"Oh! therefore, from thy sightless range, With gods in unconjectured bliss. Oh from the distance of the abyss Of tenfold, complicated change, "Descend, and touch, and enter: hear The wish too strong for words to name; That in the blindness of the frame My ghost may feel that thine is near." _In Memoriam_, xcii. We say "as a Christian;" for we warmly repudiate the harsh interpretation which is often put on his words addressed to the Son of God: "Thou _seemest_ human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood thou." "See," it is said, "this is the most you can get from your favorite about Christ--that he _seems_ divine. It is an appearance, a semblance only." Now, this reasoning is most unfair. The remainder of the verse implies his godhead-- "Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, _to make them thine._" The verses which follow are a prayer to Christ, imploring from him light and aid, wisdom and forgiveness. (Prefatory lines to _In Memoriam_) {149} In fact, it is evident from other parts of Tennyson's elegy, that he does not use the word _seem_ in the sense of appearing to be what a thing is _not_, but in the sense of its appearing to be _what it is_. Thus, in the fifth stanza, below the lines just quoted, we have-- "Forgive what _seemed_ my sin in me; What _seemed_ my worth since I began; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord! to thee." So again, _In Memoriam_, xxxiii., "O thou that after toil and storm, May'st _seem_ to have reached a purer air;" where "_seem_ to have reached" is equivalent to "thou who _hast_ reached," with that delicate shade of difference only which belongs to Greek rather than to English diction. Thus the verb [Greek text] is repeatedly used in the New Testament as an expletive, not meaningless to the ear, though adding no distinct idea which can be expressed in a single word, [Greek text], (St. Matt. iii. 9,) means to all intents, simply, "Say not in yourselves," and [Greek text] (Gal. ii. 9) means, "who were really the pillars they seemed to be." Such passages, it is true, prove nothing as to Tennyson's use of the word _seem_, but they do illustrate it. The perfect godhead of Christ is brought out fully in the sermon preached by Averill in _Aylmer's Field_. "The Lord from heaven, born of a village girl, carpenter's son," is there styled in the prophet's words, "Wonderful, Prince of Peace, the Mighty God." When the Laureate prays that his very worth may be forgiven, he employs the language of deep humility which meets us so constantly in the writings of Catholic saints. It reminds us of their prayers to the Father of Lights that the best they have ever done may be pardoned, that their tears may be washed, their myrrh incensed, their spikenard's scent perfumed, and their breathings after God fumigated. It is no shallow view that he takes of repentance when he makes Queen Guinevere ask: