Religion is related to poetry as life is related to art. Religion is life, the life of God in the soul of man--the response of man's spirit to the attractions of the divine Spirit. Poetry is an interpretation of life. Religious poetry endeavors to express, in beautiful forms, the facts of the religious life. There is poetry that is not religious; poetry which deals only with that which is purely sensuous, poetry which does not hint at spiritual facts, or divine relations; and there is religion which has but little to do with poetry: but the highest religious thoughts and feelings are greatly served by putting them into poetic forms; and the greatest poetry is always that which sets forth the facts of the religious life. "Without love to man and love to God," says Dr. Strong, "the greatest poetry is impossible. Mere human love to God is not enough to stir the deepest chords either in the poet or in his readers. It is the connection of human love with the divine love that gives it permanence and security."[A] If, then, religion is the supreme experience of the human spirit, and that experience finds its most perfect literary expression in poetry, the present volume ought to contain a precious collection of the best literature. And any one who wished to give to a friend a volume which would convey to him the essential elements of religion would probably be safe to choose this volume rather than any prose treatise upon theology ever printed. He who reads this book through will get a clearer and truer idea of what the religious life is than any philosophical discussion could give him. For this poetry is an attempt to express life, not to explain it. It offers pictures or reports rather than analyses of religious experience. It gives utterance to the real life of religion in the individual soul, and is not a generalization of religious thoughts and feelings.