Tennyson as a Religious Teacher. By Charles F. G. Masterman,
M.A. (Methuen and Co. 6s.)—This is a book of no common merit. Mr. Masterman is not content to take popularly accepted notions about the teaching of Tennyson, and to put them into his own words with such quotations as may seem to best suit his purpose. He examines the subject thoroughly, and points out where, as it seems to him, Tennyson fails. It would be going too far to say that Tennyson's theology is simply Natural. But it can hardly be said to be the theology of Revelation. He does not rest his hope of immortality on the Resurrection, nor his expecta- tion of the deliverance of man on the Incarnation and the Atone- ment. This Mr. Masterman points out while he does fall justice to the definiteness and fervour with which the poet preached his faith. The " Insignificance of Man," "Immortality," "Evolution," "Natural Theology," and "Christianity" are among the subjects of Mr. Masterman's chapters. The first chapter is headed" Vast- ness," and deals with the subject of the poem bearing that name. May it not be urged that one answer to the difficulty of the in- significance of man is the possibility that human life may be the crown of all creative energy found only in one place of the whole cosmos?
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