_merely_ ridiculous; it is seriously harmful to your powers of
perceiving truth or beauty of any kind or at any time. Imagine the
effect on the minds of your children of having such representations of a
lion's head as this thrust upon them perpetually; and consider what a
different effect might be produced upon them if, instead of this barren
and insipid absurdity, every boss on your buildings were, according to
the workman's best ability, a faithful rendering of the form of some
existing animal, so that all their walls were so many pages of natural
history. And, finally, consider the difference, with respect to the mind
of the workman himself, between being kept all his life carving, by
sixties, and forties, and thirties, repetitions of one false and futile
model,--and being sent, for every piece of work he had to execute, to
make a stern and faithful study from some living creature of God.

[Illustration: PLATE XI. (Fig. 17., Fig. 18.)]

44. And this last consideration enables me to press this subject on you
on far higher grounds than I have done yet.

I have hitherto appealed only to your national pride, or to your common
sense; but surely I should treat a Scottish audience with indignity if I
appealed not finally to something higher than either of them,--to their
religious principles.

You know how often it is difficult to be wisely charitable, to do good
without multiplying the sources of evil. You know that to give alms is
nothing unless you give thought also; and that therefore it is written,
not "blessed is he that _feedeth_ the poor," but, "blessed is he that
_considereth_ the poor." And you know that a little thought and a little
kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.

45. Now this charity of thought is not merely to be exercised towards
the poor; it is to be exercised towards all men. There is assuredly no
action of our social life, however unimportant, which, by kindly
thought, may not be made to have a beneficial influence upon others; and
it is impossible to spend the smallest sum of money, for any not
absolutely necessary purpose, without a grave responsibility attaching
to the manner of spending it. The object we ourselves covet may, indeed,
be desirable and harmless, so far as we are concerned, but the providing
us with it may, perhaps, be a very prejudicial occupation to some one
else. And then it becomes instantly a moral question, whether we are to
indulge ourselves or not. Wh