Two friends, who through absence have become “soul from soul estranged,” are compared to two ships, which unconsciously draw apart during the night and must continue a diverging course; but, being both bound for the same port, will at the end of their life-voyage be re-united.
Speak to Him thou, for He hears—and Spirit with Spirit can meet—
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.
Tennyson (The Higher Pantheism).
Tennyson, here and elsewhere (see, for example, the king’s beautiful speech in “The Passing of Arthur”) urges us to prayer, and adds his belief in a personal intercourse with an ever-present and loving God. Innumerable men of the highest character during nineteen centuries have testified to the same direct communion with the Almighty.
A third in sugar with unscriptural hand
Traffics and builds a lasting house on sand.