September 18, 2023 - Mrs. Era Miller, former English Department Director at East Texas Baptist University, was my favorite teacher… ever. I took courses in World Literature, English Literature and courses in Shakespeare, Browning and Tennyson from her. I remember well how she often compared Browning with Tennyson. Her favorite lines by Browning were what he wrote to his wife, Elisabeth Barrett Browning: “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in His hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!”
Mrs. Miller compared Browning’s lines with those written by Alfred Tennyson (From “Crossing the Bar”): “For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar.”
Robert Browning was confident that “the best was yet to be” but Alfred Tennyson “hoped to see His Pilot face to face.” Both men were Christians but had different views on getting to heaven after they “crossed the bar”.
John wrote: (1 John 3:2) “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
