the opening of the eyes and the unlocking of the heart and its dim secrets, as new ideas rise above the horizon and open before them; and still more, not merely to receive, but to create, not merely to be a listener and disciple, but to be conscious of being master and a teacher;—this carries with it a charm which, as we know, has often been able to make other pursuits seem tame, and other glories pale. It seems so pure and noble; it seems so full of good; it seems so to exalt and refine; and under its influence nothing else seems equally capable of exalting and refining, nothing else seems to bring with it good, so to inspire and fortify, so to calm and sober and enlighten. Why should men look beyond it? Where would they be likely to find deeper and more abundant and more various truth? Where would they find truth expressed in more adequate, in less limited or less repellent forms? Where will they learn to think in more dignified or consoling fashion of even the hard portions of our lot, pain and disease and death? Is not this enough for the heart and soul of man, of man at least, cultivated, civilised, instructed, enlightened? Is it not enough for his meditations, his aspirations, his secret acts of devout homage, and devout uplifting of the spirit? Will not the religion of great books and great thinkers, the religion of genius and poetic truth, be a sufficient religion?

3. Once more. There is a mysterious power in the world, a mysterious endowment given to man, one of

the most wonderful and lofty of all his prerogatives— the sense of beauty. The world, we know, is full of things which, when they address themselves to eye or ear, or, without the intervention of eye or ear, to the inward mind and soul, produce on us the effect which we speak of as beautiful. Endlessly various, in form and light and colour, in feature and expression, in voice and tone and ordered sound, in word and suggestion, and in all that is called into invisible existence by the powers of feeling and imagination and thought, it comes before the human soul as one of the chief sources of its brightness and joy, one of the chief things which exalt and gladden life, the spring within us which never dries up of admiration, delight, rapture. Where does it come from, this strange, irresistible sense of what is beautiful; so different according to our measure with all of us, yet with all of us confessed to be so certain and so clear this perception, which seems to be the crown and glory of the gifts which set man at the head of all that lives where does it come from, and what is it? Who can define or analyse it, in its infinite shapes, which agree in nothing else but that we call them all-sunrise and sunset, storm and peace, mountain and river, picture, and sculpture, and music, and building, and poem, visible features and invisible character-all we agree to call beautiful? Is it anything real, this

thing that we call beauty; or is it a mere spell cast over us, a glamour, a delusion of eye and brain, imposing on us a show without substance?

It is

something which appeals to us, in what is highest and purest and noblest in us; again, may be, it is something which captivates and fascinates what is meanest and lowest in our nature: yet still we speak of it as beauty. Is it indeed surprising that a faculty and endowment so subtle, so charged with varied and mighty power, so full of ministry to the joy and happiness of life, should so fill human souls with its treasures and wealth as to shut out all other interests, and become to them all in all, the standard by which everything is measured, the supreme longing and rule of their lives? Is it surprising that art should almost become a religion-a worship and an enthusiasm in which the wondrous shadows of God's glory take the place of God Himself, in His holiness, His righteousness, His awful love? It is not surprising: but alas for us if we yield to the temptation. The love of beauty, in work, and speech, and person, was the master-passion of the reviving intelligence of Italy: it attracted, it dominated all who wrote, all who sang, all who painted and moulded form. Out of it arose, austere and magnificent indeed, yet alive with all instincts of beauty, the Divina Commedia, the mighty thought of Lionardo and Michelangelo, the pathetic devotion and deep peace of the Lombard, the Tuscan, the Umbrian schools; but to whole generations of that wonderful people—from the fresh sonnetwriters and story-tellers of the closing middle age, Guido Cavalcanti and Boccaccio, to the completed refinement of the days of the Venetian masters and Ariosto

the worship of the beautiful, as the noblest, worthiest devotion, stood in the place of truth, of morality, of goodness, of Christian life. And this idolatry of beauty brought its own punishment, the degeneracy and deep degradation both of art and character.

4. Yes; the world in which we now pass our days is full of great powers. Nature is great in its bounty, in its sternness, in its unbroken uniformity; literature and art are great in what they have created for us; beauty is great in its infinite expressions: but these are not the powers for man-man, the responsible, man, the sinner and the penitent, who may be the saint -to fall down and worship. They are to pass with the world in which we have known them, the world of which they are part; but man remains, remains what he is in soul and character and affections. They at least feel this who are drawing near to the unseen and unknown beyond; they to whom, it may be, these great gifts of God, the spell and wonder of art and of literature, the glory and sweet tenderness of nature, have been the brightness and joy of days that are now fast ending: they feel that there is yet an utter want of what these things cannot give; that soul and heart want something yet deeper, something more lovely, something more Divine-that which will realise man's ideals, that which will complete and fulfil his incompleteness and his helplessness—yes, the real likeness, in thought and will and character, to the goodness of Jesus Christ. "My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart,

and my portion for ever."

Man has that within him

which tells him, in presage and parable, of greater and more awful things than anything he can admire and delight in yet he has that without him which certifies him that his hopes and aspirations are justified; that when these precious things of the present must pass, with the world to which they belong, there is laid up for him what "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him: "- sinlessness and strength and peace, and the vision of God. Cannot we indeed, believers though we are, sympathise with the doubting poet, who realising his thought, and comparing what is now with such hopes, was overwhelmed by it: "Are not these things too good to be true?"1 Yes, indeed, if any one else had told us except He who loved us and gave Himself for us, He "who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was Incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made Man," who "died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living." Too good to be true for mere

1 Robert Burns: see Currie's Life of Burns. Compare Browning's Easter Day:

66

Remembering any moment Who

Beside creating thee unto

These ends, and these for thee, was said

To undergo death in thy stead

In flesh like thine: so ran the tale.

What doubt in thee could countervail

Belief in it? Upon the ground

'That in the story had been found

Too much love! How could God love so?'"