On the large scale, in the impact of literature on the individual soul and through that on the national belief, aspiration and resolve, the great sphere of influence lies necessarily in the religious life, because that is universal and constant from birth to death and spreads among the secret springs and sources of man's essential nature. It is a commonplace, it has sometimes been made a reproach, that English literature is predominantly moral and religious, and the fact is plainly so. The strain that began with Piers Plowman flourished more mightily in the Pilgrim's Progress. The psalm-note that was a tone of character in Surrey, Wyatt and Sidney gave perfect song in Milton, both poet and man. From Butler to Newman the intellect, applied to religion, did not fail in strenuous power. Taylor's Holy Living is a saint's book. If religious poets, of one pure strain of Sabbath melody, have been rare, yet Herbert, Vaughan, Cowper, Keble, Whittier are to the memory Christian names, with the humility and breathing peace of sacred song. The portion of English literature expressly religious is enlarged by the works of authors, both in prose and verse, in which religion was an occasional theme and often greatly dealt with; and the religious and moral influence of the body of literature as a whole on the English race is immensely increased by those writers into whom the Christian spirit entered as a master-light of reason and imagination, such as Spenser in the Faërie Queene and Wordsworth in his works generally, or Gray in the solemn thought of the Elegy. To particularize is an endless task; for the sense of duty toward man and God is of the bone and flesh of English books in every age, being planted in the English nature. This vast mass of experience and counsel, of praise and prayer, of insight and leading, variously responding to every phase of the religious consciousness of the historic people, has been, like the general harvest, the daily food of the nation in its spiritual life. If Shakespeare is the greatest of our writers, the English Bible is the greatest of our books; and the whole matter is summarized in saying that the Bible, together with the Book of Common Prayer, is the most widely distributed, the most universally influential, the most generally valued and best-read book of the English people, and this has been true since the diffusion of printing. It may seem only the felicity of time that the English language best adorns its best book; but it is by a higher blessing that English character centres in this Book, that English thinkers see by it, that English poets feel by it, that the English people live by it; for it has passed into the blood of all English veins.