utterance of the youthful spirit of romance, adventure, admiration, the quest of the wonder and mystery of the world. Whatever touches the soul of man with the sense of marvel, of yearning and hope, kindles the flame of poetic passion and speech.

Of all the interests which have engaged the attention of humanity, religion has proved the most powerful and the most inspiring. It is only one among many such objects of attention, but it appears the most pervasive and unescapable. Men have concerned themselves with a great variety of affairs, such as food, clothing, shelter, mating, family life, industry, war, government, institutions, customs and traditions. But above all there has been the brooding and persistent sense of relationship with higher powers. Inspired by that sense the innumerable expressions of the religious life have taken form in doctrine and ritual. Hardly a community in all the world is without them. Individuals there are who appear to be religionless, but no race or nation or tribe. It would seem to be the most essential characteristic of the intellectual and emotional life of mankind.

If this is true, it is not strange that the poetry of religion should be the most natural and universal sort of composition. The spirit of man seeks expression for its most elemental feelings in the elevated phrases of rhythmic speech. Other forms of verse have occupied the attention of the bards and singers of all the ages, but religion has had the primal place. This is true in a double sense. The themes deliberately chosen by the great poets, as by the supreme artists in other areas of human interest, have been those related to the moral and spiritual life. It is largely true that the masterpieces of painting, sculpture, architecture and music, as well as poetry, have had a religious theme or purpose. In a very real sense they were works of devotion, the effort to give artistic utterance to the mood of worship. But it is also true that the best product of the artistic mind is essentially religious. The purpose to put into an epic, a statue, a landscape, an edifice or a symphony the supreme effort of which the artist is capable, with the resolution to make it an instrument of education, happiness, and inspiration to noble ideals and worthful living, is truly religious. Indeed it is doubtful if any genuinely great work of the sort can be successfully performed without the religious motive.

One of the sure tests of great poetry is its power of survival. The race preserves what it prizes. To be sure there are tragedies that destroy some of the past's incalculable hoard of literary treasures. Many of the Greek dramas were swept away in the fire that destroyed the Alexandrian library when Omar, the Moslem, burned that priceless collection of documents. But in most instances the books and other writings that have won their way to the souls of men have been preserved and handed on. Probably this is the reason why so much of the poetry that has come down from the distant past is of the religious character. But the same sifting process will decide between the best and the second best in this and all later days. The larger number of the poems that endure will continue to deal with religion.

From all the centuries and from all the nations, these poems of the faith have come. The life of God is limited to no nation or age. He has never left Himself without witness among any people. The Babylonian records of the beginnings of time were hymns in celebration of Marduk and the other gods of the pantheon. The Assyrians treasured the temple psalms in honor of Asshur and Ishtar. The Egyptians paid the tribute of prayers and honorific inscriptions to Ammon, Mut and Khonsu. The ancient Aryans of India composed their Vedic hymns to the glory of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. The Greeks immortalized their religious conceptions in their epics and tragedies, and made the names of Zeus, Artemis and Apollo familiar to the whole of the Mediterranean world. In all the other regions of the east and west the worship of the Eternal has provided the central theme of poetic inspiration, though the names by which He has been known have been as varied as the hundred divine titles graven on Akbar's tomb. The literature of religion is as farflung as humanity. Every people has had its bible. Much of this holy writing was in the form of poetry. Nothing less artistic and elevated was deemed worthy of the faith. It was natural, therefore, that the Hebrew writings that have survived to us should deal with the central theme of religion. They are a curious illustration of the fact that religious material tended always to take precedence of other writings in their survival value. The Hebrews must have had a considerable body of writings of various sorts during

the classic period while Hebrew was a living speech. Yet, all that has survived to us is the collection we know as the Old Testament, and this deals almost wholly with the religious life of the nation. Furthermore, a large portion of this surviving group of documents is poetic in form. The Book of Job is the unapproached masterpiece of the ages. The Psalms are the most beautiful of lyrics dealing with the life of trust. The Proverbs are a marvellous anthology of wit and wisdom based upon the moral ideals of the sages. Much of the preaching of the prophets is in the form of poetic oracles, and even the prose narratives of national life are made vivid by the use of such ancient poems as the Song by the Sea, the Song of Deborah, and the Song of the Bow.

The New Testament, the source-book for a study of the origins of Christianity, is less moved by the poetic motive than the older collection. Its writers were the friends of Jesus, who went forth in a sort of breathless haste to tell the story of his life and work. The Gospels are brief and simple narratives of the Master's ministry. The Book of Acts is a short and vivid record of the beginnings of the new society. The Epistles are direct and searching messages to churches and individuals who needed instruction. And the Apocalypse is a fierce and forceful denunciation of the imperial power of Rome, and a triumphant announcement of its speedy overthrow. little opportunity for the poetic spirit to utter itself. from the pages of the New Testament have come such great hymns as the Gloria in Excelsis, the Ave Maria, the Nunc Dimittis, the Benedictus, Paul's Psalm of Love, and the comforting and exultant songs of the Revelation.

Here is And yet

Such a group of writings as the Bible contains, selected from a vastly larger literature, and made the canon of religious instruction and the manual of devotion for the whole of Christendom, could hardly fail to stimulate the production of a vast body of writings through all the centuries since the days of Jesus. It is of every sort, historical, sermonic, doctrinal, apologetic, expository and devotional. But perhaps no order of literature dealing with the Christian religion has equalled in volume the poetry which it has inspired. Men and women who have had no zest for formal treatises regarding the faith have poured out their souls in poems which have become

immortal. Movements and crises come and go in the history of religion; controversies break out and die away; sects, parties and denominations rise and decline; but the stream of poetic reflection upon the supreme facts of life and death is constant and refreshing. It is little concerned with the disputes of theologians or the researches of critics. It is above the skyline of creedal animosities. It is the utterance of those who are seeking the inner way which the pilgrims of all the ages have trodden toward the city of God.

The poetry of religion is as varied as are the experiences of humanity in its experiments with the great mystery of the soul's relationship to God. In the anthology of the singers of the faith there are all sorts of voices, and all moods of the spirit. As in the Bible itself, so in this larger bible of the ages, all notes are struck from those of rapturous confidence to those of darkest doubt and uttermost despair. The vast problems of sorrow, sin, temptation, failure, scepticism, cynicism, inquiry, hope, confidence, attainment, and rapturous fulfilment are all included in the many-sided complex of expression which is taking form in the ever-changing multitude of human strivings for life. Seekers after God are all the sons of men. He is the soul's companion and necessity. But who of all the race have found and fully known Him? Only those choice spirits whom history has enshrined as the prophets of the faith. Them, and One who passed this way, not so long ago, and not so far from where we dwell; One whose words hang in the air like banners, and whose sentences walk through all the earth like spirits. These have known, and they have stretched the terms of human speech to their utmost tension to give us some adequate conception of the great reality.

Next after the prophets, in whose ranks the Master finds his appointed place, come the poets, whose eyes have seen something of the vision, whose hearts have been stirred by the divine emotion, and out of these rich experiences they have given us their interpretations of the mystery. They do not deal in argument. They have little formal logic or careful science to bring to our aid. But they provide us with a knowledge that comes only from the depths of emotion and the wells of experience. And so they have made us their continual debtors, for we have little to draw with, and the wells are deep.

Though the poets speak in all tones of confidence or doubt, their best messages are those of assurance, and they leave us with the conviction that it is faith and not denial that has the last word.

Such an anthology of religious poetry as has been attempted in this volume must, in the nature of the case, be limited to a small portion of the great total of such materials lying at hand in the storehouse of the years. To make selection where the store is so rich and so abundant is an act of courage. Along the fringes of the collection there will be room for much variation of judgment. Some things will be missed that one would have included; some are given place that one would have passed by. This would be true of any such amalgam of religious poetry. But the heart and core of the best works of the spirit of reverence and devotion which the years have produced will be found here. And that is much; perhaps it is enough. To wander through the aisles of this great cathedral of music and song; to thread these forest paths where the saints have walked; to drink of these streams in which the generations of suffering and rejoicing pilgrims of the holy life. have quenched their thirst-this is itself a joy and an enrichment, a renewal of fellowship with the best who have gone this way, a fresh discovery of the eternal secret of friendship with God.