its colored print, inquiring eagerly and gravely which is
Joseph, and which is Benjamin, is not more capable of receiving a
strong, even a sublime, impression from the rude symbol which it invests
with reality by its own effort, than the connoisseur who admires the
grouping of the three figures in Raphael's "Telling of the Dreams;" and
whether also, when the human mind is in right religious tone, it has not
always this childish power--I speak advisedly, this power--a noble one,
and possessed more in youth than at any period of after life, but
always, I think, restored in a measure by religion--of raising into
sublimity and reality the rudest symbol which is given to it of
accredited truth.

Sec. LXI. Ever since the period of the Renaissance, however, the truth
has not been accredited; the painter of religious subject is no longer
regarded as the narrator of a fact, but as the inventor of an idea.[35]
We do not severely criticise the manner in which a true history is
told, but we become harsh investigators of the faults of an invention;
so that in the modern religious mind, the capacity of emotion, which
renders judgment uncertain, is joined with an incredulity which renders
it severe; and this ignorant emotion, joined with ignorant observance of
faults, is the worst possible temper in which any art can be regarded,
but more especially sacred art. For as religious faith renders emotion
facile, so also it generally renders expression simple; that is to say a
truly religious painter will very often be ruder, quainter, simpler, and
more faulty in his manner of working, than a great irreligious one. And
it was in this artless utterance, and simple acceptance, on the part of
both the workman and the beholder, that all noble schools of art have
been cradled; it is in them that they _must_ be cradled to the end of
time. It is impossible to calculate the enormous loss of power in modern
days, owing to the imperative requirement that art shall be methodical
and learned: for as long as the constitution of this world remains
unaltered, there will be more intellect in it than there can be
education; there will be many men capable of just sensation and vivid
invention, who never will have time to cultivate or polish their natural
powers. And all unpolished power is in the present state of society
lost; in other things as well as in the arts, but in the arts
especially: nay, in nine cases out of ten, people mistake the polish for
the