CONCLUSION 149 



told him. The truth was that the preacher's poetic inter- 

 pretation of things and events, and the light he threw on 

 the hidden beauty and inner meaning of the common re- 

 lations of life, fascinated him. He was looking for what the 

 preacher suggested concerning the significance and reality 

 of daily life, rather than for either of the doxies, and he saw 

 neither. His mind was so liberal that there was probably 

 not a church in Christendom with whom he could not have 

 worshiped, but it is very doubtful whether he would have 

 united with any of them. 



When asked what he thought of death, he replied: "It is 

 a perfectly natural event and that is all we know about it." 

 To funerals as usually conducted he had an instinctive 

 aversion. His cheerful and hopeful nature recoiled from 

 the amount of doleful and depressing Scripture commonly 

 read, and the dark symbols of mortality so often exhibited 

 were not in accordance with his feelings or thoughts on 

 such occasions. "How easy," he said in going away from 

 the funeral of one of his friends, "how easy it would have 

 been to have selected some Scripture that would have 

 cheered and comforted instead of that which was so chilly 

 and heartless! It was enough to give one the nightmare." 



It is easier to get a look at the true inwardness of the 

 moral and religious tone of a man's mind and nature by 

 what he loves than by what he says. In talking with a 

 friend as they sat on the piazza of his home, the conversa- 

 tion turned on favorite passages in literature; and after the 

 exchange of quite a number, he went into the library and 

 brought out a copy of Edmund Spenser, and turning to the 

 8th Canto of the second book of the " Faerie Queene," read 

 not without emotion the two opening stanzas : 



