Those words of his, so often quoted, are often sadly misused: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds." When men make these words an excuse for an attitude of habitual negation and denial, assuming that it is better to doubt everything than to believe anything, they grossly pervert the poet's meaning. It is the _faith_ that lives in honest doubt that his heart applauds. He is thinking of the fact that it is real faith in God which leads men to doubt the dogmas which misrepresent God. But conscious as he is of the shadow that lies upon our field of vision, he is always insisting that it is in the light and not in the shadow that we must walk. Therefore, although demonstration is impossible, faith is rational. So do those great words of "The Ancient Sage" admonish us: "Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one. Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no, Nor yet that thou art mortal--nay, my son. Thou canst not prove that I who speak with thee, Am not thyself in converse with thyself, For nothing worthy proving can be proven Nor yet disproven. Wherefore be thou wise, Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith! She reels not in the storm of warring words, She brightens at the clash of 'Yes' and 'No,' She sees the best that glimmers through the worst, She feels the sun is hid but for a night, She spies the summer through the winter bud, She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, She hears the lark within the songless egg, She finds the fountain where they wailed 'Mirage!'" This illustrates Tennyson's mental attitude. If all who plume themselves upon their doubts would put themselves into this posture of mind, they would find themselves in possession of a very substantial faith. Tennyson has touched with light more than one problem of the soul. The little stanza beginning "Flower in the crannied wall" has shown us how the mysteries of being are shared by the commonest lives; the short lyric "Wages" condenses into a few lines the strongest proof of the life to come; and "Crossing the Bar" has borne many a spirit in peace out to the boundless sea.