my theme to point out the significant number of men of letters who have been bred in the homes of ministers of religion, or who have received at least a part of their training in preparation for the ministry. When the fact is noted that in the latter class are met such diverse types as George Crabbe, Coleridge, James Mill, Carlyle, and Kingsley, some of my readers may be moved to question whether this influence of religion upon letters has been for better or for worse, and I have declined to dogmatize; although my own conviction is that here the debt of literature to religion is both real and great.
No such doubt will arise, however, with reference to the part which the language of religion has played in the making of literature. The taste of the individual author in his use of religious phrase or reference may be questioned,' but the adaptation of religious language to the purposes of poet, essayist, historian, and novelist, when these are at their best, is not to be gainsaid. No other field has proved so fertile in literary allusions of universal import as the Old and New Testaments.
The debt has been mutual; and while literature
has gained in depth, range, and power of utterance from religion, religion has as truly profited in humanity, balance, and ability to accord its message to the needs of men from the influence of letters. The popular study of the Bible as literature is a product
1 As for instance Thackeray's use of Psalm CXXVI in Henry Esmond. Cf. ante, chap. ix.
of the century which we have traversed; in certain directions the result has seemed revolutionary, and has been attended by the disorder and loss always incident to revolution; but faithful men are confident of ultimate gain, and much of this gain along the lines indicated has already been realized.
Great literature can spring only from the deeper experiences of life. It can gain imperishable form only through high and sustained flights of the trained imagination. Religion searches the depths of man's heart; while at the same time it has been a chief inspirer of his imagination, holding visions before his eyes and fixing his thoughts upon themes of origin and destiny. It has led him moreover to think of these things, not as mere idle dreams or curious problems, but as personal concerns of vital moment. The influence of religion upon literature has been great, because the experience of religion has upon the whole been real.
"A. L. O. E.," 504.
Abraham, 17.
Accomplishment,
emphasis put
upon, in the 19th century, 31.
Adams, Prof. G. B., his address
History and the Philosophy of
History, 495.
'Adaptation to environment,' 134.
Adonais, Shelley's, quoted, 126.
Aeschylus, animated by religious
idea of tragedy, 22.
Agassiz, L. J. R., 414.
Agnosticism, and agnostics, 412-415,
442; novels of, 517-524.
Alastor, Shelley's, preface to, quot-
ed, 118.
Alton Locke, Kingsley, 297.
Ancient Mariner, The, Coleridge's,
a work of genius, 84.
Anti-slavery agitation, 175.
Aphorisms, the making of, 534,
535.
Apologia, Newman, 196.
Archer, William, cited, 460, 489 n.,
491 n.
Ariel and Caliban, Coleridge's crit-
icism upon the characters of, 107.
Arnold, Matthew, on Wordsworth,
61, 72; on Coleridge, 77; his
criticism of Byron, 106; under
forty when he wrote of doubt
and disillusion, 424; religion a
chief source of his inspiration,
431; compared with Clough, 431,
432; compared with his father,
432, 433; note of blithesomeness,
almost wholly lacking in his po-
etry, 433; his use of themes and
language of religion, 434; what
his poems represent, 435; reli-
gion in his writings, 437; has
French felicities of style, 438;
master phrase-maker, 439; his
mind saturated with Biblical and
devotional thought, 439; com-
pared with Froude, 440, 441; in-
consistency in, 442.
Arnold, Thomas, 432, 436.
'Art for art's sake,' 111.
Ashford, Isaac, in Crabbe's The
Parish Register, 53, 54.
Ashley, Lord, 330.
Austen, Jane, and Maria Edge-
worth, 242, 243; her gallery of
miniatures, 245; her characters
instinct with a real life, 246; tol-
erant of her characters, 246, 247;
the characteristics of her work
those which religion tends to fos-
ter, 248; her influence on Scott,
248, 249.
Autobiography of Mark Rutherford,
The, 522, 523.
Aylmer's Field, Tennyson, quoted,
367.
Baden Powell. See Powell, Baden.
Bagehot, Walter, on the First Ed-
inburgh Reviewers, 127; his es-
timate of the Whig ideal, 139;
on the Whig aversion to mysti-
cism, 144, 145; on Jeffrey's criti-
cism of Wordsworth, 145; para-
phrased, 157; on sacred poets,
192; on Scott, 253, 257; on
Tennyson's Enoch Arden, 384 n.
Bailey, P. J., " Festus," 425, 426.
Barbauld, Mrs., Diary, quoted, 31.
Barère, Macaulay on, 182.
Barrie, J. M., 504.
Beagle, the, 403.
Benn, A. W., his History of English
Rationalism in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury, 185 n.; cited, 312 n., 315 n.,
316,318, 323; his insinuations
against men of science, 412 n.
Bentham, Jeremy, 312, 318.
Bible, its influence upon the na-
tional language and literature,
16, 364, 365; its influence on
Browning and Tennyson, 364-369,
382; quoted, 478. See Scripture.
Biglow Papers, Lowell, 346, 347.
Biology, 410.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. A., Obiter Dicta
cited, 155; on Newman, 196.
Blackwood's, on the Conservative
side, 129, 131; writers for, 130;
early volumes of, moderate tone
in, 132, 133, blazed the way for a
fair reception for believers and
skeptics, 148-150.
Blake, William, mystical element
in, 58; perhaps not wholly sane,
58; his Reeds of Innocence, 59;
The Tyger, 59; James Thomson's
poem on, 59, 60.
Blunt, W. S., 488.
Book of Common Prayer, 16.
Brontë, Charlotte and Emily, 267,
268, 270, 271.
Brooke, Stopford A., Poetry of
Tennyson cited, 384 n.; cited,
392 n.
Brown, T. E., his strictures
Cowper, 48 n.; his My Garden,
492.
Browning, Robert, quotation from,
on death, 349; compared and
contrasted with Tennyson, 351-
356, 360, 361, 365-369, 376, 386,
387; did not treat the English
language with a decent respect,
353, 354; his perverse cacopho-
nies, 355, 356; treasures some-
times appear in his worst verse,
356, 357; has suffered and de-
served much at the hands of com-
mentators, 357; his alleged ob-
scurity, 357; his Sordello trans-
lated into English by David
Duff, 357; Sordello could not
have been made an easy' poem,
358; the key to his work, 359;
essentially religious, 360; repre-
sents the non-conforming ele-
ment in English life and verse,
361; cosmopolitan, 361, 362; his
non-conforming manner of ap-
proaching a subject, 363; his con-
nection with religion, 363, 364;
his relation to the Bible, 364-
369; prefigures something of
Pragmatism, 376; his pathos, 388,
389; religious poems, 389, 390;
Pippa Passes, 390, 391; his me-
thod in using religious and ethi-
cal material, 391, 392; reason for
early neglect and later vogue,
392; secret of his influence, 393.
Bryant, W. C., heir to the Puritan
heritage, 341, 342; moved in the
realm of the concrete, 344, 345.
Buchanan, Robert, 488,
Bulwer-Lytton, Sir Edward, 294,
295.
Bunyan, John, compared with
Clough, 427, 428; cited, 517; a
living allegory, 500, 501.
Burke, Edmund, comforted by
Wilberforce's Practical View,
etc., 172; on Wilberforce, 173.
Burns, Robert, on Cowper's The
Task, 44, 45; inspired to sing
and fly, 55; revealed himself un-
reservedly in his verse, 55; was
weak, 55; The Cottar's Saturday
Night his best poem, 55, 56; re-
ligious feeling in, 55-57; Long-
fellow's verses on, 56, 57.
Bushnell, Horace, 337-339.
Butler, Samuel, Hudibras, a bur-
lesque, 500, 501.
Byron, Lord, combined something
of Mirabeau, Danton, and Napo-
leon in himself, 92, 93; his career
not to be understood apart from
the public of the day, 94, 95; pe-
culiarities of, 95; a poseur, 96;
impertinent in English Bards and
Scotch Reviewers, 97; the centre
of all is himself, 97; his cynicism
becomes him and is essential to
him, 98; felt the freedom of the
open sea, 99; his tragedy spoiled
by his element of misanthropy,
100; his shipwreck scenes, 100–
102; his inventiveness and ingenu-
ity, 103; tributes of Goethe, Maz-
zini, and Castelar to, 103 n.; the
author's feelings on re-reading,
103, 104; use of the sneer and
the mocking question in Cain,
104, 105; an apostle of revolu-
tion, 105, 106; contrasted with
Shelley, 107, 108; the secret of his
perversity, 108; Britain neces-
sary to him, 362.
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