The greater the prestige culture will gain, the more urgently will social upheavals have to be suited anew and set in the light of culture. And these upheavals lead to a better, more beautiful and spiritually fuller life only when they will be urged and guided by those who consider civilization only as a means toward culture and will see in culture the meaning and value of all.

A revolution urged by the powers of civilization, and by those who bear in mind only the interests and needs of civilization, will perhaps raise the material standard of human life; it may, or may not, bring a little more well-being, but it can in no way increase the spiritual needs of human life. One of these two must happen: either man will become less human, or, remaining human and striving despite the civilizers to become more human, he will complain of the revolutionary upheaval, insisting that his loss is greater than his gain, and will with more impetus and stubbornness fight for a new, meaningful change.

A revolution from the point of view of civilization may change the external, not internal form of things. But when we speak of a revolution as an internal and fundamental change that will yield man real bliss and happiness, we must consider it from a cultural standpoint.

And culture should and must interpret revolution, give it its fundamental basis, and place before it its aims and purposes.

WHAT IS YOUR CREED?

BY HELEN NELSON GLASSFORD

IFE offers many problems and equally as many ways of solv

Ling them. This world seems quite unintelligible at times, and

we wonder what it all means. What we believe, or what our creed, is often a question of doubt. I am not promising any solutions here. Merely should I like to offer a casual glance at the views of life held by some of the British poets from the time of Wordsworth. These men dedicated their lives to a study of the poetic, artistic, emotional, and philosophic phases of life.

Wordsworth, in London, in 1802, laments that the wealthiest men are considered the best men, that people measure worth in gold. Their lives are dedicated to rapine, avarice, and expense. They do not find worth in books, nature, and innocence. "Plain living and high thinking are no more," he says.

In other poems, Wordsworth bids us feed the soul with high objects and enduring things. We are out of tune with nature, and witness her beauties as a matter of course. We neglect our powers in the rush of getting and spending. Wordsworth solves his own problems in turning to the beauty of secluded scenes, and storing his memory with pictures that will be of comfort to him always. He finds nature uplifting and sublime. In her he hears the call of humanity.

In considering what nature was to him in his youth, he feels that a glory has passed from her. "The child is best philosopher," says he. New from Heaven, he has not learned to grasp the pleasures Earth offers, and thereby, forget his heavenly home. The intimate, passionate love of nature passes with youth, but suffering with humanity gives new interpretation to her appeals.

Though many of Wordsworth's poems picture scenes of solitude with nature, we must not assume that he would prefer the quiet of

nature to the turbulent call of humanity. In the splendid poem, Elegiac Stanzas, he says:

"Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,

Housed in a dream at distance from the Kind!

Such happiness wherever it be known

Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind."

Wordsworth does not see in death, a barrier. In the pathetic little poem, We Are Seven, he shows the belief of a simple, little country child that the two in the church-yard are still in the family circle:

Wordsworth does not believe that we should live in preparation for the next life, but rather, that we find our all in this life.

"Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,

Or some sequestered island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world

Of all of us—the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!"

It seems to me a propos at this time to consider Coleridge's views of nature in comparison with those held by Wordsworth. Coleridge does not hear the "still, sad music of humanity," nor, yet, find quiet peace and comfort in his clouds and winds. Rather does his spirit see human liberty in their freedom. He thinks of France, at that time, bursting her chains, only to wear heavier ones, falsely engraved with the name of Freedom. In despair, he feels that true liberty is only to be found on sea cliffs, or in the winds and waves. Nor is there comfort for his turbulent spirit in the calm of nature. He sees the beauties of nature, but cannot feel them as does Wordsworth. Coleridge believes only when the soul sends sweet thoughts, can nature be of comfort to us.

"I may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life whose fountains are within."

Byron is one who will not acknowledge obeisance to any power outside himself. I have been unable to find anything in his writings that would suggest his believing God neither omnipotent nor benevolent, although I think Browning is crediting him with such a belief in Caliban Upon Setebos. In Byron's Manfred, the discussion between Manfred and the Abbot throw some light on this subject. Manfred persistingly refuses to beg forgiveness from a Power to whom he feels he owes nothing. He says:

"The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts-
Is its own origin of ill and end

And its own place and time: its innate sense.”

In crediting man for what he is and does, Byron makes no allowances. He lacks in the sympathy found in the nature-loving Wordsworth. At least, so it seems in comparing the poems of each poet on Napoleon Buonaparte. Byron sees naught to pity in the conquered Napoleon. Wordsworth sees that the fault lies with the age, and therefore, finds it in his heart to grieve for the man. "What knowledge could he have for governing?" he asks. We train our governors in the knowledge of battles, and neglect to teach them to be wise and good. We do not offer them books, leisure, and perfect freedom, accompanied by "every-day talks" with the "every-day man." Thus Wordsworth reasons, understanding, and can find it in his heart to pity.

Turning our thoughts again to this theory of the omnipotence or benevolence of God, we find a poet who accepts neither theory, but rather with deep founded faith in God leads us into intellectual discourses on this life and the one to come. This man is the comforting poet, Browning. Throughout his Andrea Del Sarto is expressed the belief that we are in God's hands, that all is as God overrules, and that God is just. In Rabbi Ben Ezra there is a calm trust in God's plans. An appealing comfort, outgrowing from faith, is expressed in the words:

"All I could never be,

All, men ignored in me

This, I was worth to God"—

In Saul, he says, "I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime.

and all was for the best." He speaks of the submission of "man's nothing-perfect to God's all-complete." He believes that by obeisance in spirit he climbs to God's feet. The love in man's nature must measure only a small part of the all-love which is God. That there is an all-powerful and benevolent God, Browning seems never to doubt. Equally sure is he of an after-life. Speaking of the dead Evelyn Hope, he says, "God creates the love to reward the love." He believes that he and she will love in a future life. The disappointed painter, Andrea Del Sarto, is convinced of other chances in Heaven. But, Browning is not one who would sacrifice life on this earth to the attainment of a future life. In Time's Revenge, he says:

"There may be heaven; there must be hell;
Meantime there is our earth here"-

Rabbi Ben Ezra well tells of the beauty there is to be found in life, with age as a crowning glory.

Keats does not try to solve life's problems for us. He has but one god, which to him is all in all, and that god is beauty. He sees beauty in melancholy, even. I think we shall find the consideration of his views on melancholy comforting. He offers us a method of procedure, when a melancholy spell is on us. He tells us not to wish to die, nor to choose sullen companions to be with us in our gloom. Rather seek the rose, the rainbow, that which is beautiful. Melancholy and joy are akin, and only those who have drunk with joy to the last drops see true melancholy. Such people know "the sadness of her might." In reading Keat's, Ode on Melancholy, we somehow feel that we would be deprived of something worth while, if we were never to experience a depression of spirits. And, we recall that our last spell of the "blues" was really aching pleasure. Keats died before he had reached the years of thoughtfulness, or, perhaps, he would have added solutions to life's problems equal to the most intellectual which poets have offered us. Personally, I am enthusiastically satisfied in the one panacea he offers:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Shelley and Arnold both seem to miss the same things in life, though they differ in their manner of solving life's problems. Shelley, in dejection, claims that life offers him "neither fame, power, love,