The chief speaker of the poem is chosen because the argument is one concerning faith that comes through love, and St John was the disciple who had learnt love's deepest secrets.

The dialectic proceeds along large lines, which have only the subtlety of simplicity.
The verse moves gravely, tenderly, often weighted with monosyllables; a pondering, dwelling verse; and great single lines arise so naturally that while they fill the mind with a peculiar power, they are felt to be of one texture with the whole: this, for example,-- We would not lose The last of what might happen on his face; and this:-- When there was mid sea and the mighty things; and this:-- Lie bare to the universal prick of light; and these:-- The Bactrian was but a wild childish man, And could not write nor speak, but only loved.
Such lines, however, are made to be read _in situ_.
The faith of these latter days is the same as that of the first century, and is not the same.

The story and the teaching of Christ had alike one end--to plant in the human consciousness the assurance of Divine Love, and to make us, in our degree, conscious partakers of that love.

Where love is, there is Christ.

Our conceptions of God are relative to our own understanding; but God as power, God as a communicating intelligence, God as love--Father, Son and Spirit--is the utmost that we can conceive of things above us.