Introductory

We are at present in a phase of religious thought, Christian or pseudo-Christian, when a synthetic study of the life and teaching of Christ may well be of use. We have analysed until the mind turns in weariness from the broken fragments; we have criticised until there remains no new standpoint for the critic; but if we could only get a whole conception of Christ’s life among men, and of the philosophic method of His teaching, His own word should be fulfilled, and the Son of Man, lifted up, would draw all men unto Himself.

It seems to the writer that verse offers a comparatively new medium in which to present the great theme. It is more impersonal, more condensed, and is capable of more reverent handling than is prose; and what Wordsworth calls “the authentic comment” may be essayed in verse with more becoming diffidence. Again, the supreme moment of a very large number of lives—that in which a person is brought face to face with Christ—comes before us with great vividness in the gospel narratives; and it is possible to treat what we call dramatic situations with more force, and, at the same time, more reticence, in verse than in prose.

Indeed, the gospel story offers the epic of the ages for the poet who shall arise in the future, strong in faith, and meek enough to hold his creative gift in reverent subjection.

We have a single fragment of this great epic:—

“Those holy fields,

Over whose acres walk’d those blessed feet
Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross”;—

if Shakespeare had given us the whole, how rich should we be! Every line of verse dealing directly with our Lord from the standpoint of His Personality is greatly treasured. We love the lines in which Trench tells us,—

“Of Jesus sitting by Samarian well,
Or teaching some poor fishers on the shore”;

and Keble’s,—

“Meanwhile He paces through the adoring crowd,
Calm as the march of some majestic cloud”;

or his,—

“In His meek power He climbs the mountain’s brow.”

Every line of such verse is precious, but the lines are few; no doubt because the subject is supremely august; but also, perhaps, because those poets who have written at length of The Messiah, have not left us words spoken out of the insight of faith upon which the soul can feed.

But the subject is as inspiring as it is august, and is of such surpassing interest that the poet need bring little more to his task than the equipment of passionate conviction: he will have power, too, to discern the unique psychological truth of every phrase of the narrative, as well as the amazing self-revelation of each speaker and actor. As regards the Divine Person, he will perceive that he cannot see for the brightness, cannot know for the greatness, but must needs adore and delight in the unspeakable loveliness as an insect basks in the sun.

He, the poet of the future who shall give the world its great epic, will perceive with the mediæval Church that the “Seven Liberal Arts” themselves are under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost; that our knowledge of science comes to us in set portions at set times, according as we are ready and there is a man to be found with the hearing ear and the seeing eye. He will see that it is absurd to bring our fragmentary, inconclusive science into opposition with Him who sustains us with knowledge as with bread, and to say that this or that cannot be, before we are able to discern why and how anything that is exists. He will know that all these chimeras vanish as shapes of darkness before the Light of the World. It is a poet the world is waiting for; another greater Shakespeare, able to tell us the truth about Jesus Christ—that truth set so plainly before us in the Book we are forgetting how to read!

We know how the Tate and Brady version of the Psalms wrought a great religious revival, not only in England, but throughout western Europe; we know, too, how Marot’s Psalms fired the hearts of the Netherlanders to their heroic resistance. If new presentations of the Psalms have effected great things, what may not the Church expect when a poet shall be inspired to write the epic of Christ?

It may be said, we have the whole story in the Gospels, and cannot hope or desire to improve upon that which is written. But this is true, also, of the Psalms; no poet’s version can equal the original; a version in a new form is a concession to human infirmity, but we know how arresting a new, though inferior, presentation is; no one can read the Gospels in another tongue, though in a poorer translation, without new convictions, new delight. For these reasons, the writer ventures to hope that a rendering in verse which aims at no more than being faithful and reverent may give pleasure to Christian people, may help to bring out the philosophical sequence of our Lord’s teaching, and throw into relief the incidents of His life.

The writer, at any rate, experiences in the study a curious and delightful sense of harmonious development, of the rounding out of each incident, of the progressive unfolding which characterises our Lord’s teaching; and perhaps some measure of this entrancing interest may have found its way into this little volume. When the great poet shall give us the great Christian epic, it will be read in the closet and in the congregation, by the neophyte and the saint: in the meantime, a feeble attempt (made with anxious diffidence) may be of a little use in furthering that era of passionate Christianity which will probably be the world’s next great experience, when “the shout of a King” shall be in our midst. If such attempt send any one back to a more diligent and delighted perusal of the sacred text, its end will be fully accomplished.

The scope of this work, The Saviour of the World, is to cover each incident and each saying in a single poem, blank verse or rhymed stanza, according to the subject. The poems follow one another in a time sequence, but each is distinct and separable. Therefore, though the work will, God willing, continue through a series of little Christmas volumes, each volume will be complete in itself and independent of the rest.

The first of these, called The Holy Infancy, from the first of the three Books it contains, covers about an eighth of the whole subject; so it is probable that the work will be completed in eight such volumes.

The writer begs to acknowledge her great indebtedness to the Rev. C. C. James’s Gospel History, combining the four Gospels (in the words of the Revised Version), which she has followed for the chronological order of events.

Ambleside, 1907.