26 Contemporary Evolution. 



revered father of so many saintly followers he who was 

 deservedly called an alter Chris tus was indeed a lover 

 of nature ; and, as we read in his life, the creatures of 

 the forest recognised and responded to his love by 

 familiar approach and ready obedience : however, he 

 always loved the creature in and for the Creator ; he 

 would address the insect as " brother fly," recognising in 

 it an inferior created image of the same personal God 

 whose chosen servant he was. The divinity he wor- 

 shipped was no pantheistic soul in nature, but one who 

 was his king as well as He in whom all things had their 

 being. For whole days kneeling in devout contemplation, 

 with tears of love he would again and again repeat with 

 fond iteration the words, "Rex metis et Deus metis" as 

 well as, " Deus meus et omnia" 



Such love of nature is profoundly Christian, and 

 thoroughly antagonistic to that love of it for its own 

 sake simply, which is as profoundly pagan. In so far as 

 our modern poets and other artists partake of this Fran- 

 ciscan spirit, in so far are they in harmony at once with 

 nature and with Christianity. But there is little doubt 

 that the prevailing tone of sentiment has long been in- 

 creasingly pagan, until its most hideous features reveal 

 themselves in a living English poet, by open revilings of 

 Christianity, amidst loathsome and revoltingly filthy 

 verses, which seem to invoke a combined worship of the 

 old deities of lust and cruelty. 



