American poems in this volume by the authors whose names are given below are the copyrighted property of the authors, or of their representatives named in parenthesis, and may not be reprinted without their permission, which for the present work has been courteously granted. PUBLISHERS OF THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY. 1904. _A. Coles_ (A. Coles, Jr., M.D.); _J.A. Dix_ (Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D.); _P.L. Dunbar; W.C. Gannett; W. Gladden; S.P. McL. Pratt; O. Huckel; Ray Palmer_ (Dr. Charles R. Palmer); _A.D.F. Randolph_ (Arthur D.F. Randolph). RELIGION AND POETRY BY WASHINGTON GLADDEN. The time is not long past when the copulative in that title might have suggested to some minds an antithesis,--as acid and alkali, or heat and cold. That religion could have affiliation with anything so worldly as poetry would have seemed to some pious people a questionable proposition. There were the Psalms, in the Old Testament, to be sure; and the minister had been heard to allude to them as poetry: might not that indicate some heretical taint in him, caught, perchance, from the "German neologists" whose influence we were beginning to dread? It did not seem quite orthodox to describe the Psalms as poems; and when, a little later, some one ventured to speak of the Book of Job as a _dramatic_ poem, there were many who were simply horrified. Indeed, it was difficult for many good people to consider the Biblical writings as in any sense literature; they belonged in a category by themselves, and the application to them of the terms by which we describe similar writings in other books appeared to many good men and women a kind of profanation. This was not, of course, the attitude of educated men and women, but something akin to it affected large numbers of excellent people. We are well past that period, and the relations of religion and poetry may now be discussed with no fear of misunderstandings. These relations are close and vital. Poetry is indebted to religion for its largest and loftiest inspirations, and religion is indebted to poetry for its subtlest and most luminous interpretations.