No pulpit hammered by the fist Of loud-asserting dogmatist."
"Thine the Genevan's sternest creed, While answers to my spirit's need The Derby dalesman's simple truth. For thee, the priestly rite and prayer, And holy day and solemn psalm; For me, the silent reverence where My brethren gather slow and calm."
There are two epochs in the religious or philosophical development of Whittier. The first--that of simple piety unclouded by doubt, the epoch of unhesitating acceptance of the popular mythology--seems to have lasted until about 1850, or the period of early Darwinism and Spencerianism,--the most momentous epoch in the religious history of the world. This pivotal point is very well marked by the publication, in 1853, of "The Chapel of the Hermits" and "Questions of Life." It is now that harrowing doubt begins, and restless striving to retain the faith amid new conditions and a vastly widened mental horizon. Transcendentalism, too, had just passed the noon meridian of its splendor. Emerson had written many of his exquisite philosophical poems, and Parker had blown his clear bugle-call to a higher religious life. It is evident that Whittier was--as, indeed, he could not help being--profoundly moved by the new spirit of the times.
With Transcendentalism he must have had large sympathy, owing to the similarity of its principles to those of Quakerism. And that he was profoundly agitated by the revelations of science his poetry shows. In "My Soul and I" (a poem remarkable for its searching subjective analysis), and in the poem "Follen," he had given expression to religious doubt, over which, as always in his case, faith was triumphant. But it is in "The Chapel of the Hermits" and succeeding poems that he first gave free and full utterance to the doubt and struggle of soul that was not his alone, but which was felt by all around him. In respect of doubt "My Soul and I" and "Questions of Life" resemble "Faust," as well as Tennyson's "Two Voices" and the "In Memoriam."
"Life's mystery wrapped him like a cloud; He heard far voices mock his own, The sweep of wings unseen, the loud, Long roll of waves unknown.
The arrows of his straining sight Fell quenched in darkness; priest and sage Like lost guides calling left and right, Perplexed his doubtful age.
