f goodness; and the world itself, "with
its dread machinery of sin and sorrow," is made to join the great
conspiracy, whose purpose is at once the evolution of man's character,
and the realization of the will of God.

"So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too--
So, through the thunder comes a human 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.'"[A]

[Footnote A: _An Epistle from Karshish_.]

But, if we follow Browning's thoughts in his later and more reflective
poems, such as _Ferishtah's_ _Fancies_ for instance, it will not be
possible to hold that the poet altogether realized the importance for
both morality and religion alike, of the idea of the actual immanence of
God in man. In these poems he seems to have abandoned it in favour of
the hypotheses of a more timid philosophy. But, if his religious faith
had not been embarrassed by certain dogmatic presuppositions of which he
could not free himself, he might have met more successfully some of the
difficulties which later reflection revealed to him, and might have been
able to set a true value on that "philosophy," which betrayed his faith
while appearing to support it.

But, before trying to criticize the principle by means of which Browning
sought to reconcile the moral and religious elements of human life, it
may be well to give it a more explicit and careful statement.

What, then, is that principle of unity between the divine and the human?
How can we interpret the life of man as God's life in man, so that man,
in attaining the moral ideal proper to his own nature, is at the same
time fulfilling ends which may justly be called divine?

The poet, in early life and in late life alike, has one answer to this
question--an answer given with the confidence of complete conviction.
The meeting-point of God and man is love. Love, in other words, is, for
the poet, the supreme principle both of morality and religion. Love,
once for all, solves that contradiction between them which, both in
theory and in practice, has embarrassed the world for so many ages. Love
is the sublimest conception attainable by man; a life inspired by it is
the most perfect form of goodness he can conceive; therefore, love is,
at the same moment, man's moral ideal, and the very essence of Godhoo