Life in the West; or, Stories of the Mississippi Valley. By N. C. Meeker, Agricultural Editor of the New York Tribune, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 360. From Lee & Shepard, Boston: Red Cross; or, Young America in England and Wales. A story of Travel and Adventure. By Oliver Optic, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 336. -------------- {145} The Catholic World. Vol. VII., No. 38.--May, 1868. Tennyson In His Catholic Aspects. For a poet eminently modern and English in his modes of thought, Tennyson is singularly free from the spirit of controversy. His native land is distracted by religious feuds, yet he who has been called "the recognized exponent of all the deeper thinkings of his age," takes no active part in them, and seldom drops a line that bespeaks the school of theology to which he belongs. At long intervals, indeed, devout breathings escape him. Once now and then he extracts a block of dogma from the deep quarry within, and fixes it in an abiding place. He never scatters doubts wantonly; he is always on the side of faith, though not perfect and Catholic faith. He alludes to Christian doctrines as postulates. For his purpose they need no proof. It would be idle to prove anything if they were not true. They are the life of the soul, and the vitality of verse. "Fly, happy, happy sails, and bear the press," he cries; but he adds this apostrophe likewise: "Fly happy with _the mission of the cross_." _The Golden Year._ He looks for the resurrection of the body, and bids the dry dust of his friend (Spedding) "lie still, _secure of change_." (_Lines to J. S._) When the spirit quits its earthly frame, he follows it straight into the unseen world and the presence of its Creator and God. He points to "the grand old gardener and his wife" in "yon blue heavens," smiling at the claims of long descent, (_Lady Clara Vere de Vere;_) and he speeds the soul of the expiring May Queen toward the blessed home of just souls and true, there to wait a little while for her mother and Effie: "To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast-- Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." _The May Queen_. Intensely as he loves nature, Tennyson is no Pantheist. Though like the wild Indian, he "sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind," he does not therefore confound matter with its Maker, nor lose sight of the personality of the Being whom he adores. He is no disciple of fate or chance, but recognizes in all human affairs the working of a divine and retributive providence, whose final judgment of good and evil is foreshadowed and begun during our mortal life. {146} To His presence and promptitude in reply to prayer, he refers more than once in pathetic and pointed language. He tells us how Enoch Arden, when cast away on a desert island, heard in his dream "the pealing of his parish bells," and