses," does Mr. Robertson 
 deny the truth of the conclusion by boldly and flatly main- 
 taining that the progress of science never can affect the 
 miracles of Christianity ? that it is a downright absurdity to 
 suppose it should, since science can only discover the laws 
 that hold in the natural world, while the miracles of Christ 
 were a temporary and staring suspension of these laws ? 
 Does he stand up in the pulpit of Brighton as the advocate 
 of the miracles upon which Christianity rests against this 
 vile calumny ? No ; he does no such thing. He meets the 
 sceptic's calumny by the following sentences, which are a 
 virtual acknowledgment of its truth — a virtual giving up of 
 the argument from miracles altogether, and an allegation to 
 the effect that the true claim of Christianity upon our accept- 
 ance is its tallying with the testimony of our own hearts 
 and of nature that God is love. 
 
?34 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 " Yes, all science removes the cause of causes farther and 
 farther back from human ken, so that the baffled intellect is 
 compelled to confess at last that we cannot find it. But the 
 world by wisdom knew not God. There is a power in the 
 soul — quite separate from the intellect, which sweeps away 
 and recognises the marvellous — by which God is felt. Faith 
 stands serenely, far above the reach of the atheism of science. 
 It does not rest on the wonderful, but on the eternal wisdom 
 and goodness of God. The revelation of the Son was to 
 proclaim a Father, not a mystery. No science can sweep 
 away the everlasting love which the heart feels, and which 
 the intellect does not pretend to judge or recognise ; and he 
 is safe from the inevitable decay which attends the mere 
 barbarian worship who has felt that, as faith is the strongest 
 power in the mind of man, so is love the divinest principle 
 in the bosom of God ; in other words, who adores God 
 known in Christ, rather than trembles before the unknown 
 — whose homage is yielded to Divine character rather than 
 Divine power." 
 
 Let us dissect this passage for a moment. "All science 
 removes the cause of causes farther and farther back from 
 human ken, so that the baffled intellect is compelled to 
 confess we cannot find it." He means of course that, as 
 science advances, what was thought to be the cause of 
 causes — that is, God Himself immediately working — is found 
 to be only a natural law in operation. Now that may be true 
 as regards many things which were thought by the super- 
 stitious to be God Himself immediately working, and when 
 they find, for example, that there is a natural cause for an 
 eclipse or for the appearance of the comet, we may say that 
 science by its progress has proved that what they thought to 
 be a miracle was no miracle ; or, as Mr. Robertson expresses 
 it, that the cause of causes is removed farther back, and that 
 natural law still holds. But the question is whether, as 
 science advances, it is to make as decisive havoc of the 
 miracles of Christianity as of the ridiculous signs accepted 
 by superstition ? 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 335 
 
 It is plain enough that Mr. Robertson placed the one class 
 and the other in the same category, and came to consider 
 that miracles cannot now be rested in by us as a satisfactory 
 evidence for the truth of Christianity. The extract I have 
 given shows us upon what evidence he was now prepared to 
 receive it. 
 
 " The revelation of the Son," he says, " was to proclaim 
 a Father, not a mystery. No science can sweep away the 
 everlasting love which the heart feels. And he is safe, &c, 
 who adores God known in Christ, rather than trembles before 
 the unknown — whose homage is yielded to Divine character 
 rather than Divine power." 
 
 He had come to hold, along with the whole school of 
 rationalists, that Christianity is not a " mystery " in the 
 sense that we Calvinists or Evangelicals hold, but a procla- 
 mation of what natural religion itself, according to them, 
 teaches, even God's everlasting love, benignity, and good- 
 ness. There is no need, then, of miracles to induce us to 
 receive what we are prepared already by our own hearts to 
 recognise and welcome. When Christ comes to be received, 
 it is not as if He were "the unknown," a mystery, in whom 
 we will not believe until we see miracles wrought. We 
 adore " God known in Christ." That is, we recognise God 
 at once to be in Christ, from His being the same God we 
 have known in the world around us. 
 
 Now we would observe that this process of proof is only 
 applicable to such a Christianity as Mr. Robertson and his 
 school have arbitrarily fabricated out of their own imagina- 
 tion. It is not applicable to Christianity as set forth in 
 those Scriptures which all Christendom have received upon 
 indisputable testimony as containing the actual record of it. 
 According to the Scriptures, Christ came not only to reveal 
 the everlasting love of God, but also His everlasting justice. 
 In His doctrine the wrath of God is revealed against all 
 ungodliness and unrighteousness, and the mysterious plan 
 is proclaimed whereby God's justice and holiness are 
 
336 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 harmonized with His mercy in our salvation. Will such a 
 Christianity as this be at once received as true by men, 
 from its tallying with their own feelings and ideas, or other- 
 wise than upon a direct testimony of God, duly authenti- 
 cated ? So far is Mr. Robertson from thinking so, that he 
 himself rejects it — miracles and testimony notwithstanding. 
 
 Nay, the very ground upon which he rejects it is, that it 
 does not tally with "what our heart feels" — with the law 
 written upon our natures. 
 
 This suggests the remark that he differs from us not 
 merely as to what constitutes the evidence of Christianity, 
 but as to what Christianity is. 
 
 What is Christianity, and how shall we know what it is ? 
 
 If the word mean anything, it means the religion that was 
 1 taught by Christ ; and what that was can only be ascer- 
 tained, of course, by historical evidence. What right has 
 Mr. Robertson to take for granted that Christ must neces- 
 • sarily have taught nothing but what tallies with the feelings 
 of our heart, and the views of fallen man, or even that He 
 did not teach doctrine entirely subversive of the law of 
 nature ? He may have taught anything. Mr. Robertson 
 proceeds to take up the arbitrary position that Christianity 
 must coincide essentially with the findings and feelings of 
 man; he next wrests and mutilates the Scriptures in the 
 way we shall afterwards show, to bring out of them a 
 Christianity answering to this description; and then he 
 triumphs in the consideration that he has now a Chris- 
 tianity that can be proved without miracles ! One thing is 
 certain, that he is not entitled to palm off a religion which 
 he has thus manufactured out of his own nature upon 
 Christ. Another thing is that the same process by which 
 he has thus made Christianity provable without miracles, 
 > has made it contemptible, and not worth receiving. The 
 doctrines in which the whole glory and consolation of the 
 gospel lie are its supernatural doctrines, which are foolish- 
 ness to the natural man. What we needed as sinners was a 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 337 
 
 communication made to us from heaven, assuring us of 
 pardon, and informing us of the way in which it could be 
 bestowed by Him who is the offended Judge of the universe. 
 How could this be authenticated to us without miracles ? 
 Finally, it could be shown to be impossible for Mr. Robert- 
 son to establish, by his proposed process of proof, that ever 
 such a historical personage as the Son of God in our nature 
 existed. He seems to hold, with Robert Browning, that 
 what of God's love (learned from the natural world) we see 
 in Christ is enough without miraeles to prove Christ to be 
 of God, and that He has come in the flesh. But we have 
 shown at some length, in the essay upon that illustrious 
 poet and shallow theologian, that it is utterly impossible 
 to prove the historical existence of Christ otherwise than 
 by historical evidence. Another point upon which the faith 
 of Mr. Robertson sustained essential damage was the inspi- 
 ration of the Scriptut£_s ; for while he still retained his 
 belief in their inspiration, he seems to have adopted very 
 loose views upon the whole subject. 
 
 " The prophetic power," he writes, " in which, I suppose, 
 is chiefly exhibited that which we mean by inspiration, 
 depends almost entirely on moral greatness. The prophet 
 discerned large principles, true for all time — principles 
 social, political, ecclesiastical, and principles of life — chiefly 
 by largeness of heart, and sympathy of spirit with God's 
 Spirit. That is my conception of inspiration. ' My judg- 
 ment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will 
 •f him that sent me.' " 
 
 Most readers will agree with us that, if the only claim the 
 writers of Scripture have to be considered as inspired is that, 
 in the sense here described, they were, as to spirit and 
 character, in unison with God, there are many other writings 
 besides theirs which have a title to be received into the 
 canon. We need not say that his text in support of this 
 view of inspiration is insufficient for the purpose. When 
 our Lord said to the Jews, " My judgment- is just, because 1 
 
 23 
 
338 THE RELIGION OF OUR LIT ERA TURE. 
 
 seek not my Own will, but the will of the Father which hath 
 sent me," Mr. Robertson considers Him as claiming His 
 judgment or deliverances upon Divine things to be just and 
 worthy of confidence because of a feature in His own per- 
 sonal character, which, wherever it prevails, is a ground for 
 confidence, viz., that His will was in unison with God's 
 will. — that in short He was upright and holy; from which 
 he maintains that this is all which is necessary to ground 
 the claim of the inspired writers to our confidence ; we 
 would reply : (i) Supposing this to be the meaning of the 
 text, our Lord had in the words going immediately before 
 them, " I can of my own self do nothing, as I hear, I 
 judge," set forth another and a higher ground upon which 
 He claimed His judgment to be just, this being that, what- 
 ever He said or did or judged, was a thing first of all 
 communicated to Him from the Father as to be done or 
 said. Now, in his definition of what constitutes inspiration, 
 what right had Mr. Robertson to omit the first part of the 
 verse, which shows that, before a man's deliverances or 
 judgments are to be received as authoritative by the Church, 
 he must be able to say and to show that they have been 
 communicated to him by God ? He omits this part of the 
 verse, which contains the major assertion, and he brings in 
 the minor assertion in the verse, as if it were the whole. 
 (2) Besides, he should have quoted the words which imme- 
 diately follow : " If I bear witness of myself, my witness is 
 not true. I have another that beareth witness of me." He 
 then proceeds to show how the Father bore witness of Him. 
 " I have greater witness than that of John : for the works 
 which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works 
 that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent 
 me." Now, by these works it were in vain for Mr. Robert- 
 son to allege that Christ's works of charity and righteousness 
 are meant, for these could never be the Father's witnessing 
 of Him. They must mean the miracles which the Father 
 empowered Him to work. Thus we learn that a prophet is 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 339 
 
 no prophet, though he should be as holy as the angels, 
 unless he be authenticated. (3) The words of Christ which 
 Mr. Robertson quotes have not the meaning he attaches to 
 them. When He says, " My judgment is just, because I 
 seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which hath 
 sent me," He does not mean merely that He claimed 
 submission to His judgment on the ground that He was 
 personally holy, — one who merged His own will in that of 
 the Father in the ordinary sense predicable of all saints ; 
 for may not one who is holy be fallible after "all in his 
 judgment ? and might not His opponents have claimed to 
 have the same point of character which He is supposed thus 
 to assert ? He means, then, that His judgment was just, 
 because He did not seek, or affect to carry out His own will 
 at all ; but, as a servant, carried out the will of the Father, 
 which had been first communicated to Him. 
 
 Again, when he grants the inspiration of the Scriptures, 
 Mr. Robertson accompanies this with a qualification : " That 
 as God communicated facts in the natural world to the penmen 
 as they are accepted in the popular mind, not correctly in science, 
 so His revelation concerning truths of the soul and its relation 
 to God was communicated in popular and incorrect, not, however, 
 false language." " It is the Word of God," he says in one 
 place, " and it is the word of man : as the former, perfect; 
 as the latter, imperfect. God the Spirit, as the Sanctifier, 
 does not produce perfection of character ; and as an Inspirer, 
 He does not produce absolute perfection of human know- 
 ledge." .Aiming a blow at us who take the higher view of 
 inspiration which he has thus discarded, he calls us biblio- 
 latrists, saying, " To be candid, I look upon bibliolatry as 
 pernicious ; dangerous to true views of God and of His re- 
 velation, and the cause of much bitter Protestant popery, or 
 claiming to infallibility of interpretation, which nearly every 
 party puts forth. I believe bibliolatry to be as superstitious 
 as false, and almost as dangerous as Romanism." 
 
 In the above quotations we have, first, a condition attached 
 
 23* 
 
340 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 to the acceptance of the inspiration of the Scriptures, which 
 reduces it to a very low figure in point of value. It appears 
 that " God's revelation in truths concerning the soul is com- 
 municated in popular and incorrect language ; '' and why 
 should it not, he argues, since it " communicates facts in the 
 natural world " in this way ? Now I beg leave to say that 
 there is a great difference in the two cases. Did Mr. 
 Robertson believe that, if the Bible had been intended to 
 teach science, it would have accommodated itself to popular 
 errors regarding facts in the natural world, and would not, 
 on the contrary, have distinctly disabused the minds of its 
 readers of such misconceptions ? Meanwhile it is clear 
 enough, I should think, that God did design in the Bible to 
 teach " the truths of the soul and its relation to God ; " 
 and therefore the way in which He makes them known will 
 be that in which He would have spoken of the earth in its 
 relation to the sun, and facts of the natural world generally, 
 in a strictly scientific revelation. With infinite simplicity, our 
 speculative friend considers, on the contrary, that because 
 God, in a Book not designed for science at all, speaks of facts 
 in the natural world according to common parlance, and 
 incorrectly as it were, therefore, in a Book designed for 
 spiritual and theological truths, He will speak of them in 
 popular and incorrect style ! Do our readers admire this 
 logic ? Once grant that in the Scriptures we have doctrines 
 stated " incorrectly," because in accommodation to the views 
 or ideas of man, and how are we to ascertain in what 
 instances this is done, and how far the inaccuracy goes, for 
 that supposes us to know what the correct doctrine is? If we 
 know this ourselves, where was the necessity of this revela- 
 tion at all, which turns out to be more inaccurate than we 
 are ourselves? Indeed, it is plain that Mr. Robertson, 
 according to this theory of his, maintains that he and others 
 of his kindred have a theology more accurate than the Bible, 
 for it contains, as would appear, a scheme of doctrine in- 
 accurately stated, ay, " in truths of the soul and its relation 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 341 
 
 to God;" whereas he.it must be supposed, has another which 
 is more correct ! 
 
 Let us next consider the charge of bibliolatry which he 
 brings against us who hold the Word to be a perfect record 
 throughout, containing nothing incorrect, nor of man, and to 
 be received in the letter of it as an infallible rule. He con- 
 siders this as virtually claiming infallibility of interpretation, 
 and showing a superstition as pernicious as that of the 
 Church of Rome. Now it is absurd upon the face of it to 
 say that we thus worship the Bible, or make an idol of it. 
 Does Mr. Robertson mean to say that God could not, if He 
 had so wished, have given us a Bible in which He did not 
 accommodate Himself to popular language and conceptions 
 at all, but which delivered the doctrines in the perfect form ? 
 and if God had done so, did he believe that for us to receive 
 the Bible in that form would have been an act of idolatry and 
 superstition ? In what sense do we claim infallibility of 
 interpretation, according to our view of inspiration ? We 
 maintain that the whole doctrines contained in Scripture are 
 to be received as unmixed, perfect truth, and infallible, be- 
 cause a deliverance from God. We discard the idea of Bible 
 statements being possibly, after all, inaccurate, through accom- 
 modation to man's imperfect views of things. We repudiate 
 the uncertainty which Mr. Robertson thus throws over the 
 Record, but it is the infallibility of the Record we claim for, 
 and not infallibility of interpretation. When we, on our side, 
 insist upon taking the doctrinal statements of the Bible as 
 they stand, and upon their being received, not as inaccurate 
 accommodations to human opinions, but infallible deliver- 
 ances of God, Mr. Robertson cries out that this is popery ; 
 the true reason being that the doctrines, when thus taken 
 up and received, condemn all his rationalistic notions and 
 German absurdities. As for the Church of Rome, when she 
 claimed for popes and councils a power of infallible interpre- 
 tation, the effect was to bring in a new rule of faith, by giving 
 an authority equal to the Bible to the vain dicta of these 
 
342 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 popes and councils, or whatever they might choose to deliver, 
 thus opening the way for a flood of superstitions. Is it 
 objected that we maintain the doctrines contained in our 
 Westminster Confession, for example, not to be the fallible 
 opinions of man, but the infallible truths of God ? and 
 what difference then is there between the councils of Rome 
 and the assembly that sat at Westminster ? The answer is 
 that there are, at any rate, two essential differences. First, 
 the Westminster Assembly gives texts, quoted and compared, 
 for all the doctrines it sets forth, and claims the doctrines it 
 lays down to be infallible upon the ground of the texts pro- 
 duced. The councils of Rome claim for the doctrines they 
 issue to be received as infallible upon the ground of their 
 own authoritative declaration. Secondly, the Westminster 
 Assembly willingly grants that it may have erred in inter- 
 preting God's Word ; and we who receive its confession are 
 quite willing to this day to be enlightened by any who shall 
 come forward and show us, out of God's Word, that the 
 doctrines set forth by it are erroneous. At the same time, 
 while there are these two essential differences between us 
 and the Romanists, we maintain consistently enough (and 
 here is the ground of Mr. Robertson's wrath with us) that 
 so far are the doctrines contained in our Protestant and 
 Calvinistic confessions from being the fallible opinions of 
 man, that we have renounced all dependence upon these, 
 and hold by the doctrines of our confession as being the 
 infallible doctrines of God upon the ground of texts pro- 
 duced. We are ready to go to issue with all and sundry 
 as to the doctrines in them being nothing else than God's 
 own Word. Nor can any, it would appear, stand before us. 
 What is the proof ? The proof is that none others are 
 prepared to meet us upon the Record, or few indeed. As 
 to the Church of Rome, it flies to the dicta of popes and 
 councils, converted into a new rule of faith. As to Mr. 
 Robertson, when he claims a power to say of any doctrine 
 contained in Scripture that it is a mere accommodation of 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 343 
 
 God's Spirit to the incorrect and imperfect views of man, he 
 too brings in a new rule of faith, which is just as dangerous . 
 as that of the Church of Rome, and calculated to bring in, 
 if not a flood of superstition, a flood of infidelity. As for us, 
 we claim nothing but the right of God's Word to rule us all, 
 if I understand it. 
 
 When Mr. Robertson has adopted the perilous position 
 that the doctrines contained in the Bible are not always 
 stated with absolute accuracy, but sometimes accommodated 
 to vulgar conceptions, it becomes an important question to 
 know what is his criterion by which to know what is accu- 
 rate in the Bible, and what not. His peculiar position once 
 taken up, of course he cannot prove certain passages of 
 Scripture to be inaccurate by referring to other passages of 
 Scripture where the same doctrine is more accurately stated, 
 for both are of equal canonical authority. He was thus 
 forced to set up a new test of truth. By examination of his 
 writings it will be found that the test he adopted was the 
 innate moral sense of humanity. Not that he reckoned this 
 as absolutely trustworthy since the Fall ; but he received it 
 as trustworthy enough in all those who have been instructed 
 by the example of Christ's life and character, and who 
 have imbibed that character. The qualification does not 
 very much signify, it still leaves the deliverance of the hu- 
 manity within us to be the test and standard of appeal ; so 
 that, when any doctrinal statements of Scripture seem 
 to contradict this deliverance, they are to be rejected, as 
 being incorrectly stated, or stated in accommodation to 
 vulgar conceptions. He thus came to hold that his innate 
 sentiments, leavened somewhat, — and it does not much 
 matter how, — were the infallible interpreters of Scripture. 
 The Vatican is in ourselves, not at Rome ; that is all the 
 difference. And if there is to be popery, surely the plea- 
 santest kind of it, after all, is to sit down in the infallible 
 chair oneself ! It was by this new standard that Mr. Robert- 
 son rejected all the evangelical doctrines which we hold, and 
 
344 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 which he once held himself. That we have given a correct 
 statement of his views may be seen by reading his sermon 
 on Absolution, upon the text, " Son, be of good cheer: thy 
 sins are forgiven thee." I might quote one passage from his 
 sermon on " The Dispensation of the Spirit," to show that 
 he considers us as not called to walk now by the authori- 
 tative rule of the Word, but by this law within ourselves, 
 quickened in us by the Holy Spirit, 
 
 " In the Dispensation of the Son, God manifested Himself 
 to humanity through man. The eternal Word spoke through 
 the inspired and gifted of the human race to those that were 
 uninspired and ungifted. This was the Dispensation of the 
 prophets — its climax was the advent of the Redeemer ; it 
 was completed when perfect Humanity manifested God to 
 man. The characteristic of this Dispensation was that God 
 revealed Himself by an authoritative voice speaking from 
 without, and the highest manifestation of God whereof man 
 was capable was a Divine humanity. The age in which we 
 at present live is the Dispensation of the Spirit, in which 
 God has communicated Himself by the highest revelation — 
 no more as an Authentic Voice from without, but as a Law 
 within, as a Spirit mingling with a spirit. 'Then shall the 
 Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under 
 him, that God may be all in all/ ' Henceforth we know no 
 man after the flesh. Yea, though we have known Christ 
 after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.' 
 The outward humanity is to disappear, that the inward be 
 complete." 
 
 It must sufficiently appear from the preceding observations 
 that Mr. Robertson departed not only from the evangelical 
 doctrines, but from the Word of God as the rule of faith. 
 
 Let us next inquire what was the doctrinal creed he 
 adopted, now that he had left the authority of the Divine 
 Record, and taken his own moral, or, if you will, Christian, 
 sentiments as his guide. 
 
 We find him repudiating doctrines altogether. " I have 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 345 
 
 almost done," he says in one place, " with dogmatic divinity." 
 In his sermon upon the " Scepticism 1 of Pilate," he smiles at 
 the idea of the definite answer which we who are Evangelicals 
 would probably hare returned to 1 Pilate's famous question, 
 "What is truth?" He intimates that no dogmatic cer- 
 tainty is to* be reached, but that all are to go out to sea to 
 find out truth as- they best may under the guidance of three 
 things which Mr. Robertson kindly suggests — he does not 
 say by what authority — "Independence" "Humbleness," and 
 "Action." He counts it a mistake to say that we must first 
 believe in certain doctrines, and then act from them : his 
 way is first to act, that is, to act out the plain moralities 
 (such as be just, tender, humble, &c.) r and then we shall not 
 fail to arrive at the doctrines I When Christ is said to have 
 come to "witness for the truth," he tells us that this had no 
 reference to any doctrines He was- to declare. It meant that 
 He would " exemplify the reality of what God is, and reflect 
 all the teachings of the universe which ought to be reflected." 
 He suggests that we should do the same, and " instead of 
 witnessing for dogmas, which can only engender heat and 
 controversy, seek to exemplify and reflect whatever we find 
 God to be, and whatever harmonizes with the spirit and 
 laws of the universe, which we may do with all the calmness 
 of men of science, who witness to facts." 
 
 It never seems to strike him that, in thus asserting that our 
 Lord Jesus Christ came into the world only to exemplify the 
 reality of what God is, and not to declare any doctrines 
 whatever, he is himself laying down a dogma, which we are 
 to swallow, besides, upon his own authority. We are to 
 receive it as a dogma from his lips that there are no dogmas. 
 Was ever such a preposterous doctrine as this propounded — 
 that there are no doctrines at all to be witnessed for ? How 
 are we to " exemplify in our life the reality of what God is," 
 without believing any doctrines ? I must at any rate believe, 
 in the first place, that God is. That is a dogma which the 
 atheist controverts. Am I to cease witnessing for it, lest I 
 
346 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 shall get into a controversial heat ? I must believe in the 
 doctrine, besides, that there is only one God, and thus wit- 
 ness, it is to be presumed, wich or without heat, against 
 polytheists ; unless Mr. Robertson holds it to be enough 
 that a heathen exemplifies the reality of what Jupiter was, 
 and Venus and Bacchus. And how am I to exemplify the 
 reality of what God is, unless I have been taught in so many 
 doctrines what He is ? for Mr. Robertson holds one doctrine 
 upon that subject and I hold another. He holds that the 
 view I as a Calvinist have " of the reality of what God is," 
 as to His character, is monstrous. Am I then to exemplify 
 the monstrous reality of what God is according to my doc- 
 trine ? If not, then there must be a controversy after all 
 with regard to our respective doctrines ! 
 
 Accordingly Mr. Robertson himself soon proceeded to form 
 dogmas enough, though it was after his own fashion. " I 
 have almost done," he says, " with divinity — with dogmatic 
 divinity— -except to lovingly endeavour to make out the truth 
 that lies under this or that poor dogma, miserably overlaid, 
 as marble fonts are with whitewash." So his quarrel, after 
 all, was not with dogmas, but with "poor dogmas," by 
 which no one who reads his discourses can doubt that he 
 means the doctrines usually called evangelical. These, 
 besides, he does not deny to have an underlying verity in 
 them ; and his mission was to remove the evangelical or 
 Calvinistic " whitewash" from the " marble fonts." 
 
 From this the apologists of Mr. Robertson may argue that 
 he was not, after all, so far astray in theology ; for does he 
 not grant that there was a truth underlying each of the 
 dogmas of Calvinism ? The answer to this is that we shall 
 find upon examination that what he calls the underlying 
 truth can be proved from Scripture to be an error of his own 
 invention. If the truth he found underlying our dogmas 
 were something which we Calvinists receive as truth, while 
 he merely objected to a certain exaggeration of statement 
 we had thrown over it, then his difference with us would 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 347 
 
 not have been vital. But it turns out that the under- 
 lying truth is some rationalistic error of his own. It is not, 
 then, as to the " whitewash " he differs from us, but as to 
 " the marble fonts." Secondly, if he were prepared to join 
 issue with us upon the Scriptures as to what was " white- 
 wash " and what was "marble font;" as to what was 
 " dogma " and what was " poor dogma ;" then the difference 
 between him and us would not have been so essential. But 
 we have seen that he had departed from our rule of faith. 
 
 I shall now show what were the dogmas he substituted 
 instead of those received among us. 
 
 We hold that the nature of man has become radically and 
 wholly corrupt since the Fall. He came to alter his views 
 upon this point, and to maintain very much the same views 
 with Maurice, granting a certain moral disorder to prevail 
 in our nature, but considering that there is an underlying 
 righteousness in our fallen humanity. When the Apostle 
 Paul speaks of the " spirit " as distinguished from the 
 " flesh," we understand him to refer to the new nature 
 wrought in us by the Holy Spirit ; but he understands by it 
 something better and higher in our fallen nature. Thus in 
 his sermon upon the Trinity: — "That which the apostle 
 calls ' the spirit ' is that life in man which, in his natural 
 state, is in such an embryo condition that it can scarcely be 
 said to exist at all — that which is called into power and 
 vitality by regeneration." Here regeneration is described to 
 be, not, as Paul asserts, " the quickening of them who are 
 dead in trespasses and sins," but the calling into power a 
 life which is already within us in our natural state. To be 
 sure, he says that the life within us naturally is in an 
 " embryo condition." But if embryo mean anything, it 
 means something already generated. Our Lord said, " That 
 which is born of the flesh is flesh ; that which is born of the 
 Spirit is spirit." Mr. Robertson corrects Him, and says, 
 " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, with the spirit in 
 embryo within it ; that which is born of the Spirit is this 
 
34^ THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 embryo developed." Is there no difference there ? And 
 when we ask him by what authority he utters this state- 
 ment, it is by the authority he received at Brighton to 
 remove " whitewash " from the " marble font." 
 
 It is upon the subject of guilt that Mr. Robertson goes 
 farthest astray. 
 
 The heathen who enjoyed no other light than that of 
 nature were fully enough aware that sin, as a violation of the 
 Divine law, was calculated to draw down the positive pun- 
 ishments of Heaven. Even they were enlightened enough 
 to know that this punishment is something to be distin- 
 guished from the remorse and self-upbraiding which follow 
 upon the commission of sin. Even they considered that the 
 punishment of sin would be emphatically in the next world, 
 inferring this very logically, for one thing, from the inequality 
 of retribution measured out to sin in this world. 
 
 So blinded did Mr. Robertson become by German ration- 
 alism, as to maintain that there is no punishment of sin 
 other than the self-accusation which follows the commis- 
 sion of the wrong thing. He repudiates the idea of any 
 penalty, strictly considered, being incurred by sin through 
 the violation of God's law, and holds that any suffer- 
 ing which follows from sin follows from it merely by a 
 natural law. As fire burns, so sin, by this self-accusation, 
 makes the transgressor wretched. In his sermon upon the 
 " Two Sowings," he denies that there is any inequality in 
 the present government of the world, since the true retribu- 
 tion of sin is really suffered by the wicked in the misery of 
 their remorse and conscious wrongdoing, while the right- 
 eous are abundantly recompensed by their happy reflections. 
 The present state of things, according to him, is perfect 
 enough, if you only disabuse your mind of the idea of God 
 being under any obligation by justice either to follow up 
 righteousness with positive reward, or to follow up wicked- 
 ness by any positive punishment. Hell, if we would believe 
 him, is only the same natural law carried out. Thus, in his 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 349 
 
 sermon upon " The Pharisees and Sadducees at John's 
 Baptism," he says, " It is the hell of having done wrong — 
 the hell of having had a spirit from God, pure, with high 
 aspirations, and to be conscious of having dulled its delicacy 
 and degraded its desires — the hell of having quenched a 
 light brighter than the sun's — of having done to another an 
 injury that through time and eternity never can be undone — 
 infinite, maddening remorse — the hell of knowing that every 
 chance of excellence and every opportunity of good has been 
 lost for ever." It is all this, in short ; but there is no positive 
 punishment inflicted upon men there by God. In prosecu- 
 tion of the same theory, when he comes to speak of our 
 cleansing by the blood of Jesus Christ, he will not allow of its 
 including deliverance from any penal wrath. It consists in a 
 kind of Lethe, whereby we cease to have that wretchedness 
 of reflection which (as he had shown already) constitutes the 
 only consequence of our sins by a natural law. Thus, in the 
 same sermon, speaking of baptism, the sign and seal of this 
 cleansing, he says.: " It is impossible to see that significant 
 act in which the convert went down into the water, travel- 
 worn and soiled with dust, -disappeared for one moment, and 
 then emerged pure and fresh, without feeling that the sign 
 but answered to and interpreted a strong craving of the 
 human heart. It is the desire to wash away that which is 
 past and evil. We would fain go to another country and 
 begin life afresh. We look upon the grave almost with 
 complacency, from the fancy that we shall lie down to sleep, 
 and wake fresh and new. It was this same longing that 
 expressed itself in heathenism by the famous river of forget- 
 fulness, of which the dead must drink before they can enter 
 into rest." Thus the boon we receive by cleansing with the 
 blood of Christ is not the removal of condemnation and 
 punishment, but an obliteration of our past sins from our 
 remembrance, so that we can make a comfortable new start 
 again. 
 
 The great object Mr. Robertson had in view, doubtless, in 
 
3 jo THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 adopting this theory upon the subject of guilt, was to get rid 
 of what he considered as a doctrine highly injurious to the 
 character of God, that, strictly as a Judge, He consigns the 
 wicked to everlasting punishment in hell. By this theory he 
 thought that he accounted for the eternal misery of the 
 wicked by a natural law, and washed God's hands of it. 
 That his theory flatly contradicts Scripture could be shown 
 in a moment ; but as he would have refused to be judged 
 by that rule, let us see how it can abide the test of reason, 
 and common sense. 
 
 Does it, I would ask, relieve God after all of what he and 
 his friends consider to be an odious imputation, even the 
 bringing of eternal misery upon the wicked ? He tells us 
 that it comes upon them by a natural law. But who 
 established that natural law at the beginning ? It was God 
 who gave them that moral constitution at first, whereby 
 their commission of sin issues as would appear in a hell of 
 everlasting misery, whether of fire, or of self-condemnation, 
 or remorse, does not signify. They have themselves only, 
 no doubt, to blame for violating a law of nature. But so 
 have the wicked, according to our theory, themselves only 
 to blame for violating a law which was fenced with an 
 eternal penalty. Meanwhile it is plain that God, if He be 
 answerable for annexing the eternal positive punishment to 
 ' the violation of the moral law, is as truly answerable, 
 according to their system, for giving them from the first a 
 moral constitution of such a kind as He knew would issue, 
 upon their sinning, in everlasting misery. If He was justi- 
 fied in bringing them under a natural law, the violation of 
 which would issue in an eternal hell of self-torture, He was 
 as much justified in bringing them under an authoritative 
 law, the violation of which should issue in a hell of positive 
 punishment. I say nothing here of another inconsistency in 
 Mr. Robertson's theory. He grants that the wicked, when 
 they die, are fixed clown into a hopeless eternity of self- 
 remorse. But why " fixed down " ? It must be by a 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 351 
 
 judicial sentence. Surely there is no natural law whereby a 
 man who has passed into eternity should get into a hopeless- 
 ness of state which did not exist here. Thus he lands him- 
 self in this result — that the eternity of their misery is after 
 all a judicial dispensation. 
 
 He considers that by thi^ theory of natural law he banishes 
 the undesirable idea of a physical misery in hell. But is it 
 not undeniable that when a man commits sin or vice here 
 he entails upon himself, even by natural law, not only self- 
 condemnation, but physical agony ? The drunkard has his 
 self-condemnation, but he has also the delirium tremens. The 
 gluttonous, high-living man has his sense of self-degradation, 
 but he has the gout in addition. The whole illustration of 
 sin's consequences in this world is to the effect that they 
 consist in a great deal more than self-condemnation ; and 
 the rationalistic divine, being a philosopher, is bound to hold 
 by analogy here — especially if he believe, as Mr. Robertson 
 di.l, in the resurrection of the body — that there will be phy- 
 sical misery in hell as well as mental. 
 
 But the main objection of the theory is that it contradicts 
 the whole phenomena of conscience and the common sense 
 of mankind. When we are tempted to commit sin, the 
 conscience does not merely say, "Thou oughtest not to do 
 this thing; if thou doest it, thou wilt be seized with a feeling 
 of condemnation." It says, "Thou shalt not do this thing, 
 and if thou doest it, then God, against whom thou hast 
 sinned, will punish thee." In short, the testimony of the 
 natural conscience is to the effect that there is an authorita- 
 tive law of God under which we lie, and which we break 
 when we sin, thus drawing down His wrath. Hence the 
 universal feeling after sin committed is not only self-con- 
 demnation, but fear — a fearful looking for of judgment and 
 fiery indignation from the Lord. 
 
 Finally, that the Divine government of the world would 
 be impossible upon such principles as Mr. Robertson pro- 
 pounds, might be made palpable by just supposing for a 
 
352 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 moment that a government so based should be attempted 
 amongst men. If it be the case that the misery inwardly 
 felt by a man who steals, or defames character, or commits 
 murder, is his sufficient punishment, and that he who, 
 through him, has lost his property, reputation, or existence, 
 being an upright, good man, is, upon the whole, the happiest 
 of the two ; if there would be no inequality in the Divine 
 government that allowed this state of things to take its 
 course, leaving natural law to be its own avenger and its 
 own rewarder, why not adopt this system in governments of 
 our own ? Why build prisons and erect the gallows to be a 
 terror to evil-doers, and not rather wash our hands of all 
 concern in the cruelty of such a procedure, and leave to the 
 operation of natural law both the thieves and murderers, 
 who will be sufficiently punished in their own remorse, and 
 our friends the advocates of this theory, who will be suffi- 
 ciently rewarded by the consciousness of not having deserved 
 to be robbed, and the noble satisfaction of having been 
 innocently murdered ? No human government could stand 
 a year and a day upon such a foundation. There must be 
 authority backed up by punishment. Let none say that we 
 have done injustice to Mr. Robertson and his friends in 
 comparing them to those who would do so mad a thing as 
 dispense with criminal punishments in the state. They do 
 an infinitely wilder thing, and more fatal to all human safety, 
 in proclaiming to the wicked that there is no positive, judi- 
 cial punishment awaiting them hereafter — that for aught 
 they know there will be as good an outward condition for 
 the wicked in eternity as they have here — that physically 
 it will, upon the whole, be as well with them in hell as it is 
 with the righteous in heaven. 
 
 Our readers are of course prepared to hear that, as there 
 was no positive punishment entailed upon us through sin — 
 no wrath or curse of God — according to Mr. Robertson's 
 theory, so there was no necessity for an atonement. He 
 accordingly discarded this doctrine, which it was Paul's 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 353 
 
 glory to proclaim, and had been once his own privilege to 
 preach. " Let no man say," he writes in his sermon upon 
 " Caiaphas's View of Vicarious Sacrifice," " that Christ bore 
 the wrath of God. Let no man say that God was angry 
 with His Son. We are sometimes told of a mysterious 
 anguish which Christ endured, the consequence of Divine 
 wrath, the sufferings of a heart laden with the conscience 
 of the world's transgressions, which He was bearing as if 
 they were His own sins. The Redeemer's conscience was 
 not bewildered to feel that His own which was not His own. 
 He suffered no wrath of God. Twice came the voice from 
 heaven, ' This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
 pleased.' Even to the last never did the consciousness of 
 purity and the Father's love forsake Him. ' Father, into 
 thy hands I commit my spirit.' " 
 
 When he denies the doctrine of Christ's heart having been 
 " laden with the conscience of the world's transgressions," 
 and of " the consciousness of purity having ever forsaken 
 Christ," he seems to insinuate that we who are of evangelical 
 sentiments hold the monstrous tenet that He was viewed by 
 the Father, and viewed Himself, as having actually com- 
 mitted our sins, so that He was, in a sense, Himself impure, 
 and in His conscience condemned Himself of these sins. It 
 might almost seem incredible that one who was for a time 
 evangelical himself, and must have known our views upon 
 the Suretyship, should have persisted in taking up this old 
 and hackneyed misconception. Yet that he did so is evident 
 from, what he writes elsewhere. "To say that He bore my 
 sins in this sense, that He was haunted by an evil conscience 
 and its horrors for this lie of mine, or that criminal word, is 
 to make a statement false and unmeaning." It may be all 
 very well for Mr. Robertson, who considered that remorse 
 for sin committed was the only punishment of it, to argue 
 that, if Christ bore our sins, it must have been this remorse 
 which He endured ; but he ought to have remembered that 
 we consider all sin as deserving a positive punishment, and 
 
 24 
 
354 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 that it was our legal liabilities to this punishment that we 
 hold to have been transferred to Christ. In the passage 
 quoted, his argument to disprove that Christ suffered the 
 wrath of God, is, that God the Father upon more than one 
 occasion expressed directly from heaven His continued com- 
 placency in Him. Meanwhile he was perfectly aware, if 
 Bible quotations are to be received as evidence, that we could 
 quote twenty times as many passages directly proving that 
 the wrath of God was lying upon Christ notwithstanding ; 
 and did he think that one idea could reconcile these appa- 
 rently opposite passages ? Did it escape him that both 
 things might be true — that our Lord might be the subject 
 of a judicial and wrathful dealing from the Father, whereby 
 the atonement was made ; while, having been appointed by 
 the Father Himself to endure this wrath and make this 
 atonement for us (His servant, in short, to carry the atone- 
 ment out by this awful suffering), He might be the object of 
 the Father's complacency ? 
 
 Since Mr. Robertson denied the sins of others vicariously 
 borne to be the cause of Christ's sufferings, he would find, 
 so one would think, some difficulty in accounting for these 
 sufferings. But he finds the whole explanation of them 
 in a natural law. A wonderful charm there is for a ration- 
 alist in natural law. He has proved already that the eter- 
 nal sufferings of the lost are sufficiently accounted for by 
 a law of this kind, without supposing any Judge. Now 
 he undertakes to prove that the sufferings of Christ are 
 sufficiently accounted for by a natural law, without suppos- 
 ing either sin on His own part or sin imputed. His 
 argument is, in short, that if a man put himself in con- 
 tact with the wheels of any piece of machinery, he is torn 
 in pieces ; and if Christ, in order to exemplify love or 
 character, came into such a world as this, it behoved 
 Him, by a necessary law, to be a sufferer. " Christ came 
 into collision with the world's evil, and He bore the enmity 
 of that daring. He approached the whirling wheel, and 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 355 
 
 was torn in pieces. The sacrifice of Christ comes to 
 be looked upon in the light of a sagacious or ingenious 
 contrivance — a mere scheme. Now remember what law 
 is. Law is the being of God. God cannot alter the laws. 
 If you resist a law in its eternal march the universe crushes 
 you." 
 
 Now no man in his sane senses has ever denied that 
 Christ would of course suffer if He came into such a world 
 as this. The mystery which Mr. Robertson had to explain 
 was, why He should have been sent into the world for the 
 very purpose of suffering and dying. It is not that having 
 come in contact with the wheel He should have been torn in 
 pieces, but it is that He should have been put upon the 
 wheel in order to be torn in pieces ; in other words, "that it 
 should have pleased the Lord to bruise him." So far are 
 the Scriptures from speaking of the sufferings of Christ as 
 being indirectly unavoidable if He should come into the 
 world in discharge of His office, that it speaks of Him as 
 having been directly missioned to these sufferings. So far 
 were His sufferings from being the effect of His coming into 
 the world, that the endurance of them was the end for 
 which He was sent into the world. The Brighton philoso- 
 pher mistook the effect for the end — that was all ! He 
 came into the world, according to Mr. Robertson, to 
 exemplify love and holy character ; and as for any sufferings 
 He endured, they are all explained by the natural law, 
 whereby, if He came into a world of suffering, He must 
 needs suffer. But unfortunately the whole tenour of Scrip- 
 ture runs the other way, a' id teaches us that He was sent 
 into the world to be suspended upon the cross for sin, while 
 the exemplification of love and holy character was a mere 
 indirect consequence of the other. It is merely that he put 
 the cart before the horse — nothing more, so far as I can see. 
 In order to prove the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, 
 we are in the habit of quoting those passages of Scripture 
 where Christ is said to have " suffered for our sins." Such 
 
356 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 language, according to Mr. Robertson, means nothing more 
 than that He suffered for, or from, sins the same in kind as 
 we commit ; our sins being essentially the same as those 
 which characterised the scribes and Pharisees who put Him 
 to death. To prove that the language might be adopted 
 in such a sense, he refers to the declaration of Christ that 
 the Jews, in crucifying Him and putting to death His 
 followers, would be guilty of the blood of all the prophets 
 slain by their fathers, which could only be true in the sense 
 that the same sins characterised them as had characterised 
 their fathers in putting the previous prophets to death. 
 This illustration of his, I would remark, is of itself sufficient 
 to refute what he seeks to establish by it. Could any one, 
 speaking of the Jews who lived in the days of our Lord, 
 have said that Abel and Barachias and the old martyr 
 prophets " suffered for their sins," and this because they 
 suffered from sins the same in kind which characterised the 
 Jews in the days of our Lord ? And if any one should have 
 said, speaking of the same parties, that Abel and Barachias 
 " suffered for their sins, the just for the unjust," it would 
 have been a bit more incomprehensible still. If he had said 
 that Abel and Barachias " were wounded for their trans- 
 gressions and bruised for their iniquities," could we have 
 understood him to mean that they were wounded and made 
 martyrs by sins the same in kind as characterised the Jews 
 of the day of our Lord ? but if he added that " the chastise- 
 ment of their peace was upon them," would he mean next 
 that they were chastised by a peace of the same kind as 
 characterised these Jews ? If, when Christ is said to have 
 " suffered for our sins, "this means that our sins virtually 
 caused His sufferings, since the same wicked spirit actuates 
 us which influenced the scribes and Pharisees, one can see 
 how this suggests a humbling and self-abasing reflection to 
 us ; but how does it happen that such expressions, as 
 employed in Scripture, are considered as announcing a truth 
 to us fraught with triumphant joy ? This of course they 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 357 
 
 do, if our Calvinistic exegesis be the correct one ; provided, 
 in other words, they mean that He suffered for our sins as 
 a Surety. According to the other exegesis, on the contrary, 
 they convey a fact which rather aggravates our moral guilt 
 by suggesting the most alarming view that can be taken of 
 them, that they are sins essentially of the same kind which 
 actuated the Jews to crucify the Lord of glory; and, 
 although we can see how they might be produced to move 
 repentance in our souls, it is impossible that they should 
 be produced to inspire comfort. If Christ was " delivered 
 for our offences," only in the sense of being the victim of 
 such offences as we commit, does any man see how " he 
 should rise again for our justification " ? 
 
 Having already exhausted the reader by this examination 
 of Mr. Robertson's religious opinions, we shall not indulge 
 in any lengthened remarks upon the instruction and warning 
 conveyed to us by his ministerial career. In an evil hour he 
 allowed himself to be seduced from the only infallible rule of 
 faith, which is the Bible, accepted absolutely in the letter of 
 it, and to be guided by the deliverances of the natural con- 
 science, granting, no doubt, the necessity of the teachings of 
 Christ's life and ministry, and even the necessity in part of 
 the assistance of the Spirit (though rather of the universal 
 spirit that pervades the universe than what we call the 
 Spirit of Christ), but still allowing the innate sentiments of 
 humanity, thus assisted, to be the standard, and superior to 
 the Bible, which, when it contradicts them, is to be under- 
 stood as speaking inaccurately or in mere accommodation to 
 vulgar conceptions. It was thus that he slipped away from 
 the eternal anchorage ! His was upon the whole as melan- 
 choly a case as has come before us in these times. Although 
 there are many others of more brilliant genius than he who 
 have made shipwreck upon this rock, and indeed it is the 
 grand point of danger lying in our modern course, it was 
 most of all affecting to see this vessel, of such a buoyant 
 build, and which " rode the waters like a thing of life," 
 
358 THE RELIGION OF OUR LITERATURE. 
 
 bound to all appearance fearlessly to the best of harbours, 
 suddenly arrested by the felon winds 
 
 Which blow from off this beaked promontory, 
 and, after a dire and ineffectual struggle with them, driven 
 right upon the danger, and broken asunder. If he had 
 belonged to a Presbyterian Church, where provision is made 
 for averting such a catastrophe by the authority and weight 
 of the Church being brought to bear upon the minds of those 
 who begin to err from the faith, and by brotherly and 
 fatherly conferences, he might have been arrested and 
 rescued. As it was, there was nothing but the frown of a 
 displeased rector, neutralised by the license of a sympa- 
 thising bishop ; or at the best, or the worst, there were 
 anonymous letters from dissatisfied members of his con- 
 gregation, and distressing visits to his study by orthodox 
 ladies who came to exonerate their consciences. A greater 
 mistake never existed than to think that a regulated dealing 
 and discipline, in such cases, of the Church is persecution : 
 it is the ordeal through which the individual who has differed, 
 whether rightly or wrongly, from the mass of his fellows, 
 ought certainly to pass. If, being in the right, he is con- 
 demned, he comes forth, with an excommunication that will 
 do him no harm, to be the sealed reformer of the nation ; but 
 if, as is immensely more probable, he is in the wrong, he 
 finds his doctrine look excessively untenable when subjected 
 to the judicial scrutiny of a thousand eyes, instead of one 
 pair of them, and these partial. Unhappily deprived of the 
 benefit of this salutary ordeal, our young friend pursued his 
 rationalistic speculations, looking upon the opposition he 
 encountered as the seal of his fidelity; wondering that he 
 was unintelligible — a species of Carlyle in the pulpit (can 
 anything be worse ?) ; imagining that the sufferings he 
 brought upon himself from various quarters by denying the 
 atonement proved his conformity to Him who went forward 
 to the cross to make it ! What then? I think that his Win- 
 chester ministry will stand. Nay, I hope and believe that 
 
ROBERTSON OF BRIGHTON. 359 
 
 the vital godliness and the zeal which he derived from his 
 first scriptural and evangelical creed wrought much that was 
 accepted in him at Brighton, though the doctrinal super- 
 structure he reared there was wood, hay, and stubble — 
 nothing else. The tree that had flourished at Winchester 
 cast its leaves, " but its substance was in it." 
 
 UNWIN BEOTHESE, TUfi fiKSSHAM PRtSS, CHtLtt'OKTH AND LONDON. 
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