... ... wealth, enjoyment, reputation, — this, whether a true account or not of the theologian to whom we have referred . . . is yet to be found under many eloquent defences of the faith, many fervent and scornful denunciations of criticism and free thought. In 'Calaban upon Setebos,' if it is more than the product of Mr. Browning's fondness for all abnormal forms of spiritual life, speculating among other things on the religious thoughts of a half brute-like savage, we must see a protest against the thought that man can rise by himself to true thoughts of God, and develop a pure theology out of his moral consciousness. So far it is a witness for the necessity of a revelation, either through the immediate action of the Light that lighteth every man, or that which has been given to mankind in spoken or written words, by the WORD that was in the beginning. In the 'Death in the Desert,' in like manner, we have another school of thought analyzed with a corresponding subtlety.... The Death in the Desert' is worth studying in its bearing upon the mythical school of interpretation, and as a protest, we would fain hope, from Mr. Browning's own mind against the thought that because the love of God has been revealed in Christ, and has taught us the greatness of all true human love, therefore, "We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not.' "In one remarkable passage at the close of 'The Legend of Pornic,' Mr. Browning, speaking apparently in his own person, proclaims his belief in one great Christian doctrine, which all pantheistic and atheistic systems formally repudiate, and which many semi-Christian thinkers implicitly reject: "The candid incline to surmise of late That the Christian faith may be false, I find, 1 A volume which appeared in 1860, made up of essays and reviews, the several authors having "written in entire independence of each other, and without concert or comparison." These essays and reviews offset the extreme high church doctrine of the Tracts for the Times. 2 John W. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, in South Africa; he published works questioning the inspiration and historical accuracy of certain parts of the Bible, among which was 'The Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua criti call; examined.' "I still, to suppose it true, for my part, See reasons and reasons: this, to begin HOLY-CROSS DAY. On which the Jews were forced to attend an annual Christian sermon in Rome. The argument is sufficiently shown by what is prefixed to this poem. The Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600,' is presumably imaginary. SAUL. This is, in every respect, one of Browning's grandest poems; and in all that is included in the idea of expression, is quite perfect. The portion of Scripture which is the germ of the poem, and it is only the germ, is contained in the First Book of Samuel, chap. xvi. 14-23. To the present consolation which David administers to Saul, with harp and song, and the Scripture story does not go beyond this, is added the assurance of the transmission of his personality, and of the influence of his deeds; first, through those who have been quickened by them, and who will, in turn, transmit that quickening" Each deed thou hast done, dies, revives, goes to work in the world: ... each ray of thy will, every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too give forth a like cheer to their sons who, in turn, fill the South and the North with the radiance thy deed was the germ of"; and, then, through records that will give unborn generations their due and their part in his being. The consolation is, moreover, carried beyond that afforded by earthly fame and influence. David's yearnings to give Saul "new life altogether, as good, ages hence, as this moment,-had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense," pass into a prophecy, based on his own loving desires, of the God-Man who shall throw open to Saul the gates of that new life. With this prophecy, David leaves Saul. On his way home, in the night, he represents himself as attended by witnesses, cohorts to left and to right. At the dawn, all nature, the forests, the wind, beasts and birds, even the serpent that slid away silent, appear to him aware of the new law; the little brooks, witnessing, murmured with all but hushed voices, "E'en so, it is so !" A DEATH IN THE DESERT. 'A Death in the Desert' appears to have been inspired by the controversies in regard to the historical foundations of Christianity, and, more especially, in regard to the character and the authorship of the Fourth Gospel - controversies which received their first great impulse from the Leben Fesu of David Friedrich Strauss, first published in 1835. An English translation of the fourth edition, 1840, by Marian Evans (George Eliot), was published in London, in 1846. The immediate occasion of the composition of 'A Death in the Desert' was, perhaps, the publication, in 1863, of Joseph Ernest Renan's Vie de Jesus. 'A Death in the Desert' was included in the poet's 'Dramatis Personæ,' published in the following year. In style, the poem a little recalls Cleon; with less of harmonious grace and clear classic outline, it possesses a certain stilled sweetness, a meditative tenderness, all its own, and beautifully appropriate to the utterance of the 'beloved disciple.'"-ARTHUR SYMONS. During a persecution of the Christians, the aged John of Patmos has been secretly conveyed, by some faithful disciples, to a cave in the desert, where he is dying. Revived temporarily by the tender ministrations of his disciples, he is enabled to tell over his past labors in the service of his beloved Master, to refute the Antichrist already in the world, and to answer the questions which, with his far-reaching spiritual vision, he foresees will be raised in regard to Christ's nature, life, doctrine, and miracles, as recorded in the Gospel he has written. These services he feels to be due from him, in his dying hour, as the sole survivor of Christ's apostles and intimate companions. This is the only composition in which Browning deals directly with historical Christianity; and its main purpose may, in brief, be said to be, to set forth the absoluteness of Christianity, w which cannot be affected by any assaults made upon its external, historical character. The doctrine of the trinal unity of man (the what Does, what Knows, what Is) ascribed to John (vv. 82-104), and upon which his discourse may be said to proceed, leads up to the presentation of the final stage of the Christian life on earth that stage when man has won his way to the kingdom of the "what Is" within himself, and when he no longer needs the outward supports to his faith which he needed before he passed from the "what Knows.” Christianity is a religion which is only secondarily a doctrine addressed to the "what Knows." It is, first of all, a religion whose fountain-head is a Personality in whom all that is spiritually potential in man, was realized, and in responding to whom the soul of man is quickened and regenerated. And the Church, through the centuries, has been kept alive, not by the letter of the New Testament, for the letter killeth, but by a succession of quickened and regenerated spirits, "the noble Living and the noble Dead," through whom the Christ has been awakened and developed in other souls. |