parallelism; it may even be the indescribable form which Walt Whitman
has adopted. What is noticeable is the fact that poetical thought, if it
is at its best, always takes on, by a kind of necessity, some poetical
form. To illustrate if not to demonstrate this, it is only necessary to
select from literature any fine piece of poetical expression of a higher
and nobler emotion, or of clear and inspiring vision, and attempt to put
it into prose form. The reader will find, if he be dealing with the
highest poetry, that translating it into prose impairs its power to
express the feeling, and makes the expression not less but more
artificial. If he doubt this statement, let him turn to any of the finer
specimens of verse in this volume and see whether he can express the
life in prose as truly, as naturally, as effectively, as it is there
expressed in rhythmical form.

These various considerations may help to explain why in all ages of the
world the arts have been the handmaidens of religion. Not to amplify
too much, I have confined these considerations to the three arts of
music, painting, and poetry; but they are also applicable to sculpture
and architecture. All are attempts by men of vision to interpret to the
men who are not equally endowed with vision, what the invisible world
about us and within us has for the enrichment of our lives. This is
exactly the function of religion: to enrich human lives by making them
acquainted with the infinite. It is true that at times the arts have
been sensualized, the emphasis has been put on the form of expression,
not on the life expressed; and then reformers, like the Puritans and the
Quakers, have endeavored to exclude the arts from religion, lest they
should contaminate it. But the exclusion has been accomplished with
difficulty, and to maintain it has been impossible. It is neither an
accident, nor a sign of decadence, that painting and sculpture are
creeping back into the Protestant churches, to combine with poetry and