emoriam." The Ancient Mariner felt only selfish
affection. He had no love for "being as being." He killed the albatross
with as little heed as he disregarded his fellow-men; but the ministries
of his misery were multiplied until, at length, he was able to see
something beautiful even in the writhing green sea-serpents that
followed the ship of death on which he sailed. That was the first sign
of the larger interest which had long been growing within him, and which
was to continue to grow until he could say,

"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small."

"In Memoriam" is the record of the expansion of a soul through its
increase in love. At the beginning of his grief the poet sings,
dolefully and hopelessly, through his tears,

"He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day."

But the soul is growing secretly and surely as wheat grows in winter.
The Christmas bells ring out their music and at first are almost hated,
but they break through the shell of sorrow and let in a faint echo of
the world's great suffering and the world's great joy. Thus human
sympathy is enlarged just a bit. In successive years the music of the
Christmas bells is heard more distinctly, the sorrow of the world
becomes more audible, sympathy reaches farther. At last the poem which
began with a _miserere_ ends with a marriage, and he who could at first
write that dreary line,

"On the bald street breaks the blank day"

testifies to the beneficence of the path in which he had been led in
this wise and beautiful stanza,

"Regret is dead, but love is more
Than in the summers that have flown,
For I myself with these have grown
To something greater than before."

From dwelling in a prison with grief as a jailer he has caught a vision
of the,

"One far off divine event
To which the whole creation moves."

This expansion of the soul is not difficult to follow. Traces of it may
be seen in the enlarged sympathy, the growing brotherhood, and in the
rapidly increasing conviction that even nationalities are only temporary
expedients for bringing the day when love shall be the universal law.
The charities and philanthropies which are blossoming in every city and
country district, the consciousness of responsibility for the poor and
weak, the angel songs which are heard in