Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou: We may allow Tennyson to make his own appeal in these great words. They come from one who found in Christ the final answer to his doubts and fears. He speaks to us from the standpoint of one who has striven to interpret the laws of the human spirit, and who now urges us, if we would be true to the light which God has kindled within our own minds, to follow Him Who had every right to say: "I am the Light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” And what did Jesus Christ make of that surrendered will? We have but to turn to the testimony of his own contemporaries to find an answer to the question. "Tennyson was one of the finest men in the world," said Carlyle. "I look upon him with reverence," wrote Gladstone. "He realised to me the heroic ideal," adds Lord Shelburne. The music of his verse was surpassed by that of his life. He was God's poem. Walking one day with a visitor in his garden, and talking intimately of his relationship to Jesus Christ, Tennyson pointed to a flower and said, "What the sun is to that flower, Jesus Christ is to me.' He may speak to us, then, of the high possibilities which are ours when we belong to Christ. There is no better thing to do with God's gift of freedom than to hand it back to Him Who gave it. "His service is perfect freedom." "The just shall live by his faith." Faith kept the life of love safe; it delivered this man from the horror of darkness into which he had wellnigh fallen; it rescued him from cynicism and despair. He took hold on life again by its redeeming power, and bravely served his age. It was faith that kept the mighty hope burning within his heart to the end that some day he should be one with his friend again, and that they would: "Arrive at last the blessed goal And He that died in Holy Land And take us as a single soul." And faith brought him at last to that "desired haven." THE LETTERS OF JAMES SMETHAM THE USE OF IMAGINATION IN RELIGION "Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off." O ISAIAH XXXII. 17. UR SUBJECT is "The Use of Imagination in Religion." But what do we mean by imagination? When we speak of a man, "drawing upon his imagination," we do not usually intend anything in the nature of a tribute to his veracity. This great word has been misused, and harmed in popular esteem by its associations. When a man falls, everything he holds falls with him. His words are affected by his loss; they bear the marks of apostasy. That is the burden of a great chapter in Trench's "Study of Words," where he shows how language has been degraded by the soul's infirmity. The Latin word "imaginatio" from which ours is derived, meant the power to bring before the mind some object not present to the senses. By the use of imagination, a remote object is brought |