19 
THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY IN 
WORDSWORTH. 
By Rev. J. H. WICKSTEED, M.A. 18th February, 1902. 
The lecturer did not claim to speak about Wordsworth as an 
expert, but simply as one who had an affection for a few of his 
Poems. He proposed to deal with the subject from an historical 
and autobiographical point. The lives of great men are inextric- 
ably involved in their thought, so that we cannot trace the 
thought except by tracing the life. 
There is a general, but an erroneous, opinion that Wordsworth 
was somewhat of an “old woman,” but such was not the fact ; 
his youth was full of fresh, vigorous boyishness and escapades. 
In one of his poems he sings of ‘‘A tempting playmate whom we 
dearly loved,” and we find him throwing himself with zest and 
spirit into the life of nature. 
«« Bird nesting, mean our object and inglorious !— 
Skating on on lake in the frosty season, 
Happy times for all of us: 
For me it was a time of rapture.— 
Shod with steel we hiss along the polished ice.’’ 
One of the first things which bring home to the mind motions 
of nature is fear. To this he refers again and again, as if it 
were a powerful agent awakening man’s soul. He dwells on this 
fact in his description of the hero in ‘‘ The Excursion,” as a factor 
awakening up the young lad’s life. This hero, in many respects, 
is modelled on Wordsworth’s own life. He describes the youth 
growing up among the hills, and becoming inspired with the 
sense of the mysterious powers in nature; a something which is 
vital and yet not himself—yet something which is akin to his 
own life—trying to speak to him from without himself. 
He describes these periods of fear, and how at times he became 
most conscious of an indescribable presence in nature apart from 
himself ; such feelings being impressed upon him, mostly in times 
of fear. Times of solemn silence are also productive of this same 
sense of a mighty presence in nature, as described in that 
beautiful poem in ‘‘ The Excursion,” — 
