IX.

The attitude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood. Towards all forms of worship, towards all creeds, he has maintained the attitude of absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has given her last message to man. He does not believe that all has been ascertained. He denies that any sect has written down the entire truth. He believes in progress, and, so believing, he says:

We consider bibles and religions divine-I do not say they are not divine,

I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,

It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life.

His [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of

things,

In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent.

Have you thought there could be but a single supreme? There can be any number of supremes-one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another.

Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the serenity of a great and well-poised soul.

No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own

face in the glass,

I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name.

The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes:

Not objecting to special revelations-considering a curl of

smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation.

The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this lack in that which has been written and preached, Whitman says:

Magnifying and applying come I,

Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,

Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,

Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,

Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,

In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the

crucifix engraved,

With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and every idol

and image,

Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent

more.

Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends his hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is wrinkled and old and has a

long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks-on stupidity- and fear.

Neither does he reject or accept the new because it is new. He wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows just who and what they are.

X.

PHILOSOPHY.

Walt Whitman is a philosopher. The more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has traveled intellectually, the less certain he is. Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the

problems are easy. accounting for the

common man the great

He has no trouble in universe.

He can tell

you the origin and destiny of man and the why and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him.

A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one day, that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the