ch more sincere
man in his religious feeling than he is given credit for by Browning.
His belief is with him not a matter of cold, hard calculation as to the
attitude which will be, so to speak, the most politic from both a
worldly and a spiritual point of view. The beautiful passage beginning
"Just when we are safest, there's a sunset touch" etc., comes nearer to
the genuine enthusiasm of a Wiseman than any other in the poem. There is
an essential difference between the minds of the poet and the man he
portrays, which perhaps made it impossible for Browning fully to
interpret Wiseman's attitude. Both have religious fervor, but Browning's
is born of a consciousness of God revealed directly to himself, while
Wiseman's consciousness of God comes to him primarily through the
authority of the Church, that is through generations of authoritative
believers the first of whom experienced the actuality of Revelation.
Hundreds and thousands of people have minds of this caliber. They cannot
see a truth direct for themselves, they must be told by some person
clothed in authority that this or that is true or false. To Wiseman the
beauty of his own form of religion with its special dogmas made so
strong an appeal, that, since he could only believe through authority,
under any circumstances, it was natural to him to adopt the particular
form that gave him the most satisfaction. Proofs detrimental to belief
do not worry long with doubts such a mind, because the authority they
depend on is not the authority of knowledge, but the authority of
belief. This comes out clearly enough in one of Wiseman's letters in
which after enumerating a number of proofs brought forward by various
scholars tending to cast discredit on the dogmas of the Church, he
triumphantly exclaims, "And yet, who that has an understanding to judge,
is driven for a moment from the holdings of faith by such comparisons as
these!"

[Illustration: Sacred Heart _F. Utenbach_]

Upon looking through his writings there will always be found in his
expression of belief, I think, that ring of true sincerity as well as
what I should call an intense artistic delight in the essential beauty
of his religion.

As to Blougram's argument that he believed in living in the world while
he was in it, Wiseman's life was certainly not that of a worldling
alone, though he is described by one person as being "a genuine priest,
very good looking and able bodied, and with much apparent practice