Memories of the Tennysons . er, had tested his own Christianfaith and tried to see how it squared with the factsof life ; who had grappled with the religious diffi-culties of his time, had always welcomed newknowledge, and dealt, to the helping of his time, withthe fundamental postulates of the Christian faith. The service concluded, and out into the tranquil,balmy air the people went, to return to a secondservice in the evening, when Canon Rawnsley, whohad, by coincidence, chosen the same text, spokeof Alfred Tennyson as a religious teacher. Iremember, said the preacher, the poet once telling
Memories of the Tennysons . er, had tested his own Christianfaith and tried to see how it squared with the factsof life ; who had grappled with the religious diffi-culties of his time, had always welcomed newknowledge, and dealt, to the helping of his time, withthe fundamental postulates of the Christian faith. The service concluded, and out into the tranquil,balmy air the people went, to return to a secondservice in the evening, when Canon Rawnsley, whohad, by coincidence, chosen the same text, spokeof Alfred Tennyson as a religious teacher. Iremember, said the preacher, the poet once tellingme that the sweetest praise he had ever received tocheer him in his old age was praise from the lipsof a young girl who, too shy to speak herself, hadasked a friend to tell him that she never rose fromreading his poems without feeling better and wiser,and Tennyson had added, I should wish to godown to posterity, as Wordsworth went down toit, as a poet who had uttered nothing base. If Sunday was a red-letter day at Somersby,. i;i^i III iiii, , i .\ \ i: > i.\ .si. M\Ki,\i<, SOMIIKSHV, AUGUST 6, I9II. MEMORIAL MEETINGS AT SOMERSBY 257 Monday was a day even more memorable. Acool air blew from the gates of the sun and wavesof shadow went over the wheat that stood hedge-high beside the home-farm field, wherein, longbefore speech time, people from all parts of thecounty had gathered round a platform with rudeawning above it. Farmers carts came rattling up. Motor hornswere blown, and still the congregation grew. It wasclear as day that Tennysons name had not yetfaded from off the circle of the hills nor from thestreamlet-threaded meadow or the quiet woodyplaces of the land that gave him birth. I do not think I have looked out upon a scene ofsuch perfect pastoral peace and beauty as I saw fromthat simple Tennyson Memorial platform on thatall-golden afternoon. The North Farm buildingsnestled against the green meadows that sloped upto the wooded crest
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