"Victor Hugo."

Rev. Washington Gladden, D.D., delivered the fourth William Belden Noble Lecture in Phillips Brooks House last night on "Victor Hugo, the Man of Letters." He said in part:

It is evident that Victor Hugo was not a perfect character, and his limitations are apparent to all who have read his works. His love of the theatrical, his tendency to exaggerate and his colossal egotism lend an air of Ialsity to his writings; he deals too much in contrasts and in superlatives. But his motive is good and it is in reality the intensity of his enthusiasm which leads him to over-statement. This exaggerative tendency, though it results sometimes in an undesirable sentimentalism, in the main enhances the ethical value of Hugo's work.

Victor Hugo though himself a great heretic in religion, but here again he exaggerated. Probably, indeed, he would have refused to accept any credal statement about the Christ, but he had nevertheless a deep reverence for the biblical story and a profound recognition of its influence and benefits. He believed in God and immortality and constantly avowed his belief in His works.