Finally there are the religious poems. From these we can best judge the reality of Chesterton's poetic impulse, for here, knowing that affectation would be almost indecent, he has expressed what he had to express with a care denied to most of his other works. In one of his essays, G.K.C. exults in that matchless phrase of Vaughan, "high humility." He has both adopted and adapted this quality, and the results are wonderful. In _The Wise Men_ occurs this stanza: The Child that was ere worlds begun (. . . We need but walk a little way, We need but see a latch undone . . .) The Child that played with moon and sun Is playing with a little hay. The superb antithesis leaves one struggling against that involuntary little gasp which is a reader's first tribute to a fine thought. He could be a great hymn writer, if he would. One of his poems, in fact, has found its way into The English Hymnal, where it competes (if one may use the word of a sacred song) with Recessional for the favour of congregations. If we take a glance at a few of the finest hymns, we shall find that they share certain obvious qualities: bold imagery, the vocabulary of conflict, an attitude of humility that is very nearly also one of great pride, and certain tricks of style. And when we look through Chesterton's poems generally, we shall find that these are exactly the qualities they possess. FOOTNOTE: [A] Transcriber's Note: The original equation was represented as clearly as possible. An image of the original equation can be found in the html version of this text. VI THE RELIGION OF A DEBATER IN his book on William Blake, Chesterton says that he is "personally quite convinced that if every human being lived a thousand years, every human being would end up either in utter pessimistic scepticism or in the Catholic creed." In course of time, in fact, everybody would have to decide whether they preferred to be an intellectualist or a mystic. A debauch of intellectualism, lasting perhaps nine hundred and fifty years, is a truly terrible thing to contemplate. Perhaps it is safest to assert that if our lives were considerably lengthened, there would be more mystics and more madmen.