self-control; but the control can only come through Sense, he must have the crown-royal to look upon.

Now mark how Sense wars with Soul. When Balin is a witness of the scene in the garden, Sense seems to say to him, There is your ideal! What do you think of it now?

Then did the senses deceive him? No, they saw what was. The senses saw only the outward -true as far as the senses could see. The persons were false, but that did not prove the ideal to be false; it only proved that Balin was living by Sense, and not by Soul.

If he had looked through Soul se St. 1
would have been saved, but he looks Silvest
at the persons, and is lost. Thus we
ery boat
human life has ever perfectly realisis cabin
ideal.
on principles.
of the sun in heaven. The Sun is ifferent
than the rays, and purer. To live Her pr
to believe only what we see, is tyer I ev
Churche

Faith must not be fixed o and im
Men on earth reflect

heaven in man but much of earth, unheart.
greater than heaven, and, with Fat pray
plunges again into the wilds, and whene
of a savage.
The character that de come
sensuous for its ideal is in danger
The sensuous is as likely to degrade
as the spiritual is likely to redeem th

Balan is the antithesis of his brother

He l He wish dear to Before th generati

and here no longe No o Robert N was fille hand on "We the boy, could ev "A P

There

boy. Ye

The

Holy
Grail.

type of the spiritual man. He does not confound
principles with persons, ideals with individuals,
but is careful to discriminate. He soars beyond
the sense, sees the spiritual and the eternal, and
though Lancelot and Guinevere may fail to in-
carnate goodness, and though Vivien may hiss like
a serpent in Eden, and though the realm of Arthur
may be shattered, yet Balan knows that goodness
lives; and when death begins to chill the fire of life,
and Balin falls back into materialism, with pathetic
despair crying :

Goodnight! for we shall never bid again
Goodmorrow," "

then Balan, living by the spirit, "seeing Him who
is invisible," replies with radiant hope, as if the
dawn were already breaking:

"Goodnight, true brother, here! Goodmorrow there!'" and lifts him by the power of his own spiritual victory into the coming light, and once again Soul triumphs over Sense by the evidence of things not seen.”

IN "The Holy Grail"* the war of Sense with Soul is clearly portrayed. The soul is pictured throughout in conflict with the *"The Holy Grail" is one of the most imaginative of my poems. I have expressed there my strong feeling as to the Reality of the Unseen.-TENNYSON, A Memoir, ii., p. 90.

self-control; but the control can only come through Sense, he must have the crown-royal to look upon.

Now mark how Sense wars with Soul. When Balin is a witness of the scene in the garden, Sense seems to say to him, There is your ideal! What do you think of it now?

Then did the senses deceive him? No, they saw what was. The senses saw only the outward -true as far as the senses could see. The persons were false, but that did not prove the ideal to be false; it only proved that Balin was living by Sense, and not by Soul.

If he had looked through Soul at the ideal he would have been saved, but he looks through Sense at the persons, and is lost. Thus we learn that no human life has ever perfectly realised an absolute ideal. Faith must not be fixed on persons, but on principles. Men on earth reflect only faint rays of the sun in heaven. The Sun is infinitely greater than the rays, and purer. To live by the sense, to believe only what we see, is to see little of heaven in man but much of earth, until earth seems greater than heaven, and, with Balin, the soul plunges again into the wilds, and lives the life of a savage. The character that depends on the sensuous for its ideal is in danger of losing it. The sensuous is as likely to degrade the spiritual as the spiritual is likely to redeem the sensuous.

Balan is the antithesis of his brother, and is the

The

Holy
Grail.

type of the spiritual man. He does not confound
principles with persons, ideals with individuals,
but is careful to discriminate. He soars beyond
the sense, sees the spiritual and the eternal, and
though Lancelot and Guinevere may fail to in-
carnate goodness, and though Vivien may hiss like
a serpent in Eden, and though the realm of Arthur
may be shattered, yet Balan knows that goodness
lives; and when death begins to chill the fire of life,
and Balin falls back into materialism, with pathetic
despair crying:

"Goodnight! for we shall never bid again
Goodmorrow,'

then Balan, living by the spirit, "seeing Him who
is invisible," replies with radiant hope, as if the
dawn were already breaking :

66 6

"

Goodnight, true brother, here! Goodmorrow there!' and lifts him by the power of his own spiritual victory into the coming light, and once again Soul triumphs over Sense by "the evidence of things not seen."

IN "The Holy Grail" the war of Sense with Soul is clearly portrayed. The soul is pictured throughout in conflict with the "The Holy Grail" is one of the most imaginative of my poems. I have expressed there my strong feeling as to the Reality of the Unseen.-TENNYSON, A Memoir, ii., p. 90.

dangers arising out of the life of mystic musing and uncontrolled ecstasy and sensuous allurement. The Holy Grail represents the Cup used in the Last Supper.

Could touch or see it, he was heal'd at once,
By faith, of all his ills. . . .

Sir Percivale, who had "passed into the silent life of prayer," sitting by the cloisters under the yewtree, tells the story to the monk Ambrosius. His sister, a pure and gentle nun, first heard the legend of the Grail from the lips of an old man, who hoped it might have come when Arthur cleansed the court, "but sin broke out." She, longing for the vision, gave herself to prayer and fasting. One day she sent for Percivale and told him how the Holy Grail had come to her. A silver beam flashed in upon her cell "and down the long beam stole the Holy Grail."

"And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray,
That so perchance the vision may be seen

By thee and those, and all the world be heal'd.'" And he went and told the story to all men, and himself fasted and prayed. Galahad was the first to come under the spell of the holy legend and the deathless passion of the saintly maiden. "Then came a year of miracle," and Sir Percivale tells how one summer night

"That Galahad would sit down in Merlin's chair,''