caught and held
By the hem of the vesture!--

XXI

And I caught
At the flying robe, and unrepelled
Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught
With warmth and wonder and delight,
God's mercy being infinite.
For scarce had the words escaped my tongue,
When, at a passionate bound, I sprung,
Out of the wandering world of rain,
Into the little chapel again.

He finds himself back in the chapel, all that has occurred having been a
vision. His conclusions have that broadness of view which belongs only
to those most advanced in thought. He has learned that not only must
there be the essential truth behind every sincere effort to reach it,
but that even his own vision of the truth is not necessarily the final
way of truth but is merely the way which is true for him. The jump from
the attitude of mind that persecutes those who do not believe according
to one established rule to such absolute toleration of all forms because
of their symbolizing an eternal truth gives the measure of growth in
religious thought from the days of Wesley to Browning. The Wesleys and
their fellow-helpers were stoned and mobbed, and some died of their
wounds in the latter part of the eighteenth century, while in 1850, when
"Christmas-Eve" was written, an Englishman could express a height of
toleration and sympathy for religions not his own, as well as taking a
religious stand for himself so exalted that it is difficult to imagine a
further step in these directions. Perhaps we are suffering to-day from
over-toleration, that is, we tolerate not only those whose aspiration
takes a different form, but those whose ideals lead to degeneracy. It
seems as though all virtues must finally develop their shadows. What,
however, is a shadow but the darkness occasioned by the approach of some
greater light.

XXII

How else was I found there, bolt upright
On my bench, as if I had never left it?
--Never flung out on the common at night,
Nor met the storm and wedge-like cleft it,
Seen the raree-show of Peter's successor,
Or the laboratory of the Professor!
For the Vision, that was true, I wist,
True as that heaven and earth exist.
There sat my friend, the yellow and tall,
With his neck and its wen in the selfsame place;
Yet my nearest neighbor's cheek showed gall.
She had slid away a contemptuous space:
And the old