Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood To which she links a truth divine! In the last line of the next stanza this "sacred flesh and blood" of Christ (it is to be presumed) is called "a type"--which is a wide departure from orthodox Christianity. And what shall we say of the final lines of the whole poem? One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. Like other passages of "In Memoriam," it is a distinct anticipation of the thought of "The Higher Pantheism," "Flower in the Crannied Wall," "De Profundus," and "The Ancient Sage." Much has been made of the "Pilot" in one of Tennyson's last poems, "Crossing the Bar." I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crossed the bar. This has been treated as a reference to Christ; but a friend of Tennyson's, writing in the _Athenæum_, says that the reference was really to the poet's son, Lionel Tennyson, who "crossed the bar" of death some years previously. How much more natural and human is the reference in the light of this explanation! Yet it appears, after all, from a later letter to the press by Tennyson's surviving son, that he _did_ mean Christ. This is not, however, a confession of orthodoxy. The sentiment might be shared by men like the venerable Dr. Martineau, who deny the deity of Christ and strongly dissent from many time-honored Christian teachings. Tennyson most assuredly revolted against the brutalities of Christianity; which, by the way, are countenanced by very explicit texts in the New Testament. He did not approve the text, "Great is your reward in heaven." He was above such huckstering. He sang of Virtue-- She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky. Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. A noble petition! though in the teeth of a too patent destiny. The doctrine of eternal Hell he first turned from, then denounced, and finally despised. It was for wavering as to this hideous dogma that the Rev. F. D. Maurice got into trouble with his College. He was godfather to Tennyson's little boy, and the poet invited him, in exquisitely charming verse, to share his hospitality. For, being of that honest few, Who give the Fiend himself his due, Should eighty-thousand college-councils Thunder "Anathema," friend, at you; Should all our churchmen foam in spite At you, so careful of the right, Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome (Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight. Tennyson had already, in "In Memoriam," proclaimed himself a Universalist, as Browning did afterwards in his powerful lines on the old Morgue at Paris. He had expressed the hope