Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed.
And love Creation's final law—
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed—
Who loved, who suffered countless ills.
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or sealed within the iron hills?
No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime.
Were mellow music matched with him.
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
| Tennyson, In Memoriam. (By kind permission of Lord Tennyson.) |
These noble and solemn lines of a great poet sum up in a few words what may be called "the Gospel of Modern Thought." They describe what is the real attitude of most of the thinking and earnest minds of the present generation. On the one hand, the discoveries of science have so far established the universality of law, as to make it impossible for sincere men to retain the faith of their ancestors in dogmas and miracles. On the other, larger views of man and of history have shown that religious sentiment is an essential element of human nature, and that many of our best feelings, such as love, hope, conscience, and reverence, will always seek to find reflections of themselves in the unseen world. Hence faith has diminished and charity increased. Fewer believe old creeds, and those who do, believe more faintly; while fewer denounce them, and are insensible to the good they have done in the past and the truth and beauty of the essential ideas that underlie them.
On the Continent, and especially in Catholic countries, where religion interferes more with politics and social life, there is still a large amount of active hostility to it, as shown by the massacre of priests by the French Communists; but, in this country, the old Voltairean infidelity has died out, and no one of ordinary culture thinks of denouncing Christianity as an invention of priestcraft. On the contrary, many of our leading minds are at the same time skeptical and religious, and exemplify the truth of another profound saying of Tennyson:
