Excerpt from Poets as Theologians Steeple and spire soar to heaven, with perhaps a not unwarranted, nay, with an even picturesque pretension to point the way to the skies; and the clerical surplice would seem to deck a white-souled minister of the awful and yet attractive mysteries of the Unseen Powers; while, never obtrusive, but modestly retiring, and to be sought out, stand, in their lovely singing robes, those great poets who, without human stamp or hall-mark, are yet really gifted with the vision and the faculty divine. Silent the graves below, silent the stars above; and the insatiate yearning of the ardent soul which is discontented in the absence of its natural alliance with the divine, may find, at length, after due and pain ful trial, that more help is to be gained from the poets that sing than from the priests who intone. Of the great poets it may be said that all have faith, and are believers in the eternally divine; and they speak with perfect freedom, being, indeed, answerable only to the1r conscience and their God. Of their service it may with truth be said, that it is a service of perfect freedom. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.