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February 7, 1912] THE]
the evil behind us, within us, about us, beyond
us.
Over against the facts of sin (human inability
or spiritual death; condemnation; alienation
from God; wickedness; and damnation),
God in Ills Word and by His Son and Holy
Spirit sets the great facts of salvation (to-wit:
regeneration, justihcation, adoption, sanctihcation,
giorihcation).
Salvation deals with the whole of a life, its
past, its present, its future. Without doing so
it would be incomplete; it must cover the wnole
of man here and liereafter.
"Christ would save, not merely our souls,
but our lives. He would have in mnrn into* _
ested, just now, in what He can do for us
here than hereafter. If, having given ourselves
to Christ, we concern ourselves little
witn learning how to live the Christ life while
we are in the body, the salvation that we attain
will certainly be robbed of some of its blessings,
borne who cherish the hope of salvation seem
to expect it to come at the end of a misspent
life, instead of its mahing for them a life of
purpose and service on earth. Whatever may
be tne future of those who seek this sort of salvation,
it is plain that their present life is a
betrayal of the Master whom they profess to
serve, rsot uie saving of a wreck, but the preventing
ot a wreck, is the greatest blessiug
Christ can offer; and we dishonor llis name
when we reject ills best." (Ed'r. C. G. Trumbull).
Beceher once said, " When men ask me, What
is salvation 1 41 say, Euianeiiiation from anything
tnat holds men down; from the bondage
of matter; irom the vigor of undeveloped tendencies;
from all the inlelicities of the lower
nature; from low and degraded forms of affection
; from the vast realm of inferiority into
which men are born. Salvation means to me
transformation. It means the lire of the Holy
Ghost burning out men's dross. It is positive
energetic strength. It is manhood in magnitude.
It is the fiower of God in the human soul.
It is new life, new being."
Nashville, Tenn.
SIDNEY LANIER.
DY REV. R. L. BENN.
cj:J t
?iuuey earner is considered the most musical
of American poets. He was descended from the
Ilugueuot Puritans, the very flower of the
French nation. Upon the repeal of the Edict of
Nantes by Louis XIV. in 1685, France suffered
irreparable loss by the emigration of these industrious
and virtuous people, who were the bone
and sinew of its national life. Nearly a million
Huguenots fled to Holland and Switzerland,
Sweden and Germany, England and America,
where they became leaders in trade, in art, in
science, and in religion.
The Lanicrs were prominent in England during
the respective reigns of Queen Elizabeth and
James I. aud Charles I. as directors of music
and painting and as political envoys. The
American lirnnnU nf ??;i? ?
? Kji. me tttiiiiiy originated in
IT]6 with the emigration of Thomas Lanier, who,
with other colonists, settled on a grant of land
now occupied by the city of Richmond, Virginia.
In the course of time the family scattered
through the Southern States.
The city in Georgia, which is best known to
the intellectual circles of England, is not Atlanta,
but Macon, the birth-place of Sidney
Lanier. He was born February 3, 1842. His
mother was a Virginian of Scotch descent, whose
family was gifted in poetry and music and oratory.
In his early boyhood he manifested an unusual
apitude for music and learned to play
almost any kind of instrument. The violin
"commanded liis soul." He loved the flute and
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S<
played it continuously. When fourteen years of
age he entered Oglethorpe College, which was
under Presbyterian control at the tune. Here he
came under the stimulating innueuce of James
VYoodrow, and alter graduation became a tutor,
all the while seriously pondering just what profession
he should follow through life, lie was
conscious that Clod had given him a talent for
music, but he could not readily decide to become
a musician, for it seemed to hiin to be a
'' small businfi.<8 ''
Meantime the war broke out, and in April,
ltJtil, he enlisted with the Maeon Volunteer* ot
the Second Georgia Battalion, the iirst military
organization which lett Georgia lor Virginia.
The military life had attracted him from boyhood.
Three tunes he relused promotion in
order not to be separated from his younger
brother. During camp hours he studied music
and German, French and Spanish, lie was in
the battles of Seven Bines, Drewry's Bluti,
around Kichmond, at Malvern Hill. He served
on the signal corps at .Petersburg and silent
live months in prison at Point Lookout. He had
great admiration for "Stonewall" Jackson ar.ci
afterwards wrote a poem on the dying words ot
this brilliant commander, in his "Tiger Lilies"
he graphically depicts the hardships 01 the war
period, as "astrange, enormous, terrible ilowcr"
which "the early spring of ltitil brought to
bloom, besides innumerable violets and jessamine.
''
While at Petersburg he felt the hrst symptoms
of that fatal malady which hounded and harrassed
him and hastened his end. On being released
from prisioii he made his way home on
foot, reaching there in a state of physical exhaustion
and succumbing to a protracted illness,
during which time he suffered the loss of his
mother. Mow began his weary struggle for
health. He went to New York, to Texas, and to
Baltimore, where he played the tiute in Pcabody
Symphony Concerts; and thence to Florida, to
Pennsylvania, to North Carolina, only to retrace
his steps to Florida, to Baltimore, to Pennsylvania,
trying one climate and means after another,
now writing for the magazines, now playing
the tiute in Peabody, now preparing "Science
of .English Verse," now lecturing to the students
of Johns-Hopkins University, his great soul thrilling
with lofty ideas and grand conceptions, his
body daily growing feebler, until September 7,
1881, his struggle ended, and his majestic spirit
which had so many times heard the "Swan-song
of dissolution," joined the Symphony Concert
above.
No land ever claimed a nobler spirit than
L/anier. No soul ever exhaled a purer inliuence.
No sublimer vision ever visited any poet. '' So
many great ideas for Art are born to me each
day," he wrote his wife, "I am swept away into
the land of All-Delight by this strenuous,
sweet whirlwind." No writer ever displayed
more fidelity to the truth. Ilis passion for "the
exact truth" was constitutional. "Right," in
his estimation, was the most beautiful thing.
He loved the words, "the beauty of holiness."
These so enthralled him that he reversed the
phrase and called it "the holiness of beauty."
He clothed Art in the "highest ethical ideas;"
3 i-L i " " """
nxiu in mis respect ne reminds one ol Milton nnd
Ruskin and the Puritan authors, more than any
English writer who has been influenced by "the
beauty of holiness." Lanier was "saturated
with it. It shines out in every line he wrote.
Every thought has a lofty reach." In him
aesthetic beauty and moral beauty are inseparable.
The beauty which dwelt in his soul found
expression in his beauties of rhythm and majestic
ideas.
Did spaco permit considerable notice might be
given to "Corn," which is the outcome of the
)UTH (123) 8
discipline and development of Lanier's art-lift;
and 10 "The Mocking .bird," which leads back
to his college days, wneu, as a boy, lie esteemed
a poet tbe "mocking bud of tlie spiritual universe;"
and to " llie bong of tlie Cbattalioocbee,"
which eertamiy ranks with Tennyson's
"lirook;" and to the "llynin of tne Marsnes," a
quartemion series, whieh embalms eoneeption
worthy of a Coleridge, and shed from the poet's
harp with a nieiouy eipiai to a \Vordsworth.
h'aith in God was Gamer's loadstone; and in
this last named poem his faith is given expression.
in the fodowmg lines his faitn is touring
and sublime?
. "As the marsh-lien secretly builds on the watery
sod,
Behold 1 will build me a nest on the greatness
OJ UOU:
1 will fly in the greatness of God as the marshhen
flies
In the freedom that Jills all the space 'twix the
marsh and the slues:
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the
sod
1 will heartily Lay me a-hold on the greatness of
(Joa.
ilis reverent discipleship of the great Artist
and Master appears in his Ballad of "The
Crystal Christ." Passing in review the sages
and poets of antiquity: lloiner and federates;
nescyius and .Lucretius; worn Dante and loi'ty
Milton j and the ho-ats of great teacners, lie
humbly tails betore (Jhrist, exclaiming:
"Hut Tliee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time,
Hut Thee, O poet's Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,
Hut Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,
O perfect life in perfect labor writ,
O all men's Comrade, Servant, Sing, or Priest,?
What if or yet, what mole, what Jlaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumor tattled by an enemy,
Of inference loose, what lack of grace
Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,?
Oh, what amiss may 1 forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good, Paragon, thou Crystal Christ."
And in this Ballad, "Trees and the Master,"
was written a little more than a year before he
died when he was at a hand-to-liaud battle for
life. A simple faith, a beautiful consecration, a
sweet worship breathes in its lines,?
"Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Ilim
When into the woods He came.
"Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When death and shame would woo nim last,
From under the trees tlicy drew nim last:
'Twas on a tree they slew Him?last
When out of the woods he came."
Beside a volume of poems Lanier wrote extensively
in prose. How he accomplished so much,
in so short a time, in the face of so great difficulties,
is a marvel. Despite his ominous struggle
for health he actually achieved renown as an
educator, a musician, a poet and a literatuer of
the first order. His message is a beautiful
eulogy on faith and hope and persistent labor.