the spirit that is within
him, exclude _that_ from his elegies, his hymns, and his songs, which,
whether mournful or exulting, are inspired by the life-long, life-deep
conviction, that all the greatness of the present is but for the
future--that the praises of this passing earth are worthy of his lyre
only because it is overshadowed by the eternal heavens.

But though the total exclusion of Religion from Poetry aspiring to be a
picture of the life or soul of man, be manifestly destructive of its
very essence--how, it may be asked, shall we set bounds to this
spirit--how shall we limit it--measure it--and accustom it to the curb
of critical control? If Religion be indeed all-in-all, and there are few
who openly deny it, must we, nevertheless, deal with it only in
allusion--hint it as if we were half afraid of its spirit, half
ashamed--and cunningly contrive to save our credit as Christians,
without subjecting ourselves to the condemnation of critics, whose
scorn, even in this enlightened age, has--the more is the pity--even by
men conscious of their genius and virtue, been feared as more fatal than
death?

No: Let there be no compromise between false taste and true Religion.
Better to be condemned by all the periodical publications in Great
Britain than your own conscience. Let the dunce, with diseased spleen,
who edits one obscure Review, revile and rail at you to his heart's
discontent, in hollow league with his black-biled brother, who, sickened
by your success, has long laboured in vain to edit another, still more
unpublishable--but do you hold the even tenor of your way, assured that
the beauty which nature, and the Lord of nature, have revealed to your
eyes and your heart, when sown abroad will not be suffered to perish,
but will have everlasting life. Your books--humble and unpretending
though they be--yet here and there a page not uninspired by the spirit
of Truth, and Faith, and Hope, and Charity--that is, by Religion--will
be held up before the ingle light, close to the eyes of the pious
patriarch, sitting with his children's children round his knees--nor
will any one sentiment, chastened by that fire that tempers the sacred
links that bind together the brotherhood of man, escape the solemn
search of a soul, simple and strong in its Bible-taught wisdom, and
happy to feel and own communion of holy thought with one unknown--even
perhaps by name--who although dead yet speaketh--and, without
superstition, is num