delicate care which the elegiac form requires, and permeated with the tone of personal grief; not passionate, but profound and pure. But it is such an elegy as the world has never seen before, and may never see again. For not only is it the work of long and patient years, elaborated with such skill and adorned with such richness of poetic imagery as other men have thought too great to bestow upon an epic; not only is it the most exquisite and perfect work of mortuary art, worthy, in this regard, to be compared with that worldfamous tomb which widowed Artemisia built for the Carian Mausolus; but it is something infinitely grander and better. Beyond the narrow range of personal loss and loneliness, it sweeps into the presence of the eternal realities, faces the great questions of our mysterious existence, and reaches out to lay hold of that hope which is unseen but abiding, whereby alone we are saved. It is

"The record of a faith sublime,

And truth through clouds at last discerned,
The incense of a love that burned
Through pain and doubt defying Time;

The story of a heart at strife

That learned, at last, to kiss the rod,
And passed through sorrow up to God,
From living to a higher life."

Naturally we expect to find a vast difference between this poem and Paradise Lost. The plan demands it. The contrast between the elegiac and the epic forms has never been more strongly marked than here. And it may seem almost absurd to seek, and impossible to discover, any resemblance between these long-rolling, thunderous periods of blank-verse and those short swallow-flights of song which "dip their wings in tears and skim away." The comparison of In Memoriam with Lycidas would certainly appear more easy and obvious; so obvious, indeed, that it has been made a thousand times, and is fluently repeated by every critic who has had occasion to speak of English elegies.

But this is just one of those cases in which an external similarity conceals a fundamental unlikeness. It is like the resemblance which has been traced between one of the portraits of Milton and William Wordsworth, on the surface only. For, in the first place, Edward King, to whose memory Lycidas was dedicated, was far from being an intimate friend of Milton, and his lament has no touch of the deep heartsorrow which throbs in In Memoriam. And, in the second

place, Lycidas is in no sense a metaphysical poem; does not descend into the depths or attempt to answer the vexed questions, while In Memoriam is, in its very essence, profoundly and thoroughly metaphysical; more so, perhaps, than any other great poem except Paradise Lost.

There is a point, however, in which we must acknowledge an essential and absolute difference between the great epic and the great elegy, something deeper and more vital than any contrast of form and metre. Paradise Lost is a theological poem. In Memoriam is a religious poem. The distinction is narrow, but deep. Milton approaches the problem of human life and death from the side of reason, resting, it is true, upon a supernatural revelation, but careful to reduce all its contents to a logical form, demanding a clearly-formulated and closelylinked explanation of all things, and seeking to establish his system of truth upon the basis of sound argument. His method is purely rational. Tennyson's is emotional. He has no linked chain of deductive reasoning; no sharp-cut definition of objective truths. His faith is subjective, intuitive. Where proof fails him, he will still believe. When the processes of reason are shaken, disturbed, frustrated; when absolute demonstration appears impossible, and doubt claims a gloomy empire in the mind, then the deathless fire that God has kindled in the breast burns toward that heaven which is its source and home, and the swift answer of immortal love leaps out to solve the mystery of the grave. Thus Tennyson feels after God, and leads us by the paths of faith and emotion to the same goal which Milton reaches by the road of reason and logic.

Each of these methods is characteristic not only of the poet who uses it, but also of the times in which it is employed. Paradise Lost does not echo more distinctly the age of the Westminster divines than In Memoriam represents the age of Maurice and Robertson. It is a mistake to think that the tendency of our present theology is toward rationalism. That was the drift of Milton's time. Our modern movement is toward emotionalism, a religion of feeling, a subjective system in which the sentiments and affections shall be acknowledged as lawful determinants of truth. And this tendency has its right as well as its wrong, its golden mean as well as its false extreme. Whether it has ever led Tennyson too far; whether it has ever swept him beyond the truth, it does not now become me to discuss. But this much is clear: it has never carried him away from the sure anchorage of Christian faith, nor is there any substantial difference between the final

teachings of In Memoriam and of Paradise Lost. Is Tennyson a Pantheist because he speaks of

"One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off divine event

To which the whole creation moves"?

Then so is Paul a Pantheist when he tells us that in God "we live and move and have our being"; so is Milton a Pantheist when he makes the Son say to the Father:

"Thou shalt be all in all, and I in Thee

Forever, and in Me all whom Thou lovest."

Is Tennyson an Agnostic because he speaks of the "truths that never can be proved," and finds a final answer to the mysteries of life only in a hope which is hidden "behind the veil"? Then so is Paul an Agnostic, because he sees but through a glass darkly; so is Milton an Agnostic, because he declares

"Heaven is for thee too high

To know what passes there. Be lowly wise;
Think only what concerns thee and thy being.
Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid;
Leave them to God above."

Is Tennyson a Universalist because he says:

"Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood"?

Then so is Milton a Universalist when he exclaims:

"O, goodness infinite, goodness immense,

That all this good of evil shall produce,
And evil turn to good!"

The faith of the two poets is one; the great lesson of In Memoriam and Paradise Lost is the same. The hope of the universe is in Him whom Milton and Tennyson both call "Immortal Love." To Him through mists and shadows we must look up,

"Gladly behold, though but His utmost skirts

Of glory, and far-off His steps adore."

Thus our cry out of the darkness for the light shall be answered. Knowledge shall grow from more to more.

"Light after light well-used we shall attain,

And to the end persisting safe arrive."

But this can come only through self-surrender and obedience, only through the consecration of the free-will to God who

gave it; and the highest prayer of the light-seeking, upwardstriving human soul is this:

“O, living Will that shalt endure,

When all that seems shall suffer shock,

Rise in the spiritual Rock,

Flow through our deeds and make them pure,
"That we may lift from out the dust
A voice as unto Him that hears,
A cry above the conquered years,
To One that with us works, and trust,
"With faith that comes of self-control,

The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we love,

And all we flow from, soul in soul."

I must bring this essay to an end before it is, in any sense, complete. Many points of resemblance in vocabularies, in metrical devices, in the use of scientific and literary material, have been passed over for want of space. But I think enough has been said to prove a real intellectual and moral kinship between Milton and Tennyson, and to exhibit a profound analogy in their works, which has hitherto escaped the notice of the critics. And if this piece of vacation work, hasty and incomplete, should have no other result, it has, at least, deepened and quickened my sense of reverent gratitude to these two masters of English verse.

That rugged old rhymer, Ebenezer Elliott, once said of some one's essays, "they contain rural pictures which, before God, I believe have lengthened my days on earth." I might not venture to say that, for the length of my days is to me unknown; but I know that be they few or many, they are infinitely better and sweeter, more filled with divine light and life by reason of the influences which have flowed into them from the poetry of Milton and Tennyson.

VII.-IMMORTALITY AND SCIENCE.

BY PROFESSOR JAMES T. BIXBY.

THE venerable Bede, the monkish historian of the early days of England, relates that when Paulinus, one of the missionaries sent out by Pope Gregory to convert England to Christianity, entered the domain of Edwin king of Northumberland the priests and warriors were assembled to deliberate whether they should allow him to preach, or not. Then a grey-haired chief arose and said, "Thou mayest remember, O king, a thing which sometimes happens when thou art seated at thy table with thy men of arms and captains, in the winter season, when the fire is kindled and the hall well warmed, while without wind and rain and storm are raging. Then comes a little bird, which traverses the room on fluttering wing, entering at one door and flying out of another. The moment of the passage is full of sweetness for it; but this interval is brief. It vanishes in the twinkling of an eye. It came out of the darkness, and it goes out into the darkness. None knows whence it came, and none knows whither it goes. So is our life. We come, and our wise men cannot tell us whence; we go, and they cannot tell us whither. Therefore, if there be any that can teach us more about it, in God's name, let us hear them."

Yes; if there be any that can tell us more about our whence and whither, in God's name let us hear them! This is the cry that has gone up from many and many a heart beside that old barbarian's-hearts of Christians as well as of heathen. Immortality! That single word awakens a whole world of thoughts. No theme more magnetic. No question of the many between science and religion which comes closer to our hearts. That mysterious realm of the beyond has engulfed the myriads of the past. Many dear to us have already entered it, never to return. We ourselves are fast moving forward to it-at any moment may break through the thin veil that alone divides us from it. What is it that awaits us

there? At the present day we ask that question with an intenser eagerness than at any previous time. Through the revelations of science the horizon of our existence has come to appear comparatively so small; the limits of our range