The Days of a Man 1891 



together by Dr. Elliott in a very helpful book en- 



titlcd J n Terms of Life r ! 



Some years later, Professor L. P. Jacks of Oxford, 

 editor of The Hibbert Journal, asked me to write on 

 "The Religion of a Sensible American." In this 

 article (afterward reprinted in book form) I gave 

 an analysis of Thoburn's thought and influence. 

 From a Phi Beta Kappa poem, " Prayer," written 

 by Mr. Field in memory of Dr. Thoburn, I quote 

 the following, though it is a matter of regret to 

 break the finely balanced thought of the whole: 



Prayer Voice un forgo tten ! once your message came, 



Set in a quiet sentence; 



Prayer, if it be such deep desire 



For good that it shall realize 



Its hope in action, may aspire 



To answer and not otherwise! 



So spake that voice, and prayer became 



A force, no more an empty name! 



And over faith's inverted cup 



A gleaming Grail was lifted up. 



Right thinking ever turned to act 

 Shall make unceasing prayer a fact; 

 And prayer, thus answered, shall allow 

 A larger faith and teach it how 

 To find its heaven here and now! 



In this tribute, his finest accomplishment, Field 

 portrays an underlying and fundamental emotion. 



1 A sentence from one of Thoburn's addresses "Believe and venture: 

 as for pledges the gods give non " has always seemed to me singularly 

 pregnant with meaning. I do not now know whether it was original with him. 

 It might well be, though it has a Greek flavor. Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole 

 tells me that he does not find it anywhere. He observes: "As a guess I should 

 have attributed the apothegm to Emerson. It has also the ring of the Schiller- 

 Goethe Xenien. But for authority I can give none." 



C408] 



