d
modern art is not great, because it builds to _no_ God. You have, for
instance, in your Edinburgh Library, a Bible of the thirteenth century,
the Latin Bible, commonly known as the Vulgate. It contains the Old and
New Testaments, complete, besides the books of Maccabees, the Wisdom of
Solomon, the books of Judith, Baruch, and Tobit. The whole is written in
the most beautiful black-letter hand, and each book begins with an
illuminated letter, containing three or four figures, illustrative of
the book which it begins. Now, whether this were done in the service of
true Christianity or not, the simple fact is, that here is a man's
life-time taken up in writing and ornamenting a Bible, as the sole end
of his art; and that doing this, either in a book or on a wall, was the
common artist's life at the time; that the constant Bible reading and
Bible thinking which this work involved, made a man serious and
thoughtful, and a good workman, because he was always expressing those
feelings which, whether right or wrong, were the groundwork of his whole
being. Now, about the year 1500, this entire system was changed. Instead
of the life of Christ, men had, for the most part, to paint the lives of
Bacchus and Venus; and if you walk through any public gallery of
pictures by the "great masters," as they are called, you will indeed
find here and there what is called a Holy Family, painted for the sake
of drawing pretty children, or a pretty woman; but for the most part you
will find nothing but Floras, Pomonas, Satyrs, Graces, Bacchanals, and
Banditti. Now, you will not declare--you cannot believe--that Angelico
painting the life of Christ, Benozzo painting the life of Abraham,
Ghirlandajo painting the life of the Virgin, Giotto painting the life of
St. Francis, were worse employed, or likely to produce a less healthy
art, than Titian painting the loves of Venus and Adonis, than Correggio
painting the naked Antiope, than Salvator painting the slaughters of the
thirty years' war? If you will not let me call the one kind of labor
Christian, and the other unchristian, at least you will let me call the
one moral, and the other immoral, and that is all I ask you to admit.

123. Now observe, hitherto I have been telling you what you may feel
inclined to doubt or dispute; and I must leave you to consider the
subject at your leisure. But henceforward I tell you plain facts, which
admit neither of doubt nor dispute by any one who will take the p