Fancies," p. 33) this question is considered in its more general form as the question how, for all moral and religious purposes, we are to think of the ultimate power, whether in terms of nature or of human nature; and its conclusion is that, though we never can reach the "nature of Deity," which is by us "inconceivable," our idea must contain "man's everyday conception of himself." Since our instinct of worship, our gratitude, for us both natural and good, are meaningless if we may not do so, and there would be moral loss both ways. And the mystery of man's own nature is witness in its degree to the credibility of the divine mystery. Man's "dust instinct with fire unknowable" makes it conceivable. What we reach on such a matter is a moral conception, not an exact truth; and, though we are certainly unable to "make square to a finite eye the circle of infinity," though we cannot adjust our knowledge of the scheme of nature, or our abstract idea of divine "perfection," with such a doctrine on moral grounds, we must hold modestly by this way of thinking, and by this truth.

Browning has come many times, in the course of his work, full upon this question of the validity and character of man's thought of God. It is a question that has been more openly and completely raised by the thought of our age than by that of any previous age. It has passed out of the sphere of abstract discussion, and has become a great spiritual and even practical question. It belongs, for this reason, to the scope of a poet to whom nothing is alien that enters

into man's life, and the way in which a poet and thinker with Browning's qualifications sees this question as it bears on man is a matter of much interest even in the consideration of the question itself. As to the way in which Browning has regarded the question, I would note these points as shown in the poems above taken. The reality of some supreme fact, the validity of some great idea, seems to be assumed. The question of the worth of man's thoughts about such a matter is frankly met. But the matter is regarded not so much as a question of knowledge, but as a question of life. It may be that in the former sense the question is too large, but, brought to the test of man's history and life, the ground is clear. And if any faith be valid, if any thought be reasonable, then no better thought is possible than such as is provided by the higher terms of man's own nature; and we not only may, but ought to, regard the instincts of man's heart and the higher uses of man's life as leading parts of the problem.

As bearing on these ideas, I will only refer to three passages-one in "Sordello" (pp. 206, 207), in which the poet gives obscurely the solution of part of the problem of that poem. Sordello, he tells us, had two great wants-the need of some power far above his life, and so out of all "rivalry" with it, and the need of some "representative" of that power within his own sphere. Is this "representative" found in spiritual ideas and the service of mankind, or in some revelation" of the divine? The answer is not clear,

but the passage implies the need of faith in some transcendent Power, whose excellence is the meaning of all good, the ground of all duty, and the inspiration of all love.

66

A striking passage in the "Epistle of Karshish" is more definite. The Arab physician, after describing the case" and the character of Lazarus, goes on to speak of things Lazarus had said to him, and of one thing especially: he had said that the Man who had "cured" him (or, as Lazarus believed, brought him back to life) was "God, Creator and Sustainer of the world, who came and dwelt on it in flesh" for thirty years or more. He is ashamed even to have reported such a notion, and goes off in haste to other things. But he returns to it, next time as giving a new, tender, and sublime idea of God-the idea of a gentle humanity behind all the power. Strange and incredible, yet how winning! Such passages point to the poet's faith in the moral and spiritual basis of an "incarnation," not, I judge, in any "historic fact."

And later "Ixion" ("Iocoseria," 1883) depicts forcibly that moral necessity which impels man to seek the highest as God. By his pain and the terrible injustice he felt it to be, Ixion is driven within sight of a truth that makes his pain a triumph. He rises beyond "the gods" to God; beyond Zeus to the Perfection he feels must be above such as Zeus. The gods of fear and fancy give place to a God of conscience, and man realizes his own dignity in realizing that supreme Law which must be one with "the true God."

CHAPTER XI.

BROWNING'S POETRY AND THE IDEAL OF RELIGION -LEADING SPIRITUAL IDEAS.

OUR last group of poems was described as poetic studies of religious ideas. Even in these poems one can discern a quality of sympathy and conviction. In the present group we shall find this quality much more distinctly.

They raise, therefore, more fully the question of the relation of this poetry to religion, and the question of the spiritual ideas that are found in it. Of the first question I would say something now, of the second at a later point. It seems hard to get the relation of poetry to spiritual religion clearly grasped. And as to the second question, readers either hold most of the ideas found in the poems as the poet's own thoughts, or they hold that he has never expressed any of his own "beliefs" at all.

In trying to make clear the poet's standpoint and relation in the matter, I must recur to part of what has been said before. Even yet, though less than in

the past, religion is too much regarded as something peculiar and speculative-something kept alive, if not made, by theologians and Churches. And as in these senses it has lost interest and value for many of us, it is apt to be assumed that there is nothing in it now to warrant a good poet in troubling us about it. And this is so, unless there be a religion of the free mind and the free spirit—a religion that was before "Articles" and Churches, and that will be after all of these yet organized are no more. But if religion, as the poet deals with it, be a matter human and vital, the case is altered. Since these things belong to man they belong to art, and are distinctly within the province of the poet on the broad ground of fact.

To give art the range, depth, and sincerity of life was very much the meaning of the romantic movement of the early part of this century, and one result of the movement was to restore art to its right relation to religion. And this result was as just on its historical and moral sides as it has been good on its æsthetic. The relations of poetry and religion are ancient and profound. The great drama of Greece is but one instance of a general law. Arising in religion, it remained a religious service and was animated by religious ideas. And we find other literatures powerfully affected or fashioned by these ideas. Man's first wonder, curiosity, and joy were religious. His sense of law in human life, his sense of good and evil, had reference to divine powers.