By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity. (ll. 230-233.)

Those of us who are inclined to reproach Browning for the severity of the condemnation of Roman Catholic ritual ascribed to the soliloquist in Section XI will do well to read again Sections I to IV, which assuredly place the service of Zion Chapel in a far less attractive light than that thrown upon the ceremony in progress beneath the dome of St. Peter’s.

II. Thus the listener passes from the confines of the Chapel to the limitless expanse of the common without: and the change in externals is indicative also of that within. Whilst discerning the errors of preacher and congregation, the critic has been blinded to the fact that he, too, is equally removed from the spirit of love designed to prove the inspiring principle of all forms of Christianity, however crude their mode of expression. The soothing influence of Nature to which he has ever been peculiarly susceptible, causes at once

A glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me. (ll. 274-276.)

So he stands, recalling the visions of youth, when he “looked to these very skies, probing their immensities,” and “found God there, his visible power.” The power was unquestionable, a mere response to the evidence of the senses; but reason, coming to the aid of sight, pointed to the existence also of Love, “the nobler dower.” The deduction is logical, since the absence of Love at once imposes limitations to power otherwise apparently infinite. The craving for love existent within the human heart demands satisfaction, and if in this direction the Deity is unable to satisfy the needs of his creatures, man here surpasses his maker, the creature the creator. Irresponsible power, not comprehensive of love, is of the character of that exercised by Setebos according to the theory of Caliban. Here man is seen endowed with gifts of heart and brain, to exercise through his own will, but for the glory of his creator “as a mere machine could never do.” Power (in this place synonymous with force combined with knowledge) may advance by degrees, not so Love. Love does not admit of measurement, since it is by nature infinite. As with eternity, so with Love. By no relative estimate of time can any possible realization of eternity be approached; the sole result of any such attempt at exposition being necessarily conducive to a wholly erroneous impression on the mind, since that which is in its essence infinite admits of no defined measure. Thus infinite Love remains infinite in spite of human limitations. Whilst absolute truth remains, though the revelation to man is gradual, so does Love remain unimpaired, though man may profit by or abuse it.

’Tis not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before. (ll. 322-326.)

Thus S. Augustine: “Do heaven and earth then contain Thee, since Thou fillest them?... The vessels which are full of Thee do not confine Thee, though they should be shattered, Thou wouldest not be poured out.”[63]

To sum up: Where Power alone was at first discernible, in the wonderful care manifested in the smallest creation, “in the leaf, in the stone,” the work of Love eventually became equally clear. For a similar expression of Browning’s more immediately personal faith we have only to turn to his latest published work, The Reverie of Asolando.

From the first Power was—I knew.
Life has made clear to me,
That, strive but for closer view,
Love were as plain to see.

In simple faith in this all-prevailing Providence, in a recognition of the immanence of the Divine Love, the critic of Zion Chapel believes himself to have found the highest form of worship. Before the night is ended he is, however, to learn differently.

The Vision of Sections VII to IX renders still more forcible the revelation already begun with the escape from the Chapel—that the Love which may be duly worshipped alone in spirit and in truth yet recognizes the feeblest manifestation of either in the worshipper: and that the nearest approach to union with the Divine Love is to be sought in a fuller and more immediate response to the human. And it is worthy of notice that the Vision does not reveal itself within the confines of Zion Chapel, the abode of religious exclusiveness and intolerance; only when the freer atmosphere of Nature has been reached.

III. Rome, St. Peter’s. With the opening of the next division of the Poem (Sections X to XII), we find the man who has been anxious that the divine worship shall be celebrated in beauty, as well as in spirit and in truth, again an onlooker: waiting without the walls of St. Peter’s, “that miraculous Dome of God,”—waiting without, yet with eye “free to pierce the crust of the outer wall,” and perceive the crowd thronging the cathedral

In expectation
Of the main-altar’s consummation.

And here is to be found all that was wanting to the bare whitewashed interior of “Mount Zion” with its “lath and plaster entry,” with “the forms burlesque, uncouth” of its worship. Here the vast building

Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,
With marble for brick, and stones of price
For garniture of the edifice. (ll. 538-540.)

In place of the “snuffle” of the Methodist congregation and the “immense stupidity” of the utterances of the preacher is the silence which may be felt of that solemn moment preceding the elevation, when “the organ blatant holds his breath.... As if God’s hushing finger grazed him.” (ll. 574-575.) Whatever the sympathies of spectator or author, no lines in the entire poem are more impressive for the reader than those which follow:

Earth breaks up, time drops away,
In flows heaven, with its new day
Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree,—
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,
But the one God, All in all,
King of kings, Lord of lords,
As His servant John received the words,
“I died, and live for evermore!” (ll. 581-593.)

The conviction is almost inevitable that here something beyond even the power of dramatic genius has to be reckoned with; that some spirit more nearly akin to intimate personal sympathy served as inspiration of this passage.

Carried away by the infection of the prevailing enthusiasm, the spectator questions as to the cause which has led him to remain without upon the threshold-stone of the cathedral, whilst He who has led him hither is within. And the answer which Reason returns is, that whilst the Divine Wisdom may be capable of discerning the faith and love existent beneath the outward imagery, yet with “mere man” the case is otherwise; hence for him to disregard the inward promptings of his nature is dangerous to his spiritual welfare. Thus the decision:

I, a mere man, fear to quit
The due God gave me as most fit
To guide my footsteps through life’s maze,
Because himself discerns all ways
Open to reach him. (ll. 621-625.)

For him to whom the bare walls of Zion Chapel have proved repellant, the glories of St. Peter’s may conceivably be fatally attractive in their appeal to the senses: such, reasonably or unreasonably, is at least the belief of the soliloquist. The argument of this eleventh Section is perhaps the most difficult to follow satisfactorily of all those leading to the ultimate choice of creed. Before attempting to estimate the worth of the conclusions, it may be well to trace briefly the line of thought by which they appear to have been reached.

(1) The spectator, at first struck by the glory of outward display as a means of still imposing upon the world “Rome’s gross yoke,” is yet led, through proximity to the Divine Presence, whilst seeing the error, “above the scope of error” to realize the love. And further, to admit (2) that the love inspiring the worshippers of St. Peter’s on this Christmas Eve of 1849 was also “the love of those first Christian days,” a love which did not hesitate to sacrifice all which might interpose between itself and the Divine Love whence it emanated. When

The antique sovereign Intellect
Which then sat ruling in the world,
... was hurled
From the throne he reigned upon. (ll. 650-653.)

Subsequently followed all the wealth of poetry and rhetoric, of sculpture and painting sometime the pride of the classical world. Love, and it was Love which was acting, drew her children aside from these intellectual and sensuous gratifications, and pointed to the Crucified. She thus, says the soliloquist, had demanded of her votaries vast sacrifices which might reasonably have been held essential in the early days of Christianity. We have already seen, indeed, how empty of ultimate satisfaction had been these same intellectual pleasures to Cleon: how obviously light would have been, to him, the sacrifice involved in an acceptance of any faith which should afford a definite and reasonable hope for a future state of existence: how small a price would have been the loss of life temporal in view of the gain of life eternal. (3) But the critic, whilst admitting the sublimity of the sacrifice of the first century of the Christian era, deprecates the demand made for its repetition in the nineteenth. It is time for Love’s children not only to “creep, stand steady upon their feet,” but to “walk already. Not to speak of trying to climb” (ll. 697-699). The limitations imposed upon the intellect and its free development should long since have been discarded. (4) Yet, though recognizing this to the full, the speaker will not condemn one of those, however mistaken, whose foreheads bear “lover written above the earnest eyes of them.” These worshippers within St. Peter’s need some satisfaction of the demands made upon their nature by an inherent craving for beauty; and yet have they sacrificed for Love’s sake all that they might have found of intense enjoyment in unfettered life. Dwelling amidst the glories of Rome, ancient and modern, they yet turn from the “Majesties of art around them.” Faith struggles to suppress intellectual and artistic cravings; and these, at length subdued, they “offer up to God for a present.” Denied in the world without the sensuous satisfaction for which they yearn, they would seek it in the display attendant on the Roman Catholic ritual. This is the view of the man who believes himself to be the true “lover” of God, capable of worshipping in spirit and in truth.

How far is he justified in such criticism? Unquestionably he is prejudiced. There exists an unconscious mental bias towards that creed which he is represented as finally accepting; and there is little doubt that it is Browning’s intention to expose the prejudice. The failure in appreciation of the ceremonial at St. Peter’s arises from inability to apprehend beauty in the outward accessories of the service of which he is witness. To his nature it would appear that the demand upon the sensuous side is not so strong as he imagines when he expresses the fear of entering the cathedral and joining the worshipping crowd. He seems, moreover, to ignore, or to pass over lightly, the productions of Christian art, whether in painting or in the music of religious ritual, when he inquires (ll. 681, et seq.):

Love, surely, from that music’s lingering,
Might have filched her organ-fingering,
Nor chosen rather to set prayings
To hog-grunts, praises to horse-neighings.

He ignores, too, the value of symbolism in the later mocking allusion to this experience as “buffoonery—posturings and petticoatings.”

In the main line of thought, however, beginning with Section XI, and developed more fully in XII, is treated no imaginary danger, but that bound inevitably to attend on any religious system in which authority is paramount. The error attributed to the advocates of the Roman Catholic creed is that of rendering the head too completely subservient to the heart. Faith cannot indeed be acquired by any considerations of logic; nevertheless, there is no necessity that Reason and Faith should prove antagonistic forces. To the brain, as well as to the heart, must be allowed scope for development. Hence the speaker represents that Church, in which freedom of thought is limited, as interposing as an intermediary between the conscience and the Divine influence. Such Church he regards as having devoted its energies to the development of a single element or faculty of human nature to the exclusion or limitation of the rest. Nevertheless, in one direction there has been development to an extraordinary degree: and Browning himself, as we have good reason to know, would have been unlikely to criticize adversely this whole-hearted devotion to a cause. For illustration the soliloquist employs that of the sculptor who, without calculating the dimensions of his marble, devotes his energies to the production of a perfect head and shoulders only. This, though necessarily unfinished in actual performance, is far grander in conception than a smaller and fully modelled figure; and the spectator is free to seek elsewhere the completion of the unfinished statue in the work of an artist complementary to that of the first. Thus the onlooker at St. Peter’s resolves to accept the provision there offered for the “satisfaction of his love,” then depart elsewhere—depart to seek the completion of the statue—“that [his] intellect may find its share.” And it is noteworthy that the same critic, who condescends to the employment of language such as that marking the references to the service of St Peter’s, ascribes to the Church of Rome the development of that element which he esteems highest in human nature. Love is ever with the author of Christmas Eve, as with the soliloquist, of worth immeasurably greater than mere intellect.

IV. With Section XIII the critic of Zion Chapel passes once more into the night in search of satisfaction for those demands of the intellect which have been left unanswered at St. Peter’s; and in Section XIV he is represented as finding that which he seeks. Love and Faith to the exclusion of intellectual development he has left in the cathedral at Rome; Intellect without Love he meets in the Lecture Hall at Göttingen. Believing himself to have learned the lesson that wherever even nominal followers of Christ are to be found, there, too, is the Divine Presence, he is now “cautious” how he “suffers to slip”

The chance of joining in fellowship
With any that call themselves his friends. (ll. 800-803.)

Hence, entering the Hall, he follows the course of the consumptive Lecturer’s reasoning on “the myth of Christ.” As to this fable which “Millions believe to the letter” he (the Lecturer) proposes to attempt the work of discrimination between truth and legend.

(1) He reminds his audience, and justly, that it is well at times to pause to inquire concerning the source of articles of their belief; historic fact may become disguised or concealed by accretions of legendary narrative gathered round it: by the various expositions assigned it by commentators of different ages. (2) Having thus examined and freed his “myth” from the misinterpretations of the early disciples, from later additions and modifications; when all has been done he yet admits that the residuum is well worthy of preservation.

A Man!—a right true man, however,
Whose work was worthy a man’s endeavour. (ll. 876-877.)

Moreover

Was he not surely the first to insist on
The natural sovereignty of our race? (ll. 888-889.)

As it were in startling comment upon the assertion of this natural sovereignty, the Professor’s further speech is interrupted by a fit of coughing, and the listener avails himself of the opportunity thus offered to leave the Hall.

Once more free to breathe the outer air his critical powers reassert themselves, and he sees from a point of observation, sufficiently removed, the relative effects of the excesses of the most widely differing forms of Christianity and of that form of belief or of scepticism which denies the divinity of the founder of the creed. His decision is given in favour of superstition as opposed to scepticism.

Truth’s atmosphere may grow mephitic
When Papist struggles with Dissenter,
·······
Each, that thus sets the pure air seething,
May poison it for healthy breathing—
But the Critic leaves no air to poison. (ll. 898-909.)

Then follows the criticism of the Critic.

What has the lecturer, indeed, left to the followers of the Christ?

(1) Intellect? Is the possession of pure intellect to be accounted cause for worship? Even so, others have taught morality as Christ taught it, with the difference (and this surely an advantage from the critic’s standpoint) that these teachers have failed to assert of themselves that to which Christ laid claim on his own behalf: that,

He, the sage and humble,
Was also one with the Creator. (ll. 922-923.)

(2) Worship of the intellect being thus disallowed, what then of the moral worth of the Man Christ as admitted by the Lecturer? Is mere virtue, however great in degree, sufficient to claim as of right for its possessor the submission of his fellow men? Perfection of moral character being allowed, is this adequate reason that the Christ should be held supreme ruler of the race? To answer the question satisfactorily one of two theories must be accepted: either “goodness” is of human “invention” or it is a divine gift freely bestowed. If the first, the Professor’s listener holds that “worship were that man’s fit requital” who should have proved himself capable of exhibiting in his own life, for the first time in the world’s history, that which “goodness” really is. Recognizing, however, the incontrovertible fact that moral worth was present in the world prior to the foundation of Christianity, the so-called “invention” of goodness resolves itself into a mere matter of definition, and the adjustment of names to qualities already existent. In this case he who has achieved this work is no more deserving of worship as the originator or creator of goodness than is Harvey to be adjudged inventor of the circulation of the blood. One is inclined here to question whether the speaker is not carrying his argument beyond the point necessary to the exposure of the weakness of the Lecturer’s position as professed follower of a merely human Christ. Whether or not this be so, he has succeeded in proving logically untenable the first of the two hypotheses suggested in this connection. What then of the second? If goodness is admittedly the direct gift of God, if the founder of Christianity taught how best to preserve such gift “free from fleshly taint”; then he merits indeed the title of Saint, but no more transcendent honour, his powers differing in degree, not in kind, from those of his fellow men: he was inspired, but as Shakespeare was inspired. No immensity of virtue may effect the conversion of human nature into the divine; and the man of supreme moral dignity, as of marvellous intellectual capacity, remains man only; vastly, but yet measurably, beyond his fellows; the position attained being one to which it is possible that humanity may again attain, nay, which it may even surpass in the future “by growth of soul.” And this divine gift of goodness may, moreover, necessarily be bestowed in accordance with the divine will; hence, he who made this man Pilate may well make “this other” Christ. Thus then, if the Prophet of Nazareth is to be regarded as mere man, the Professor’s argument breaks down following the adoption of either hypothesis—that involving a divine or a human origin of goodness.

Is there any point at which the faith of the Christian may come into contact with that of him who, whilst calling himself a follower of Christ, by a denial of His divinity refuses credence to a direct assertion on the part of his leader? To the Christian the main proof of divine inspiration is the spark of divine light kindled within the human breast, that which supplies motive for action, which instigates to practical application of the good already recognized as good by the intelligence: not identical with conscience (as is clear from line 1033), but the power which awakens the activities of conscience. Here again a suggestion of Browning’s usual estimate of the relative worth of the intellect and the heart. The man whose moral standard of life is most depraved is yet possessed of the capacity for discriminating between good and evil; since such capacity does not necessarily imply the co-existence of a life-giving faith, and through faith alone may knowledge become of practical utility.

Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?
Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more
Of what right is, than arrives at birth
In the best man’s acts that we bow before. (ll. 1032-1035.)

To know is not to do: a distinction akin to that drawn in the Epistle of James[64] between intellectual credence and living faith—between belief, the result of the acceptance of certain facts making inevitable appeal to the intellect, and faith inspiring life, the ultimate results of which are manifest in action. This distinction we find again strikingly presented in parabolic form in Shah Abbas of Ferishtah’s Fancies.

The most marked lines of divergence between listener and lecturer would appear then to be that mere abstract good, even morality personified, is insufficient for the satisfaction of the demands of human nature: that the life lived in Palestine did not denote a mere renewal of things old, a more extended development of the good already existent in the world. It introduced a new and more active principle of life, that to which all past history had been leading up, that from which the future history of the human race must take its starting point. The revelation of God in man had been made to men. To sum up—

Morality to the uttermost,
Supreme in Christ as we all confess,
Why need we prove would avail no jot
To make him God, if God he were not?
What is the point where himself lays stress?
Does the precept run, “Believe in good,
In justice, truth, now understood
For the first time?”—or, “Believe in me,
Who lived and died, yet essentially
Am Lord of Life?” Whoever can take
The same to his heart and for mere love’s sake
Conceive of the love,—that man obtains
A new truth; no conviction gains
Of an old one only, made intense
By a fresh appeal to his faded sense. (ll. 1045-1059.)

These the lines of divergence. Are there none of approach? asks the listener who is gradually learning from his night’s experience to seek a common bond of sympathy between himself and his fellow men, rather than an increase of the repulsion so spontaneously awakened within the walls of Zion Chapel. At Rome he took his share in the “feast of love,” which afforded little satisfaction to intellectual cravings; here he would fain accept all that may accrue to him from the pursuit of learning apart from love.

Unlearned love was safe from spurning—
Can’t we respect your loveless learning? (ll. 1084-1085.)

Recognizing the zeal for truth which has instigated the critical investigations of the lecturer, he is prepared, with a liberality of which he is clearly sufficiently conscious, to allow to him and to his followers such benefit as may be derived from the acceptance of “a loveless creed”; even conceding to them, so be it they still desire it, the name of Christian, which he too bears. With generosity yet greater he will refrain from all attempt to disturb that condition of stoical calm to which they have at length attained, by pointing out to them the weaknesses of their theory, which he has just so amply demonstrated to his own satisfaction.

V. Thus he leaves the lecture hall in a “genial mood of tolerance,” of which the conclusions of Section XIX are the outcome. The element of truth existent in varying forms of creed, beneath all dissimilarities of outward expression, has at length become recognizable; carrying with it the prevision of that complete union ultimately to be effected before “the general Father’s throne.” When “the saints of many a warring creed” shall have learned

That all paths to the Father lead
Where Self the feet have spurned.

Where

Moravian hymn and Roman chant
In one devotion blend;

and all

Discords find harmonious close,
In God’s atoning ear.[65]

Of what nobler conception, it may be asked, is the human imagination capable? Nevertheless, to certain natures (so holds the soliloquist, clearly recognizing his own as of this calibre) there is danger lest this generous comprehensiveness should prove inseparable from the “mild indifferentism” fatal to action. Hence in Section XX, whilst engaged in watching his

Foolish heart expand
In the lazy glow of benevolence, (ll. 1154-1155.)

he is not surprised to perceive, in the token of the receding vesture, indications of the divine disapproval of his position. And he is led to the conclusion that not only for the individual worshipper must there be some special form of creed best adapted to the individual needs of temperament, but (as ll. 1158-1159 would appear to suggest) some absolute form of creed may possibly be discoverable. And to this “single track”:

God, by God’s own ways occult,
May—doth, I will believe—bring back
All wanderers. (ll. 1170-1172.)

Thus unity is attained, but with a suggestion of methods of attainment other than those indicated at the close of Section XIX. The main difference of intention between the two Sections would appear to be that whilst here (XX) also ultimate unity is to be achieved through the divine providence, yet something more is required of the individual believer than a passive reliance on the assurance of this future fusion of creeds. And further, the manifest and immediate duty being the discovery of the, for him, “best way of worship,” this once reached, he must rest satisfied with no merely personal acceptance: the benefits resultant from his own spiritual experiences are designed for a wider use, a more extended service of human fellowship; he, too, may seek to “bring back wanderers to the single track.” Here again is perceptible one of Browning’s prevailing ideas. Never (I believe) is he to be found advocating any vast corporate revolution for the amelioration of mankind: the advance of the race is to be secured through the advance of individual members.

VI. As a practical result of the foregoing conclusions follow (in Section XXII) a return to the Chapel, and an application to the special form of worship therein celebrated, of the genial “glow of benevolence” already kindling within the breast of the sometime critic. And here the dramatic character of the poem becomes perhaps more strikingly obvious than hitherto. By one or two able and characteristic strokes is suggested the egotistical temperament of the soliloquist, with its susceptibility to external influences, its inevitable tendency towards criticism. Even though he has, as he deems, learnt from the night’s experience the valuable lesson of receiving “in meekness” the mode of worship simplest in form and most spiritual in character, yet the language employed in lines 1310-1315 is that of no advocate of a kindly tolerance, but of an orthodox and bigoted methodist. It is a part, so it would seem, of the dramatic purpose, and of the mental analysis of which Browning was so fond, to thus demonstrate to his readers how a reasoning and reflective being, possessed of a certain amount of intellectual alertness, should enrol himself amongst the members of a body whose pre-eminent characteristic to the unsympathizing spectator appears that of a narrow dogmatic exclusivism, combined with extreme intellectual limitations.

Nevertheless, in spite of practical result, very ably does the speaker in Section XXII theoretically define the essence of true worship, the spirit of devotion. Whilst human nature remains untranslated, and man is possessed of physical perceptions, and of ratiocinative faculties, the nasal intonation, and logical and grammatical lapses of the preacher, though they may be condoned, can hardly be ignored. But to the seeker after truth, so ardent should be the yearning towards the attainment of the end, that all defects in the means should be cheerfully accepted. It is perhaps not easy to put the case strongly enough, without going too far on the other side, and ignoring the means absolutely, thus returning to the position, already renounced by the soliloquist in Section V, where man looks direct “through Nature to Nature’s God.” A condition which, whilst unquestionably the highest and most purely spiritual, would appear to be possible to a certain type of mind only, and that in moments of special illumination. To the average temperament might arise from such a system the danger lest, whilst dispensing with forms, the spirit should likewise be forgotten; and worship should thus altogether cease. In accordance with the capacity for growth inherent in man’s nature, with his creed, as with all else, must be development, if life is to be preserved. The means appointed for his instruction may not be always those in most complete adjustment with his inclinations; nevertheless let him not neglect those vouchsafed him so long as all tend, however indirectly, towards the attainment of the ultimate goal, the complete realization of Truth. Seeking to gain for himself further knowledge of the Divine Will, let him not lose sight of the end in a too critical consideration of the means. What avails the thirsty traveller the splendour of the marble drinking-cup, if so be that it is empty:

Better have knelt at the poorest stream
That trickles in pain from the straitest rift! (ll. 1284-1285.)

To the question of main import advanced in the present instance,

Is there water or not to drink? (l. 1288.)

the latest comer to Zion Chapel replies in the affirmative; though he would fain wish

The flaws were fewer
In the earthen vessel, holding treasure
Which lies as safe in a golden ewer. (ll. 1300-1302.)

We are inclined to ask, might he not, too, have returned an affirmative answer in yet another relation, had he but regarded the celebrants of St. Peter’s in that spirit of tolerance with which he now condones the defects of the Methodist preacher: since, on his own showing, there prevails in Zion Chapel the jealous exclusivism resultant from spiritual pride. Was not some valuable residuum of truth to be found in Rome? Surely so. But had the soliloquist proved capable of giving this answer, with the change of personal character thus indicated, would have been transformed, also, the character of the entire poem.

The reason for his present choice he makes sufficiently clear. That form of creed shall be his which takes into account the complexity of human nature. The emotions (so he holds) alone received satisfaction at Rome; intellectual development being checked. At Göttingen the intellect was cultivated at the expense of the spiritual faculties. Now in the poverty and ignorance of Zion Chapel he believes himself to discern provision, however poor in quality, for all man’s requirements and aspirations. Immeasurably inferior to Rome in beauty of architectural form, in the impressiveness of its ritual; incomparably below Göttingen in intellectual attainment, it is yet in some sort superior to both alike. Superior to Rome in that it allows scope for the development of the intellectual capacity, coarse and poor as is the quality of the mental pabulum offered by its minister. Superior to Göttingen in that the preacher would fain afford some satisfaction to the emotional as well as to the intellectual cravings of his congregation. To these poor “ruins of humanity,” a personal Saviour is a necessity:

Something more substantial
Than a fable, myth, or personification.

Some one, not something, who in the critical hour of life shall do for him

What no mere man shall,
And stand confessed as the God of salvation. (ll. 1322-1325.)

Clearly to the speaker, in spite of the objectionable character of the surroundings, they secure a “comfort”—

Which an empire gained, were a loss without. (ll. 1308-1309.)

Thus the choice is made in face of defects seemingly at first hopelessly repellant. And in leaving the soliloquist of Christmas Eve amidst the Zion Chapel congregation, our conviction touching the future is based upon grounds amply justifiable; that he may in spiritual development outgrow the limits he has for the present assigned himself. Since, despite the influences of prejudice and of bigotry yet remaining, he has already proved capable of seeking a position whence, in his own words, direct reference is made to Him “Who head and heart alike discerns.” From such a position, progress, expansion, as the law of life becomes, not only possible, but inevitable, since the soul’s outlook is at once freed from limitations by the transference of contemplation

From the gift ... to the giver,
And from the cistern to the river,
And from the finite to infinity,
And from man’s dust to God’s divinity. (ll. 1012-1015.)

Such deductions as to the intention of this poem are at least fully in accordance with those suggestions of theories which we have so far gathered from a consideration of other of Browning’s works.

LECTURE V
CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (ii)

LECTURE V
CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (ii)

Thus in the opening lines of Easter Day is suggested the subject occupying the entire poem: a consideration of the difficulty attendant upon an acceptance of the Christian faith, sufficiently practical in character to serve as the mainspring of life. The difficulty is not solved at the close, since identical in form with the earlier assertion is the final decision

I find it hard
To be a Christian. (ll. 1030-1031.)

Nevertheless, the nature of the position has been modified. The obstacles in the way of faith are no longer regretted as a bar to progress, rather are they welcomed as an impetus towards the increase of spiritual vitality and growth. It is the work of the intervening reflections and resultant deductions to effect this change, by supplying a reasonable hypothesis on which to base an explanation of the existent conditions of life.

As with Christmas Eve, so here, for a full appreciation of the arguments advanced, some understanding is essential of the character of the speaker. It is at once obvious that he who finds it hard to be a Christian may not be identified with the critic of the Göttingen lecturer: but, that no loophole may be left for question, the statement is directly made in Section XIV.

On such a night three years ago,
It chanced that I had cause to cross
The common, where the chapel was,
Our friend spoke of, the other day. (ll. 372-375.)

Later, in the same Section (ll. 398-418), a descriptive touch is supplied, recalling curiously Browning’s estimate of himself in Prospice.

I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.

Thus the first speaker in Easter Day refers to his childish aversion to uncertainty, even though uncertainty meant present safety.

I would always burst
The door ope, know my fate at first. (ll. 417-418.)

This then is the man, a fearless fighter, an uncompromising investigator who, whilst he would “fain be a Christian,” is yet bound to reject a mere uncritical acceptance of the tenets of Christianity. Opposed to him in the first twelve Sections is a second speaker to whom, somewhat strangely it would seem, the designation sceptic has been applied. The title in its virtual sense, is, indeed, justly applicable, but in the ordinary acceptation might possibly prove misleading. It is a fact of common experience that among professing Christians, of whatever form of creed, are to be found those who, in that peculiar crisis of life when death removes from sight those dearest to them, go back from the fundamental tenets of a faith in which hitherto their confidence appeared to have been unshaken. Even that main pillar of faith, a belief in the immortality of the soul, lies temporarily shattered. Such failure suggests itself as the result of an insufficiently considered acceptance of dogma; an acceptance without question, rather than in spite of doubts and questionings. This distinction we have seen Bishop Blougram drawing between the position of the man who implicitly believes, since, his logical and reasoning faculties being undeveloped or inactive, no cause for question arises; and the position of him who, in the midst of spiritual perplexity, makes “doubt occasion still more faith.” To Browning, with whom half-heartedness was the one unpardonable sin, this so-called faith would necessarily be far more dangerous than downright acknowledged scepticism. Hence the succeeding argument of Easter Day becomes one, not between a pronounced sceptic and a would-be Christian, but rather between two nominal Christians whose outward profession may be similar but the motives inspiring it wholly at variance—This in accordance with Browning’s peculiar attraction towards problems involving the establishment of connection between motive and action. As in Bishop Blougram’s Apology his psychological analysis would reconcile two apparently irreconcilable aspects of the mind of a prelate whose position had perplexed the world. As by a method closely akin to this treatment, he offers explanation of the presence, amongst the illiterate and bigoted congregation of Zion Chapel, of a man whose intellectual capacity should have led him to assume a position of wider tolerance: so here, too, he would discover and reveal the link between the outward form of creed and the widely differing spiritual acceptance of the same in two individual cases.

I. The arguments of Sections I to XII are not always easy to follow closely; but, in passing with Section XIII to the history of the Vision, all obscurity vanishes, and we have no difficulty in tracing the line of thought of the first speaker, resulting in his willing reconcilement to the uncertainties inseparable from human life as at present constituted. A brief attempt to follow the preceding course of argument will afford an explanation of the speaker’s position at the opening of Section XIII. (1) The difficulty advanced at the outset of attaining to even a moderate realization of the possibilities of the Christian life is ascribed by the first speaker (at the close of Section I) to the essential indefiniteness in things spiritual implied in the very suggestion of advance, of growth. That which we believed yesterday to be the mountain-top proves to-day but the vantage-ground for a yet higher ascent:

And where we looked for crowns to fall,
We find the tug’s to come. (ll. 27-28.)

In reply, the second speaker admits the existence of difficulty, but of one differing somewhat in character from that recognized by his interlocutor. The Christian life were a sufficiently straightforward matter, if belief pure and simple were possible: if, as he puts the case, the relative worth of things temporal and eternal were once rendered clear and unmistakable. Even martyrdom itself would then become as nothing to the believer.

(2) The first speaker, or the soliloquist (since he it is who actually advances the arguments consistent with the position of his imaginary companion), whilst accepting the truth of the proposition, reasserts the theory, little more than suggested in Section I, that such fixity and definiteness of belief is, under existing conditions, an impossibility. If not in the visible world, granting so much, yet beyond it, is that which may not be grasped by the finite intelligence. Such limitations may perchance serve for the term of mortal life; but in the light thrown upon life by the approach of death a change will inevitably pass over the aspect of all things, and

Eyes, late wide, begin to wink
Nor see the path so well. (ll. 57-58.)

Again, the Christian who does not wish his position of moderate faith to be disturbed, agrees; but attributes the shifting ground of belief to the self-evident truth that faith would no longer be faith were the objects with which it deals mere matters of common and proved knowledge, belief in them as inevitable as the necessity of breath to the living creature.

You must mix some uncertainty
With faith, if you would have faith be. (ll. 71-72.)

Even in the intercourse of everyday life, faith is a necessity. Now, had the easy-going Christian paused at this stage of the discussion, with line 82, his argument would have had the weight which attaches to an elaboration of the same theory given by Browning elsewhere—in An Epistle of Karshish. But even he, upon whom these considerations are forced for what one may well believe to be the first time, finds that any individual proposition requires constant modification, that a doubt will “peep unexpectedly.” Thus, though faith, with its attendant uncertainty, may well obtain in the relations between man and man, yet, between the Creator and his creation, is it not possible that more clearly defined regulations shall subsist?

(3) The thinker who is anxious to rightly adjust his own position in the world of faith interposes before the argument has passed to its final stage, and points to the conditions prevailing in the world of lower animal life where the entire creation “travails and groans”—reverting again to the assurance which, as the conclusion of the poem is to show, had been indelibly stamped upon his mind by the experience of the Vision—the assurance already referred to in Sections I and II, that could these conditions be changed, then, too, would be altered the character of human life, its purpose—as Browning ever regards it—would be annulled. This is not the place to discuss the question of the probationary character of life and its educative purpose; it is sufficient to recognize that in Nature is discoverable no definite and final answer to the questionings of doubt. Hence, with Section VI, the second speaker shifts his ground; and admitting that this suggested “scientific faith,” is impracticable, declares himself none the more prepared, therefore, to yield such faith as may yet be possible to him. All he would ask is that the greater probability may rest upon the side of that creed which he professes. His belief, such as it is, affords him satisfaction, and will continue, so he holds, sufficient for his needs until its “curtain is furled away by death.” And he would at once meet the arguments which he sees his companion prepared to advance in favour of asceticism. To give up the world for Eternity is surely an act sufficiently easy of accomplishment, since the renunciation is daily effected for causes of small moment. Whilst the would-be Christian shrinks at prospect of the hardships involved in self-denial, his worldly neighbour is adopting that self-same life of abstention that he may attain an object no more important than that of acquiring a record collection of beetles or of snuff-boxes. In short, in the speaker’s own words, by subduing the demands of the flesh, he would be

Doing that alone,
To gain a palm-branch and a throne,
Which fifty people undertake
To do, and gladly, for the sake
Of giving a Semitic guess,
Or playing pawns at blindfold chess. (ll. 165-170.)

(4) The second speaker then, having declared himself satisfied with a minimum of evidence as to the truth of his creed, a balance, merely, in favour of its probability, there follows the scornful comment of the man who would take nothing upon trust, investigation of which is possible—

As is your sort of mind,
So is your sort of search: you’ll find
What you desire, and that’s to be
A Christian. (ll. 173-176.)

To such a nature belief is easy where belief is desirable; the very reason which would hinder faith on the part of his opponent. The search made either for intellectual or emotional satisfaction will meet with equal result. Whether for historical confirmation of the Scriptural narrative, or in a philosophic attempt to adapt the Christian creed to the wants of the human heart. Where, indeed, this satisfaction is found for spiritual cravings, the intellectual may be disregarded; when

Faith plucks such substantial fruit
······
She little needs to look beyond. (ll. 190-192.)

So Bishop Blougram in a somewhat different connection—

If you desire faith—then you’ve faith enough:
What else seeks God—nay, what else seek ourselves? (B. B. A., ll. 634-635.)

In the concluding lines of Section VII and in Section VIII is presented the contrast between the two opposing views. On the one hand, that of the man who is glad to accept the Christian faith as that best calculated for his advantage both in this world and in that to which he looks in the future. On the other hand, the view of the man who will take nothing on trust, who is “ever a fighter,” and who, having fought, and partially, though by no means wholly, vanquished his doubts, is prepared “to mount hardly to eternal life,” at whatever cost of sacrifice and self-denial may be demanded of him. The criticism of the second speaker touching this proposed life of asceticism is that it is to be deprecated, not on account of the self-denial involved, but because such life ignores the bountiful provision of the Creator as evidenced in Nature. To abstain from the enjoyment of the gifts offered is an act of ingratitude towards the Provider. On the contrary, the Christian, whilst discerning love in every gift, should seek from his creed intensification rather than diminution of the joys of life: and in time of adversity when

Sorrows and privations take
The place of joy,

the truths of Christianity shall throw upon the darkness the light of revelation, and

The thing that seems
Mere misery, under human schemes,
Becomes, regarded by the light
Of love, as very near, or quite
As good a gift as joy before. (ll. 216-221.)

(5) The arguments of this and the Section following are of special importance, since on them are based the charges of a too great asceticism which have been urged against the poem. Here, too, the dramatic element is more pronounced than elsewhere. The life of ease, physical and spiritual, to the second speaker a source of supreme gratification and happiness, to the man of sterner mould presents itself as an impossibility. “The all-stupendous tale” of the Gospel leaves him “pale and heartstruck.” The belief that the sufferings there recorded were undergone for the purpose of intensifying the joys of life and affording consolation for its ills, is to him an explanation so inadequate as to approach the verge of profanity. This being so he would demand of the advocate of the life of ease,

How do you counsel in the case?

The answer is characteristic:

I’d take, by all means, in your place,
The safe side, since it so appears:
Deny myself, a few brief years,
The natural pleasure. (ll. 267-271.)

That the eternal reward will outweigh the temporal suffering to the exclusion even of recollection, the testimony of the martyr of the catacombs affords ample proof.

For me, I have forgot it all. (l. 288.)

(6) If this be so, then indeed there remains a direct and certain means of escape from sin, of fulfilment of the purposes of life—self-denial, renunciation. But, as the reply of Section X points out, the argument has been conducted in a circle, and the starting-point on the circumference has now been reached. The original statement has never been satisfactorily controverted. “How hard it is to be a Christian”; hard on account of the uncertainty bound to be attendant on all matters in which faith is requisite. It is hard to be a Christian since the difficulty but shifts its ground and is not actually removed by any venture of faith. After all argument, all reasoning, the possibility remains that the Christian’s hope is a mistaken one; that death is not the gateway to fuller life but the annihilation of life; in short that the Christian has renounced life

For the sake
Of death and nothing else. (ll. 296-297.)

In which case his gain is less than that of the worldling, since he has, at least, temporarily possessed the object towards the acquisition of which his self-denial was directed. Beetles and snuff-boxes may be but small gains, but gains they are to whomso desires them: and “gain is gain, however small.” Nevertheless, in the spirit of Browning, the wrestler with his doubts would rather risk all for the vaguest spiritual hope, than rest satisfied with a life limited to material gratification: rather be the grasshopper

That spends itself in leaps all day
To reach the sun, (ll. 310-311.)

than the mole groping “amid its veritable muck.” When Bishop Blougram makes the same decision—in favour of faith as opposed to scepticism—the motive he alleges is one which might well be ascribed to the second speaker of Easter Day. The choice is influenced, not by aspirations which refuse to be checked, but by considerations of prudence touching a possible future.

Doubt may be wrong—there’s judgment, life to come!
With just that chance, I dare not [i.e. relinquish faith]. (ll. 477-478.)

The attitude of the second speaker towards life generally recalls, indeed, not infrequently the professed opportunism of the Bishop. With Blougram also he fears the effects upon the stability of his faith of a critical investigation of its tenets. Hence, the reproach of Section XI, addressed to the first speaker, whose questionings threaten to disturb the earlier condition of “trusting ease.” The reply of Section XII points out that, the eyes having been once opened, to close them wilfully, living in a determined reliance on hopes proved only too probably fallacious, is to adopt a pagan rather than a Christian conception of life.

II. Section XIII constitutes the introduction to the second part of the poem in which is given the history of the revelation to which the narrator ascribes his realization of the momentous nature of the faith which he and his companion alike profess; and of the life which should be lived upon the lines of that faith. Vivid as the account of the Vision in Christmas Eve is the description by the first speaker of the experiences of the night preceding the dawn of Easter Day, three years ago; when, into the midst of his reflections touching the possibility of a near approach of a Day of Judgment, there broke that tremendous conflagration marking the crisis when man shall awaken to realities from

That insane dream we take
For waking now, because it seems. (ll. 480-481.)

And the portrayal of the Judgment which follows is, in character, just that which we should expect from the pen of the writer who held that “the development of a soul, little else is worth study.” How far the conception is indeed Browning’s own will be best considered in estimating the extent of the dramatic element—in Lecture VI. To trace the history of this particular soul awaiting judgment is our immediate object. In a position of personal isolation from his kind, face to face with his Creator, to that lonely soul “began the Judgment Day.” The sentence from without was unnecessary to him who should pass judgment upon himself.

The intuition burned away
All darkness from [his] spirit too; (ll. 550-551.)

and he recognized in that moment of revelation that, whatever the uncertainty of his position before “the utmost walls of time” should “tumble in” to “end the world,” in that moment was no uncertainty; his choice of life was fixed irrevocably. Hitherto he had loved the world too well to relinquish its joys wholly, whilst yet looking for a time when the renunciation, in which he believed to discern the highest course, should become possible: when he would at last “reconcile those lips”

To letting the dear remnant pass
... some drops of earthly good
Untasted! (ll. 583-585.)

In the light of that flash of intuition, it at once became clear that such an attitude of compromise had meant, in fact, a decision in favour of the world; a choice of things temporal to the virtual exclusion of things eternal. That he, too, had been doing that which he to-night reproaches the Christian of placid assurance for doing: he had been but using his faith “as a condiment” wherewith to “heighten the flavours” of life. The final issue being assured, the true relations of life and faith became manifest. The sentence of the voice beside him was unessential to the revelation

Life is done,
Time ends, Eternity’s begun,
And thou art judged for evermore. (ll. 594-596.)

And yet “the shows of things” remain. No longer fire that

Would shrink
And wither off the blasted face
Of heaven, (ll. 524-526.)

but the common yet visible around, and the sky which above

Stretched drear and emptily of life. (l. 601.)

In that vast stillness of earth and heaven, judgment is as emphatically pronounced as if read from “the opened book,” in the presence of “the small and great,” following “the rising of the quick and dead” which all prior conceptions of the Day of Judgment had led the spectator to anticipate. But he whose sentence had been passed was not of those whom

Bold and blind,
Terror must burn the truth into. (ll. 659-660.)

For these, their fate: such fate as the old Pope trusted should awaken the criminal Franceschini to a realization of the horror and brutality of a deed which he sought to justify to himself and to the world, as an act of self-defence. Sentence is there passed in lines recalling, though with intensified force, the description of Section XV. Thus, the result of the papal reflections—

For the main criminal I have no hope
Except in such a suddenness of fate.
I stood at Naples once, a night so dark
I could have scarce conjectured there was earth
Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all:
But the night’s black was burst through by a blaze—
Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,
Through her whole length of mountain visible:
There lay the city thick and plain with spires,
And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.
So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,
And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.[66]

No such violence of retribution is here necessary. To the more finely tempered nature another fate. The choice between flesh and spirit having been decided, henceforth for the flesh the things of the flesh; for the spirit those of the spirit. The line of demarcation remains unalterable. For him who has chosen “the spirit’s fugitive brief gleams,” yearning for fuller light and life, for him shall those transitory gleams expand into complete and enduring radiance, and he shall “live indeed.” For him who has but employed the spirit as an aid to the gratification of the flesh, using it to

Star the dome
Of sky, that flesh may miss no peak,
No nook of earth. (ll. 693-695.)

For him, as the inevitable outcome of the choice, shall the heaven of spirit be shut; the material world delivered over for the full gratification of the senses. No sudden revelation of terror, no judgment by fire, but the permission—

Glut
Thy sense upon the world: ’tis thine
For ever—take it. (ll. 697-699.)

The hell designed for this man is one in which externals inevitably take no part. The world and its inhabitants apparently pursue their course, “as they were wont to do,” before the time of probation was at an end. The sole difference is to be found in the spiritual outlook. The interest attaching to these things of time is no longer existent; no longer is the soul “visited by God’s free spirit.” Thus is again suggested that central doctrine of Browning’s creed: the superlative worth of the individual soul in the divine scheme of the universe. “God is, thou art.” From this it is only one step to the assurance,

The rest is hurled to nothingness for thee. (ll. 666-667.)

All upon which the eye rests has become for the spectator but an outward show, to be regarded with the consciousness that his own period of probation is for ever ended. It is, of course, in reference to this result of the judgment that in Section XIII the speaker questions the utility of a narration of his story; since if, on the one hand, the listener is actually alive, not to be numbered amongst the outward shows of things, then this fact is proof sufficient of the illusory character of the Vision. Yet, on the other hand, should the listener be “what I fear,” that is, the presentation of a man passed already beyond his probationary phase of existence, then, in good sooth, will the

Warnings fray no one; (ll. 360-361.)

as they will convert no one. With him, the speaker, alone rests the knowledge of the nature of his surroundings, and at times he, too, experiences the old uncertainty as to their true character.

And what the results following the Judgment? (a) At first, joy that all is now free of access where heretofore part only was attainable. Nature lies open not merely for the gratification of the senses, but to be studied by aid of science—

I stooped and picked a leaf of fern,
And recollected I might learn
From books, how many myriad sorts
Of ferns exist (etc.). (ll. 738-741.)

Will not the vistas of “earth’s resources,” thus opening out before the lover of nature, prove composed of “vast exhaustless beauty, endless change of wonder?” Yes: but the Judgment has taught that which the term of probation failed to teach—that a genuine appreciation of these beauties was even then a possibility. Absolute renunciation was not essential to spiritual development: for that alone was needed the insight capable of looking beyond “the gift to the giver,” beyond “the finite to infinity.” Which could recognize in

All partial beauty—a pledge
Of beauty in its plenitude. (ll. 769-770.)

The cause of life’s failure, justifying condemnation, lay in an acceptance of the means as the end, of the pledge in place of the ultimate fulfilment. Now, absolute satiety being attained, the soul’s ambition being bounded by the limits of earth, the plenitude of “those who looked above” is not for it.

(b) But if Nature refuses to yield the satisfaction demanded, the seeker for consolation would turn thence to a contemplation of Art, the works of which he holds as “supplanting,” mainly giving worth to Nature: Art which bears upon it the impress of human labour. And here again recurs the teaching of Andrea del Sarto, of A Toccata of Galuppi’s, of Old Pictures in Florence, of Rabbi Ben Ezra, of Cleon: in short, of almost any of the more characteristic poems. In so far as these artists, to whom the lover of earth looks for satisfaction in his search for the beautiful, refused to recognize as binding the limitations imposed upon their work by temporary conditions: in so far was a sphere of higher development prepared for and awaiting them elsewhere. Undesirous of contemporary appreciation, the true artist is represented as fearing lest judgment should be passed upon that which he realizes to be but the imperfection denoting “perfection hid, reserved in part to grace” that after-time of labour, the existence of which the world ignores. He was

Afraid
His fellow men should give him rank
By mere tentatives which he shrank
Smitten at heart from, all the more,
That gazers pressed in to adore. (ll. 791-795.)

And the speaker has been amongst the throng of spectators who accepted these “mere tentatives” as the consummation of the artist’s powers. Thus with Art as with Nature, “the pledge sufficed his mood.” Hence, in both relations—failure. Enjoyment, enjoyment to the full, of Art as of Nature was no impossibility, only, here too, with the sensuous gratification should have subsisted also the “spirit’s hunger,”

Unsated—not unsatable. (ll. 860-861.)

Unsated, until the soul’s true sphere shall have been attained. Now is that judgment pronounced which we find Andrea del Sarto passing upon himself whilst life and its opportunities yet remained his.

Deride
Their choice now, thou who sit’st outside. (ll. 862-863.)

Their choice, whose guide has been “the spirit’s fugitive brief gleams.” So says Andrea of his fellow artists in Florence—

Themselves, I know,
Reach many a time a heaven that’s shut to me,
········
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.[67]

(c) Nature and Art have then alike failed. Wherein may the yearnings of the soul discover the satisfaction hitherto denied them? Perchance, through a more complete intellectual development.

Mind is best—I will seize mind. (l. 874.)
······
Oh, let me strive to make the most
Of the poor stinted soul, I nipped
Of budding wings, else now equipped
For voyage from summer isle to isle! (ll. 867-870.)

Here a direct reversal of the theory of Bishop Blougram, implied by his censure of the traveller whose equipment was ever adapted to the needs of the future to the neglect of existing requirements. This man, the soliloquist of Easter Day, whose lot is now irrevocably confined to earth, recognizes too late the fatal character of the mistake perpetrated in “nipping the budding wings”: realizes that, as an inevitable result, the course of the race and the goal of the ambition are alike limited, henceforth, by an earthly environment. That “the earth’s best is but the earth’s best.” The failure to look above is, in fact, here more disastrous in its results than in either of the earlier instances: since here the possibilities are also greater. Through the mind alone may come

Those intuitions, grasps of guess,
Which pull the more into the less,
Making the finite comprehend
Infinity. (ll. 905-908.)

To genius have been granted from time to time glimpses of the spiritual world, made plain in moments of insight, yet not too plain. A world which, during his sojourn on earth, is intended not for man’s permanent habitation. A world he must “traverse, not remain a guest in.” Once capable of continuing a denizen of the spiritual world, the uses of earth as a training-ground would be for that man at an end. He who should so live would become a Lazarus, as the Arabian physician presents him to us; in Dr. Westcott’s phrase, “not a man, but a sign.” Brief visions of heaven are vouchsafed, that he who has once seen may “come back and tell the world,” himself “stung with hunger” for the fuller light. As in Nature, as in Art, so, too, here in a more purely intellectual sphere, the pledge is not the plenitude, the symbol not the reality.

Since highest truth, man e’er supplied,
Was ever fable on outside. (ll. 925-926.)

This, too, left unrealized; hence failure also here.

(d) The search for sensuous and for intellectual satisfaction having alike failed, is there no refuge for him whose lot is earth in its fulness? Yes, there is Love, Love which we saw the soliloquist of Christmas Eve recognizing as the “sole good of life on earth.” So now the wearied soul recalls to mind, in the past,

How love repaired all ill,
Cured wrong, soothed grief, made earth amends
With parents, brothers, children, friends. (ll. 938-940.)

Hence the appeal for “leave to love only,” made in full confidence of the divine approval. In place of approval, however, falls the reproof of Section XXX: the warning that all now left to the petitioner is “the show of love,” since love itself has passed with the judgment. The “semblance of a woman,” “departed love,” “old memories,” now alone survive of that which might have been all in all to the soul during its life’s struggle. And here we find the man who has failed through a too exclusive devotion to things temporal taught, by this vision of the final judgment, the truth, at first accepted in Christmas Eve by the man who had looked through Nature to the God of Nature, and refused to worship in the “narrow shrines” of the temples made with hands. That love