The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-08-08
Discriminating Criticism ofRev.
 MT. Raynal, of Norwood
BROWNING NOT OBSCURE
The Fact Is Only so Profound That Shallow Minds Can Not Under stand Hm--Hls Attitude
 Toward Faith.

| At it's monthly meeting held yesterday morning in the First Methodist church, the Pastors union discussed interestingly the relation of the poet Browning to and his influence upon the Christian faith.
 In the atsence of speakers who had been expected to speake on the subject. the union listened to an informal dis cussicn engaged in by the Rev. Frank w. Brandon of the Fountain Heights Methodist Episcopal church, the Rev. Dr. | J. w. Stagg of the First Presbyterian church, and the Rev MT. Raynal of the | Norwood Presbyterian church. | Dr. Stagg said that one passage from Bishop Blongram's Apology would give 1 Browning's attitude of faith. A very sim a great truth. That way
 Over the mountain, which, who stands "Is apt to doubt If 1t be meant for road;
 While. if he views it from the waste itself
 l" Up goes the line there. plain from base to brow.
  break or two Seen from the unbroken desert either side?
 And there (to bring in fresh pholos- ophy)
 "'what if the breaks themselves should
 prove at last
 " The most consummate of contrivances " TO train a mans eye. teach him what
 Is faith?
 And so we stumble at truths very
 testr
 MT. Raynal. whose talk was perhaps the feature of the meeting said:
 Mr. RaynaI's Talk.
 Mrs. Machen of Baltimore has written book which she calls The Bible in Browning' This book has met the gen. eral approval of cities as a careful piece of work and I quote it as authority for the statement that Browning based his religion and philosophy upon the scrip lures.
 There is no more obscurity in the writ ings of this poet than will be found in any other great man. The same sort of obscurity Is found In the Hebrew pro- phets themselves, but this is the obscurity of. depth and power.
 Someone has well said that it is not his lack of clearness but our own ob- scurity that prevents our understanding. Not only are the messages of Browning founded upon the Bible. but the very words and methods of prophetic teachings are often employed. He has so entered the spirit of scriptural thought that he may in one sense be regarded as pro- phet.
 Take the passage" continued Mir Rayna1, from The Ring and the Book as defining his altitude to the central fact of revelation.
 The fact of God in Christ, accepted
 by thy reason
 Solves for the all questions In the earth
 and out of it.
 Poem Illustrates.
 There is poem which illustrates Browning's use of scriptural material. It is called An Epistle' and records strange medical experience of an Arab physician, Karshish, who travelled in the Holy Land in about the time of the Apostles He met Lazarus, the man that Christ had raised from the dead, and af- ter a careful study of the man and his story he writes his explanation home 10 his old master. All the explanations of his science and philosophy fail. and one by one as he recounts the possible ele- ments in the bringing to life of one that had been in the grave four days, he re- alizes that he has no adequate explana- ton in all his science and closes his let ter. but adds as a dawning hope the con- clusion his reason compels him to: "'The very God, think Abib doest thou think? "'So the all great were the all loving too, So, through the thunder comes hu- man voice
 "'Saying, Q heart l made, heart beats here!
 Face. my hands fashioned. see 1t in myself!
 "Thou hast no power nor mayest con- ceive of mine,
 "'But love gave the, with myself to love,
 And thou must love me. who have died for theei His View of Death. "Brownings view of death is one of confident victory and he expresses this confidence in a short poem, Prospice.' which closes:
 No, let me taste the whole of 1t fare like my peers
 The heroes of old
 For sudedn the worst turnst the best to the brave, "T The black minutes at end. ".And the clements rage, the fiend-voices that rave Shall dwindle, shall blend. Shall change. shall become first peace