And

"He was not all unhappy. His resolve

Upbore him, and firm faith and evermore

Prayer from a living source within the will,

And beating up through all the bitter world,

Like fountains of sweet water in the sea,

Kept him a living soul."

And Arthur, dying, whispers:

"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 blind life within the brain,

If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,

Both for themselves and those that call them friend?

For so the whole round world is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."

No wonder is there if King Arthur was upheld: such faith makes

impotence giant-strengthed. He does not tremble. The earth may know

perturbations, but not he. To tournament or battle, or to death, he

goes with smiling face. His trust upholds him. So good is faith. "In

Memoriam" is the biography of doubt and faith at war. The battle waxes

sore, but the day is God's. The battle ebbs to quiet. Calm after

tempest. Tennyson could not stay in doubt. 'T is not a goodly land.

If trepidation has white lip and cheek, 't is not forever. Living

through an age of doubt, Tennyson, so sensitive to every current of

thought as that he felt them all, and in that feeling and

interpretation and strife for mastery over the doubt that kills, made

his book, as Milton has it, "The precious life-blood of a master

spirit;" and ends with:

"Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me.

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face,

When I have cross'd the bar."

"In Memoriam" is thought, King Arthur is action; and action is antidote

for doubt. Charles Kingsley's advice,

"Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long,"

is always pertinent and reasonable. This is explanation of that

profound saying of Jesus, "If any man will do my will, he shall know of

the doctrine." Life is exegesis of Scripture. Who do God's will catch

sight of God's face, and their hearts are helped. Lowell's "Sir

Launfal" urges this same truth. He who, for weary and painful years,

had haunted the world, seeking the Holy Grail and finding not the thing

he sought, comes home discouraged to find in winter his castle had

forgotten him, and he was left a wreck of what he had been in his

better days; yet finds, in giving alms to a leprous beggar at his

castle gate to whom he had denied alms in the spirit of alms when he

set out to hunt the Holy Grail, that in so giving he found the Christ.

Action helps God into the heart. Doubts are, many of them, brain-born

and academical; and such, service helps to dispel. To Arthur, God was

vital fact. To Him he held as tenaciously as to his sword; and he was

comforted. All good things are included in religion, and all great

things. If men become martyrs, they become at the same time

functionaries in the palace of every worthy spirit. I suppose the

hunger for discovery and knowledge are nothing other than the soul's

hunger after God. He is the secret of great discontent. The soul

wants God, and on the way to Him are astronomies, and literatures, and

new-found hemispheres. Aspiration finds voice in Christianity.

"Columbus," a poem of resonant music, speaks aspiration. Him--

"Who pushed his prows into the setting sun,

And made West East, and sailed the dragon's mouth,

And came upon the mountain of the world,

And saw the rivers roll from paradise,"--

him, God-inspired as himself holds, saying:

"And more than once, in days

Of doubt and cloud and storm, when drowning hope

Sank all but out of sight, I heard His voice:

Be not cast down. I lead thee by the hand;

Fear not,--and I shall hear his voice again--

I know that He has led me all my life,

And I am not yet too old to work His will--

His voice again."

And King Arthur finds God helps him into all things worth while.

Bravery, determination, kindness, purity, magnanimity, safe faith in

God's supremacy,--all spring about him as he walks as flowers about a

path in summer-time. Nothing good was foreign to him.

Christianity is the one philosophy of manhood in whose harness are no

vulnerable parts. "The Palace of Art" presents the poet's perception

of the failure of culture. Ethics, not aesthetics, compel manhood; and

behind ethics, theology. God must live in life, if life shall put on

goodness as a royal robe.

And such a man as Arthur has passed into the enduring substance of this

world's best thought and purpose. We see him--not saw him. He is

never past, but ever present. We see him dying, and with Sir Bedivere,

who loved him, cry,

"Thy name and glory cling

To all high places, like a golden cloud,

Forever!"

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