Lanier's view of the theory of evolution is interesting. "I have been studying science, biology, chemistry, evolution, and all," he writes to J. F. Kirk, June 15, 1880. "It pieces on, perfectly, to those dreams which one has when one is a boy and wanders alone by a strong running river, on a day when the wind is high but the sky clear. These enormous modern generalizations fill me with such dreams again.
"But it is precisely at the beginning of that phenomenon which is the underlying subject of this poem, `Individuality', that the largest of such generalizations must begin, and the doctrine of evolution when pushed beyond this point appears to me, after the most careful examination of the evidence, to fail. It is pushed beyond this point in its current application to the genesis of species, and I think Mr. Huxley's last sweeping declaration is clearly parallel to that of an enthusiastic dissecter who, forgetting that his observations are upon dead bodies, should build a physiological conclusion upon purely anatomical facts.
"For whatever can be proved to have been evolved, evolution seems to me a noble and beautiful and true theory. But a careful search has not shown me a single instance in which such proof as would stand the first shot of a boy lawyer in a moot court, has been brought forward in support of an actual case of species differentiation.
"A cloud (see the poem) MAY be evolved; but not an artist; and I find, in looking over my poem, that it has made itself into a passionate reaffirmation of the artist's autonomy, threatened alike from the direction of the scientific fanatic and the pantheistic devotee."
With all of Lanier's development — whether in science and scholarship, or in music and literature — he retained a vital faith in the Christian religion. He reacted against the Calvinism of his youth to almost as great a degree as did some of the New England poets. He at times felt keenly the narrowness and bigotry of the church — the warring of the sects over the unessential points.* In his thinking he found no place for the rigid and severe creed which dominated his youth. He gave up the forms, not the spirit, of worship. He lived the abundant life, and all of the roads which he traveled led to God. His faith was as broad as "the liberal marshes of Glynn". In the spirit of St. Francis he said: —
I am one with all the kinsmen things
That e'er my Father fathered.
— * See especially the poem "Remonstrance". —
Notwithstanding his vivid realization of the evil of dogma and of sect, he maintained throughout his life a reverent faith; he could distinguish, as Browning said Shelley could not, between churchdom and Christianity. Not only in the "Crystal" and "A Ballad of Trees and the Master", and in the spirit of nearly all of his poems, is this evident; but throughout his lectures, essays, and letters he never missed an opportunity to relate knowledge to faith. "He was the most Christlike man I ever knew," said one of his intimate friends, and those who have looked upon his bust at Johns Hopkins have involuntarily found the resemblance of physical form. Certainly there has been no tenderer poem written about the Master than the lines written during Lanier's last year: —
Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
'T was on a tree they slew Him — last
When out of the woods He came.