The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-12-21
THE ETHICS OF TENNYS0N
REV. DIR. VAN DYKE ON THE GREAT
 POETS MORAL TE4CRINGS.

Interesting "Reminiscences of Tennyson Himself.
 Rev. Henry Van Dyke, D. D.. of New York, spoke before the Mems club in the United church last evening on the subject, "Tennyson as an Ethical Teacher"
 The lecture was one of the most in- teresting given thus far in the course. The lecturer is a we'll known critic and writer on the poetry of Ten nyson and had a personal acquaint- ance with the great poet,
 At various points in his lecture he illustrated his subject with readings from some of Tennysons best poems and the large audience listened with the greatest interest throughout the whole. Dr. Van Dyke said in part:
 "There are some people who claim that a poet has no right to be an yethi- cal teacher; they are the people who believe in art for arts sake. But the great poets and the great artists have been great ethical teachers. Dhere are two reasons for which inherent in the nature of things. The first reason is because morals are part, perhaps the greatest, part of life.
 ''The poet who is unwilling to touch these great moral questions of life is not master. He is not broad; he is marrow. I doubt very much if the sugar-coated' moral teaching has any literary value and if it has much moral value either. Another and better way of inculcating moral teaching is by the indirect, the unseen process. This is the poets and artists way and this, it seems to me, is the true way
 ''The value of true literature is vastly underestimated by the pulpit to-day. Literature must be purified before our people will be pure and moral
 Literature must be humane. No one can really help men unless he loves mankind.
 Tn Tennyson the spirit of uplifting and helping his fellow men is diffused through his poems.
 1.-The two volumes published in 1S42 mark his energence into the light as the greatest human benefactor and teacher.
 "I wish in this lecture to point out some of the great truths on which Ten nyson flung light
 "The first of these is true relation of man and woman. He teaches man to keep down the base and to reverence, marriage and virtue and love.
 "In the Princess and Maud the poet treats the delicate question of the edu- cation of woman and her relative posi- ton with man.
 ''I had the pleasure of having the poets own interpretation of Maud. had made some criticisms upon it and Tennyson said that I had not un- derstood it and offered to send it to me in order that I might get his mean ing. He was a most remarkable reader. In appearance he was like one of the old Hebrew prophets. He was rot a trained elocutionist, but his voice had a measured rythnic move nent like the rolling of the sea. And as he read Maud it was most impress i've and poetic.
 Tn the drama, for Maud is drama, he represents the struggle between love and selfishness At first it is sel- s fishness alone, but then it begins to purify itself and he thinhs more of her welfare, and his love becomes purified and deepend.
 And when he knows that Maud is dead he consecrates himself to a higher, nobler life. This is the meaning of Maud Love is the redemption of in sanity and selfishness
 1.-The second question of which the poet treats is the relation of man to his country. There could hardly have been a more important subject than this Tennyson has cried out against extremes; against partisan selfishness in the nation. The third question is the relation of man to humanity This is the pressing question of the age. He does not teach in his poety the gospel of greed, which is socialism, or the gos- pei of envy which is nihilism; nor the gospel of despair, which is pes simism, but the gospel of love as preached by Christ. To feel that each one of us has a place in the human or uSi etllu http up Uo oNA ItotJ io tiIC ulS of life and if we ask what our duty is the poet answers-'love.'
 ''There has been an impression that Tennyson was not a sympathetic man, but there is not one of the English poets who has such a sympathy for hu- manity
 Underneath the teachings of a poet must lie, @ philosophy, belief, re- ligion. Belief can never be separated from life because it Is a part of life As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he Now, Tennyson was not a theolo- gian and it is vain to attempt to draw q system of theology from his poems He hated the logical definitions, Theol- ogy spells many good poets. While not a theologian he was deeply religious
 ''The three great points in his relig- ion were a law, divine law and the other side of the belief that law is divine that God is the creator of the universe and this finds expression ill that strongest poem ever written, Tn Memo Iiam.'
 'In one of his poems called "The Higher Pantheism," he comes nearer tC a theological plane than in any other If this poem teaches pantheism il teaches the true kind of pantheism, ir which heliaf thp universality of God is