DEAR SIR,--Since it will be a satisfaction to me to express my delight in the success of your poem, you cannot well deny me the privilege. When I heard the first announcement of it as forthcoming, I said, "Well, it is the grandest of all subjects; why has it never been attempted?" And yet I said inwardly in the next breath: "What mortal power is equal to the handling of it?" The greater and the more delightful is my surprise at the result. You have managed the theme with really wonderful address. The episodes, and the hard characters, and the partly imaginary characters, you had your liberty in; and you have used them well to suffuse and flavor and poetize the story. And yet, I know not how it is, but the part which _finds_ me most perfectly, and is, in fact, the most poetic poetry of all, is the prose-poem,--the nearly rhythmic transcription of the simple narrative matter of the gospels. Perhaps the true account of it may be that the handling is so delicately reverent, intruding so little of the poet's fine thinking and things, that the reverence incorporate promotes the words and lifts the ranges of the sentiment; so that when the reader comes out at the close, he finds himself in a curiously new kind of inspiration, born of modesty and silence. I can easily imagine that certain chaffy people may put their disrespect on you for what I consider your praise. Had you undertaken to build the Christ yourself, as they would require of you, I verily believe it would have killed you,--that is, made you a preacher. With many thanks, I am yours, HORACE BUSHNELL.{98}