. As the philosopher thinks, so the
prophet preaches, so the poet sings. Thinking, speaking, singing, are
the three acts in the ascending scale of the soul's self-manifestation.
Generally speaking, these high functions are not found in their
perfection in one and the same soul; rarely do you meet with the spirit
of the philosopher, prophet and poet incarnate in one mortal frame.
Such enterprise is too great for all but the greatest, and amongst
these may possibly be classed the poet-prophet of Israel, Isaiah, the
writers of some of the Vedic hymns and Hebrew psalms, and Jesus of
Nazara, whose soul was full of music, and whose thinking and preaching
will probably fill the thoughts of man throughout all time.

The significance of philosophical and prophetic teaching in religion is
a frequent subject of thought in our circles, and now the recent
publication of Tennyson's life enables us to say something of the
_Religio Poetae_--the idealism which inspired the soul of a nineteenth
century poet.

The poet's name is not without significance and interest. It is a
Greek word signifying "maker" or "creator"--_Poietes_. There is a
philosophy in language however much we continue to ask, "What's in a
name?" When those wonderful Greeks wished to express the thinker's
art, they spoke of _Sophia_ or wisdom; when they heard the first
preacher who told them of their innermost selves, they called him the
_Prophetes_ or prophet, the man that speaketh forth as from an
illimitable deep; and when they listened to the soul of music coming
from the lips of a Homer or a Sappho, they called it by the most
expressive name of all, "making" or "creation". The poet was a
creator. And so he is if we come to think of it. Out of the materials
supplied to him by the thinking of other intelligences, he weaves his
song of joy and beauty which holds our senses as in a spell, and steeps
our souls in ecstasy. He is a "reed," to use an expression of Tennyson
himself, "through which all things blow to music". He is the creator
of the ideal world _par excellence_; the keys of the Unseen are in his
keeping.

We say that he transfigures the thoughts of other intelligences, that
he turns his genius to the rhythmic expression of the towering
fantasies of the philosopher. And he does. Poetry without thought
would be a jingle--a word which, if we may trust the reviews, is a
satisfactory account of much of the "minor" poetry of the day. If a
man does