The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-10

significant the authors Scripture quotation
when Pluephox is first introduced. He
maketh the sun to shine on the evil as well
the just"
Browning is seldom the poet of the sub
merged tenth. His characters and sub
jects are almost always drawn from the
upper classes. In this he is strangely I'm
like his great competitors. One of the I'M
mistakable marks o. genius is its ability
10 glorfy and make bca utiful the common
place OF this truth there are endless illus
trations Take Abraham Lincoin's The
Lord must love the common people. there
are so many of them" or You can fool
some of the people all the time and some
part Of the time. but you can't fool all the
people all the time" Burns is another il
Illustration. Take all his beautiful girls
Highland Mary, My Mamie o. Bette
and Peggy" and who not else?-and there
is not a pair OF shoes and stockings in the
whole outfit His best poems have no
higher subjects than two dogs,
dying old sheen, mouse nest, TN
O'Shan,er," THE Jolly Beggars," etc.
Wordsworth also invariably chooses and
glorihes common events. In three lines he
has immortalized Peter Bella Cumber-
land clodhoppcr:
"A primrose by a rivers brim
a yellow priinrose was to MIN,
And it was nothing more.
1t is common TO speak of Browning as a
great philosopher in numbers and to go
into raptures over his deliverances. Was
he? Is he? That depends upon what
philosophy is: If it is the solution OF
problems by argument, syllogism, and
conclusions no, although his poems are
loaded down with subtle speculation. But
if the claim is founded on intuition and Wis
ion, Browning's claim is of the
highest. His constant insis -ence is
that the great mysteries of life and
death are solved by the heart and
not by the head As against the
scientific speculation and skepticism of
his day, Browning all the time nterposed a
steady Il believe'-'I have felt" See the
Christstand." He repu1iated, or at least
doubted, the dogmas of the church, and yet
was a Christian He blended evangelical
christianity and subjective idealism. 1 do
not dwell upon his optimism. This part
of his message has been written to
death. The truth SENS to me to be that
there is a hopeless contest raging between
optimism and pessimism, with mighty COM
batants ranged on either side. The middle
doctrine of meliorism seems TO me prefer q.
able This world is neither the best posi-
BILE the worst possible. 1t is bad as
needs be but constantly growing better.
When however. we reach the very high
est kind of poverty-that which enters into
the life of the great masses of humanity
and sweetens their lives and puts heart
I STRUGGLES
the great names which the world delights
TO honor, TO those humber ones TO which
the world gives Scant notice. OF our great
poets, Burns and LOngfellow tried by this
test are greater benefactors of the world
than Wordsworth, Shelley or Browning. But
there is a greater book of poetIs tried by
this standard than any and everything the
above poets or their times or subsequent
/ cola bOrerS have ever written. / dare to
say and do now and here say 1T that when
we apply these ultimate tests of vision
and uplift, that greater poetry be
! found in our hymn books than in all the
costly editions and anthologies of our
/ poets now before the public. Vision-the
ability to see beyond the things of time
and beneath events-iS the dividing line be-
/ tween the orator and the speaker, the
/ statesman and the opportunist, the poet
and the seer. Burke, Lincoln and Webs ter
! had this power. Everett and Choate and
/ the small-fry takers of to-day lack it
J Colonel lngerSoll had marvellous insight,
/ but no Outsght. He could not see in
\ spirit anything but eXquisitely organized
matter; or back of this universe anything
/ but force. or beyond death anything ex-
/ cept "a windOwless palace of rest" To
/ this great intellect. immortality was "a
/ dream OF love kissing the lips of death. -
/ Do you want 10 study the question of our
future life? 1t is beyond the reach OF
reason. But go TO the old forgotten hymn
/ book and read, II would not live Away.
beginning. I'VE shall sleep, but not for
/ ever; there shall come a glorious dawn "
/ Is it question of God whether ne is per-
son. power, myth love? Turn as did the
! dying President 10 Nearer, my God "a
/ Thee Does the mystery of life press
/ heavily upon you? Repeat Gently Lord
i o Gently Lead Us" Here in four verses we
! solution spread out before US When the
I crushing hand of affiictiOn lies heavily upon
] you, Shakespeare or Browning will be OF
! small use to you. Turn then TO those
! mounts of TRANSPORTATION which you viii
/ find scattered on every page of this same
| Christ problem-God. man or myth? Open
i again this questionable book and turn
i 10 such hymns as Just AS l Am without
/ One Plea" or Love Divine, All Else Ex-
/ ceiling" l repeat il that in the hymn
/ book as nowhere else. except the Bible
sight and the real presence draws near US
/ Perfumed as il is with the divine spirit
| this same hymn book is a supplements
| Bible-in fact here we hear the whir Oi
angels wings and breathe the unmistaka.
/ bic atmosphere of our heavenly theme
/ What a comment upon Christian effort
! Is the fact that for 10 cents-the price of 2
cigar--a poor man can buy an excenently-
| printed New Testament and a book con.
tanning six hundred of the worlds greatest
/ hymns, ID. p. BALDWIN.
Chautauoua- Aug. l.