Perhaps Hutton's figure may describe it better--"The Leap to God." At least ten years ago John Masefield, a wanderer on the face of the earth, found himself in New York city without friends and without means, and it was not to him an unusual thing to accept the position of "bar-boy" in a New York saloon. This particular profession has within its scope the duties of wiping the beer bottles, sweeping the floor, and other menial tasks. And now John Masefield has within recent months come to New York city to be the lauded and feted. Newspaper reporters met him as his boat landed, eager for his every word; Carnegie Hall was crowded to hear him read from his own poetry; and his journey across the country was just a great triumph from New York to San Francisco. Something had happened in those ten years. This man had achieved. This poet had climbed to God. This man had experienced the "Soul's Leap to God." He had found that Man of all men who once said, "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." He always lifts men out of nothing into the glory of the greatest achievement. Yes, something had happened in those ten years. And the things that had happened in those ten years are perfectly apparent in his writings if one follow them from the beginning to the end. And the things that had happened I shall trace through this poet's writings from the first, boyhood verses of "Salt Water Ballads" to "Good Friday"; and therein lies the secret; and incidentally therein lies some of the most thrilling human touches, vivid illustrations for the preacher; some of the most intensely interesting religious experiences that any biography ever revealed consciously or unconsciously. I. THE SOUL PSYCHOLOGY OF HIS YOUTH IN "SALT WATER BALLADS" One may search these "Salt Water Ballads" through from the opening line of "Consecration" to "The Song At Parting" and find no faint suggestion of that deep religious glory of "The Everlasting Mercy." This book was written, even as Masefield says, "in my boyhood; all of it in my youth." He has not caught the deeper meaning of life yet--the spiritual meaning--although he has caught the social meaning, just as Markham has caught it. 1. _Social Consciousness_ Even in "Consecration" we hear the challenging ring of a young voice who has wandered over the face of the earth and has taken his place with the "Outcast," has cast his lot with the sailor, the stoker, the tramp. "Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, The slave with the sack on his shoulders pricked on with the goad, The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load. "Others may sing of the wine and the wealth, and the mirth, The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth; Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust, and the scum of the earth! * * * * *