Jones, Robert Browning, 109, 311—“Pantheistic optimism asserts that all things _are_ good; Christian optimism asserts that all things are _working together_ for good. Reverie in Asolando: ‘From the first Power was—I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see.’ Balaustion’s Adventure: ‘Gladness be with thee, Helper of the world! I think this is the authentic sign and seal Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad, And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts Into a rage to suffer for mankind And recommence at sorrow.’ Browning endeavored to find God in man, and still to leave man free. His optimistic faith sought reconciliation with morality. He abhorred the doctrine that the evils of the world are due to merely arbitrary sovereignty, and this doctrine he has satirized in the monologue of Caliban on Setebos: ‘Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.’ Pippa Passes: ‘God’s in his heaven—All’s right with the world.’ But how is this consistent with the guilt of the sinner? Browning does not say. He leaves the antinomy unsolved, only striving to hold both truths in their fulness. Love demands distinction between God and man, yet love unites God and man. Saul: ‘All’s love, but all’s law.’ Carlyle forms a striking contrast to Browning. Carlyle was a pessimist. He would renounce happiness for duty, and as a means to this end would suppress, not idle speech alone, but thought itself. The battle is fought moreover in a foreign cause. God’s cause is not ours. Duty is a menace, like the duty of a slave. The moral law is not a beneficent revelation, reconciling God and man. All is fear, and there is no love.” Carlyle took Emerson through the London slums at midnight and asked him: “Do you believe in a devil now?” But Emerson replied: “I am more and more convinced of the greatness and goodness of the English people.” On Browning and Carlyle, see A. H. Strong, Great Poets and their Theology, 373-447.