Page:The optimism of Butler's 'Analogy'.djvu/31

Rh very greatest of our Victorian Poets. Robert Browning, in strenuous revolt from Byronic pessimism, set himself to sing the optimistic Creed. And it was under the pressure of this insistent optimism that he found in the idea of spiritual probation the solution of life's darkest mysteries.

We owe it to his genius that the incredible feat should have been accomplished of putting Bishop Butler into verse. Possibly, this may account for some strain and stress in the versification. For it is Butler's favourite type of probation which Browning closely follows. It was Butler who, to justify the logic of probation, argued so convincingly for the possibility of training under one set of conditions a moral character fitted to act under another. It was he who especially gave to probation the ennobling conception of an endless Future, for which this our little day is but a momentary preparation. And this is the familiar theme of which Browning never tires. We are not to ask for perfection here and now? Greek statuary has said the last word on that theme. Old pictures in Florence have another gospel to deliver—the Gospel, not of Time, but of Eternity. Enough if here we just learn the use of the weapons and tools that we shall need hereafter. Enough if we serve our short apprenticeship, and emerge qualified craftsmen. Nothing need, of necessity, be realized on earth. Life is justified, if it has but given us time and opportunity for an equipment, which the Hereafter will make intelligible.

Things learnt on earth we shall practise in heaven.

For more is not reserved

To man, with soul just nerved

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:

Here work enough to watch

The Master work, and catch

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.

He fixed thee mid this dance

Of plastic circumstance,