Jesus Christ

That Mr. Browning was something more than a Theist, a Unitarian, or a Broad Churchman, may be gathered from several pa ages in his works, as well as from direct statements to individuals. Three lines in the Death in the Desert (though often said to be used only dramatically), when taken in connection with the whole drift and purpose of the poem, seem to indicate a faith which is more than mere Theism: “The acknowledgment of God in Christ, accepted by thy reason, Solves for thee all questions in the earth and out of it, And has so far advanced thee to be wise.” In the Epistle of Karshish , the Arab physician says concerning Jesus, who had raised Lazarus from the dead:— “The very God! think, Abib, dost thou think? So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too— So, through the thunder comes a loving voice Saying, ‘O heart I made, a heart beats here! Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! Thou hast no power nor may’st conceive of mine. But love I gave thee, with myself to love, And thou must love me who have died for thee!’ The madman saith He said so: it is strange.” Christmas Eve and Easter Day seem to be meaningle if they do not expre the author’s faith in the divinity of our Lord. Just as every believer in Him can detect the true ring of the Christian believer and lover of his Lord in the lines quoted from the Epistle of Karshish , so will his touchstone detect the Christian in many other pa ages of the poet’s work. In Saul , canto xviii., David says:— “My flesh, that I seek In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!” David—to whom Christen dom attributes the Psalms, even were he only the editor of that wonderful body of prayer and praise—as the utterer of sentiments like these, is permitted to expre the orthodox opinion that he prophesied of the Christ who was to come. Mr. Browning would have hardly done this “dramatically.” (What are termed “the Me ianic Psalms” are ii., xxi., xxii., xlv., lxxii., cx.) Pompilia, in The Ring and the Book , a character which is built up of the purest and warmest faith of the poet’s heart, says:— “I never realised God’s truth before— How He grew likest God in being born.” The poem entitled “The Sun,” in Ferishtah’s Fancies , No. 5, may be studied in this connection.