drew
Ryckman's Prayer," Whittier has made the whole religious world his
debtor.

How many more there are--of those whom the world reckons as the
greater bards, and of those whom it assigns to lower places--to whom
we have found ourselves indebted for the clearing of our vision or the
quickening of our pulses, in our studies or our meditations upon the
deepest questions of life! How many there are, whose faces we
never saw, but who by some luminous word, some strain vibrant with
tenderness, some flash of insight, have endeared themselves to us
forever! They are the friends of our spirits, ministers to us of the
holiest things. They have clothed for us the highest truth in forms of
beauty; they have made it winsome and real and dear and memorable. Is
there anything better than this, that one man can do for another?

Washington Gladden

[Footnote A: "The Great Poets and their Theology."]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY:
"RELIGION AND POETRY."
By _Washington Gladden_

POEMS OF THE HIGHER LIFE:
THE DIVINE ELEMENT--(God, Christ, the Holy Spirit)
PRAYER AND ASPIRATION
FAITH: HOPE: LOVE: SERVICE
SABBATH: WORSHIP: CREED
SELECTIONS FROM "PARADISE LOST"
HUMAN EXPERIENCE
DEATH: IMMORTALITY: HEAVEN
SELECTIONS FROM "THE DIVINE COMEDY"

INDEX: AUTHORS AND TITLES

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

JOHN MILTON
_Photogravure from an engraving_.

THE CHILD JESUS IN THE TEMPLE
_One of Heinrich Hoffmann's wonderful scenes in the life of
Christ: the earnest, wise-faced Boy, and the eager or doubtful
but thoughtful Scribes and Doctors of the Law, are graphically
depicted._

ISAAC WATTS
_From a contemporary engraving_.

THE HOLY NIGHT
"It was the winter wild
While the heaven-born Child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies."

_From photogravure after a painting by Martin Feuerstein._

CHARLES WESLEY
_From a contemporary engraving_.

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
"Knocking, knocking, ever knocking?
Who is there?
'Tis a pilgrim, strange and kingly,
Never such was seen before."

_From photo-carbon print after the painting by Holman Hunt_.

SIR GALAHAD
"My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure."

_From photogravure after the painting by George Frederick Watts_.

RALPH WALDO EMERS