The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-04
LECTURE ON TENN YSON.
SECOND PART GITEN BY REY, DR.
 LEETE LAST NIGHT.
"heligion of the Age in the Poetry of Tennyson," the TOpic-IIlustratedt tho Poets Views of Christ and Christi anity.

The Rev. Dr. w. w. Leete delivered
 the second part of his lecture on "The
 Religion of the Age in the Poetry of
 Tennyson" at Dwight Place church last
 night. He gave review of the first
 lecture, saying that in that he consid-
 cred some of the personal history and
 characteristics of Tennyson and gave
 some of the reasons why writer like
 Tennyson should be brought to the at
 tention of a Christian congregation.
 These were in brief that he passed
 through decades of changes and con-
 hicts of religious thought and felt the
 pressure of human needs and difficult
 ties. The speaker also told of how he
 declined many honors which were of- fered him and of his peculiarities.
 Of the second part of the lecture the
 Rev. pr. Leete said, in part: Of Chris
 tianity, Tennyson used to say, Tt is rugging, i. e., tugging-at my heart" In 1S4S he went to Rude on the Corn wall coast to be, as he said "alone with God" He believed God was an omni-
 potent, omnipresent all loving God who
 had revealed Himself through the hu-
 man attributes of the highest self sac rificing love. But he dreaded the dog matism of sects and rash definitions of God. T dare hardly name His name" he would say, but take away belief in the self-conscious personality of God and you take away the backbone of the world"
 "On God and on Godlike men we build our trust" He admitted that in "His whole world self' God Is unknow- able and yet our highest view of Him must be more or less anthropomorphic. With Tennyson the love of God Is the basis of duty truth, reverence, loyalty, love- virtue and work and he said to 0 young man going to the university, Be ye therefore perefect even as your Father in heaven is perfect" But then he added Don't be a prig. Most young men with anything in them make fools of themselves at some time or another" He said he believed in God not from what he found In nature but from what he found in man and that 1t was harder not to believe in God than to believed in Him. His ab- sence from the soul is real he'll So also God Is love. Spirit was the great reality of the world and matter a greater mystery than mind. Of sin and misery he said, 1T do not feel hor- TOT when I see it but shame for the sake of God" Once as he came from the great cathedral at Rheims he said "But what a mystery is the Christian religion. It requires an act of faith to accept It." His mother wrote to him in 1860 70 Dearest Ally, how fervently have I prayed for years that our mer- ciful Redeemer would intercede with our Heavenly Father to grant thee His Holy Spirit, to urge thee to employ the talents He has given thee by taking every opportunity of endeavoring to impress the precepts of His Holy Word on the minds of others" It would be difficult for even his nearest friends to tell just what Tennyson believed. He never formulated a creed, for he said people would not understand him If he did But while there is to him faith beyond the form of faith" and while | he would not let his views of Chris tianity be disturbed by the jarring sects | and creeds, he still saw the need of or ganzed Christianity. He said There must be forms, yet hate the need of | so many sects and services" But the poets view of Christ differed from the evangelical or high church view Yet i he habitually thought and felt about the nature of Christianity in the spirit of an old saint of mystic; not in that of modern nationalist. There are two things which he thought beyond the of man; one the intellec- tual genius of Shakespeare; the other the religious genius of Jesus Christ. He believed that the forms of Chris