music in expressing the religious life of man. For the intellect alone
is inadequate either to express that life as it exists, or to call it
into existence where it does not exist. The tendency to ritual in our
time is a tendency not to substitute æsthetic for spiritual life, though
there is probably always a danger that such a substitution may be
unconsciously made, but to express a religious life which cannot be
expressed without the aid of æsthetic symbols. The work of the intellect
is to analyze and define. But the infinite is in the nature of the case
indefinable, and it is with the infinite religion has to do. All that
theology can hope to accomplish is to define certain provinces in the
illimitable realm of truth; to analyze certain experiences in a life
which transcends all complete analysis. The Church must learn to regard
not with disfavor or suspicion, but with eager acceptance, the
co-operation of the arts in the interpretation of infinite truth and the
expression of infinite life. Certainly we are not to turn our churches
into concert rooms or picture and sculpture galleries, and imagine that
æsthetic enjoyment is synonymous with piety. But as surely we are not to
banish the arts from our churches, and think that we are religious
because we are barren. All language, whether of painting, sculpture,
architecture, music, poetry, or oratory, is legitimately used to express
the divine life, as all the faculties, whether of painter, sculptor,
architect, musician, poet, orator, and philosopher, are to be used in
reaching after a more perfect knowledge of Him who always transcends and
always will transcend our perfect knowing.

Thus the study of poetry is the study of life, because poetry is the
interpretation of life. Poetry is not a mere instrument for promoting
enjoyment; it does not merely dazzle the imagination and excite the
emotions. Through the emotions and the imagination it both interprets
life and ministers to life. When the critic attempts to express that