himself.

Under the moonbeams the watersnakes play, and their grace of movement and beauty of hue are to him a revelation of the gladness of other lives, and there is awakened within him a sympathy with other existences. He passes out of self into sympathy. The sense of a harmony of soul with things about him steals over him. This is the silver thread of his deliverance; he was able to pray, and the albatross, the symbol of his reckless and selfish wrong-doing, falls from his neck; the burden of his sin passes away; he enters into accord with the divine order of things; the sense of estrangement having passed away, he can enter into a rest to which he has long been a stranger. He falls asleep. With sleep comes the benediction of heaven. The heaven gives its refreshing rain. The winds of God propel the ship. The dead men rise up animated by heavenly power. All is given back again in dreamlike but heavenly guise. Angel-helpers are with him till once more familiar scenes are reached.

Oh! dream of joy! Is this indeed

The light-house top I see?

Is this the hill? Is this the kirk?

Is this mine own countree?

But before he touches the dear familiar con

fines of his own home-land, he must pass through one stirring experience-all the remnants of the past must sink away. The old order must change entirely. The sound of coming change is heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread;
It reached the ship; it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

The past has gone. Only the burning memory of it remains, and like a burden it sometimes presses so sorely upon him that he needs must tell his message. For the rest a peace and a joy in all created things are his. Everything is God's, and the mark of the divine love abides upon all the Ancient Mariner is filled with a deep surpassing love towards all that God has made and loves.

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-guest:
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

This is none other than that realisation of God as love which means a new creation of the whole

man and a redemption of the whole life into usefulness and tenderness; and this change has been wrought not by argument but by experience. The discipline of experience has awakened man to the consciousness of his deep spiritual need, and at the same time to the capacity of realising that close at hand to every man are the love and the presence of God which alone can satisfy the soul.

CHAPTER IX

TENNYSON

TENNYSON'S childhood coincided with the closing years of the reign of George III. He was between five and six when the battle of Waterloo was fought; he was in his eleventh year when George III. died and "the first gentleman in Europe" ascended the throne. The political atmosphere was disturbed; the claims for Roman Catholic Emancipation were put forward loudly and even threateningly; the clamour for Reform was high: the powers of the new epoch were at work. In the religious world the Evangelical movement had somewhat spent its force: Simeon was still a power in Cambridge; but the minds of men were being drawn towards great public questions, and the power of the future was passing into other hands. The spirit of historical investigation was stirring; and the story of the past was to be rewritten with

greater exactness and truer conception of historical perspective. Tennyson was early subject to deep religious impressions. The sternness of his father's rule and the sensitive quality of his imagination combined to make him yearn for escape from a life which at times seemed to be unendurable. Among the graves at Somersby he would fling himself, wishing in childish fashion to reach the quiet of the tomb. But he had the strong vein of solid good sense which is characteristic of the greatest poets. His fits of depression were only occasional; and when we get a glimpse of the religious impressions as they formed themselves in his young mind, we find a sedateness of thought which restrained the passionateness of youthful impulses. The prayer which he composed, and which we are told still remains written in his boyish hand, possesses an almost laboured dignity, as though the instinct of composition, as well as a natural reverence, compelled him to curb all unseemly outburst of personal emotion. It is a prayer to the Lord God Almighty, who is high above all height. It asks Him to condescend to behold the work of His "hands kneeling before Him." He is the God of heaven and earth, the creator of "the immeasurable sea." It