threshold of an eternal life; that a Hand like
his hand opens to him its gates.

David's prophecy has rung through the universe; and as he seeks his home
in the darkness, unseen "cohorts" press everywhere upon him. A
tumultuous expectation is filling earth and hell and heaven. The Hand
guides him through the tumult. He sees it die out in the birth of the
young day. But the hushed voices of nature attest the new dispensation.
The seal of the new promise is on the face of the earth.

The EPILOGUE is spoken by three different persons, and embodies as many
phases of the religious life. The "FIRST SPEAKER, _as David_,"
represents the old Testament Theism, with its solemn celebrations, its
pompous worship, and the strong material faith which bowed down the
thousands as one man, before the visible glory of the Lord.

The "SECOND SPEAKER, _as Renan_" represents nineteenth-century
scepticism, and the longing of the heart for the old belief which
scientific reason has dispelled. This belief is symbolized by a "Face"
which once looked down from heights of glory upon men; by a star which
shone down upon them in responsive life and love. The face has vanished
into darkness. The star, gradually receding, has lost itself in the
multitude of the lesser lights of heaven. And centuries roll past while
the forsaken watchers vainly question the heavenly vault for the sign of
love no longer visible there.

This lament assumes that Theism, having grown into Christianity, must
disappear with it; and the pathetic sense of bereavement gives way to
shuddering awe, as the farther significance of the sceptical position
reveals itself. _Man_ becomes the summit of creation; the sole successor
to the vacant throne of God.

The "THIRD SPEAKER," Mr. Browning himself, corrects both the material
faith of the Old Testament, and the scientific doubt of the nineteenth
century, by the idea of a more mystical and individual intercourse
between God and man. Observers have noted in the Arctic Seas that the
whole field of waters seem constantly hastening towards some central
point of rock, to envelope it in their playfulness and their force; in
the blackness they have borrowed from the nether world, or the radiance
they have caught from heaven; then tearing it up by the roots, to sweep
onwards towards another peak, and make _it_ their centre for the time
being. So do the forces of life and nature circle round the individual
man, doing in each the work of