the Church's doctrines had its part in bringing out and strengthening
this tendency to reasoning which is so essential to progress. Where
religion itself is not the most important thing with the individual, all
reasoning upon it must indeed degenerate into strifes of words,
_vermiculate_ questions, as Lord Bacon calls them--such, namely, as like
the hoarded manna reveal the character of the owner by breeding of
worms--yet on no questions may the light of the candle of the Lord, that
is, the human understanding, be cast with greater hope of discovery than
on those of religion, those, namely, that bear upon man's relation to God
and to his fellow. The most partial illumination of this region, the very
cause of whose mystery is the height and depth of its _truth_, is of more
awful value to the human being than perfect knowledge, if such were
possible, concerning everything else in the universe; while, in fact, in
this very region, discovery may bring with it a higher kind of conviction
than can accompany the results of investigation in any other direction.
In these grandest of all thinkings, the great men of this time showed a
grandeur of thought worthy of their surpassing excellence in other
noblest fields of human labour. They thought greatly because they aspired
greatly.

Sir Walter Raleigh was a personal friend of Edmund Spenser. They were
almost of the same age, the former born in 1552, the latter in the
following year. A writer of magnificent prose, itself full of religion
and poetry both in thought and expression, he has not distinguished
himself greatly in verse. There is, however, one remarkable poem fit for
my purpose, which I can hardly doubt to be his. It is called _Sir Walter
Raleigh's Pilgrimage_. The probability is that it was written just after
his condemnation in 1603--although many years passed before his sentence
was carried into execution.