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he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds; who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.-Heb. 1: 1-3.

What was it in Christ that suggested to Browning this stupendous meaning? We shall probably discover the answer to this question most readily in the poem "Saul." David in this poem "is occupied with no speculative question, but with the practical problem of saving a ruined soul." He sweeps the universe and his own soul in quest of healing for the King. But it is all in vain. Then he turns to God. He had himself been willing to give his soul for Saul's redemption. Was this love that prompted him to this willing self-sacrifice less than God's?

"Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt His own love can compete with it?"

David had the love to do what he wished for Saul; but he lacked the power. But God had the power as well as the love.

"Would I suffer for Him that I love? So wouldst thou -so wilt thou!

So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost

crown,

And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in."

David reads his own love into God's heart-the love which gave the gift of love to man must be of a piece with what it gives. What man's love would do, God's love would assuredly do-and more. When J. M. Barrie says that the God that little boys say their prayers to has a face very much like their mother's, he is only putting David's argument in another way. David seeks and finds his flesh in the Godhead.

"O Saul, it shall be

A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"

David apprehends the eternal humanity of God; and it was this eternal humanity that, according to Browning, came into the world in the person of Jesus. The Incarnation is the necessary sequel to the poet's thought of God. Since it is God's will to reveal Himself to man, and since He made man in His own image, His perfect revelation must be through and in a man, if man is to understand it. And so the "Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

It is hardly necessary to add that Browning finds the crowning point of Jesus' story in His death; here is that unlimited self-sacrifice which shows "love without a limit." Calvary was that

"transcendent act

Beside which even the creation fades
Into a puny exercise of power."

Sixth Week, Seventh Day

For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray and make request for you, that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, unto all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have

been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fulness dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross.— Col. 1:9-20.

While the Incarnation has thus its larger place and meaning in the sum of things, the love of God in Christ has also a personal significance for the individual. is the assurance of mercy for the contrite, and the promise of the soul's salvation. "Saul the mistake, Saul the failure" may put his trust in Christ; but Browning is not forgetful that unrepented evil must make Christ other than Saviour. "John, the Master of the Temple of God," was being burnt in Paris for his misdeeds and in his extremity calls on Christ. But it is not the cry of a penitent:

"So as John called now through the fire amain

On the Name he had cursed with, all his life—
To the Person he had bought and sold again-
For the Face, with his daily buffets rife-
Feature by feature, It took its place,

And his voice like a mad dog's choking bark,

At the steady whole of the Judge's face

Died. Forth John's soul flared into the dark."

The tragedy of impenitence is that it turns the merciful Saviour into the unrelenting Judge.

But this is not "the face of Jesus Christ" which Browning saw for himself. It is another; and its true parallel is to be found in the writings of St. Paul.

Does Browning find in Jesus the clue to a satisfying account of the universe? So does St. Paul; for “in Him," he says, "are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden."

Does Browning see in Christ the crown and destiny of all things in the universe and out of it? No less does St. Paul, who declares that God purposed "to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth.”

Does Browning find in Christ the fulfilment of the personal life? So also does St. Paul, who cried out, "I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me."

Shall we wonder, then, that Browning should have so seen Jesus that he says of His face:

"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,
Or decomposes but to recompose,

Become my universe that feels and knows"?

SUGGESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION

Why should the conception of evolution have unsettled men's faith?

The expression "the eternal humanity of God" has been used in this week's discussion. Is this a true conception, and how does it bear on the statement that "God made man in His own image"?

Discuss the interpretation of "justification by faith" given in the Fourth Day's reading.

Collect the New Testament passages in which the coming and death of Jesus are used to prove God's love; and compare them with Browning's view.

CHAPTER VII

The Poet as Seeker-Tennyson

(1809-1892)

Tennyson, as we have seen, lived in a time of intellectual unrest. New knowledge had shaken old beliefs. The Darwinian theory of evolution in particular seemed to contradict the traditional view of God as an all-powerful and benevolent Creator. All honest men who were not blinded by prejudice recognized that it was necessary to reexamine the foundations of faith, and that no good purpose was served by merely assailing the new knowledge and what seemed to be implied in it. Some indeed went farther and believed that increase of knowledge would not destroy the essence of faith, however it might require that the forms of faith should be modified. There was, so they held, a strong presumption that when the smoke of the conflict had cleared away, it would be found that the old faith would absorb the new knowledge and be itself revived and enriched.

But this position made it impossible for them to accept the growing view that the only valid knowledge was that reached by the senses and reasoning processes. A school arose which claimed that the scientific method was the adequate and sole avenue to truth; and what truth was not thus ascertained was unreliable. To this opinion Tennyson did not assent. He held that there were some things which were true which yet could not be proved; and these things are to be believed. And, "believing where he could not prove," Tennyson did not relinquish the foothold of faith.

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