; and raising the life of sense
into the life of faith--faith, whether we receive it in the sense of
adherence to resolution, obedience to law, regardfulness of promise, in
which from all time it has been the test as the shield of the true being
and life of man, or in the still higher sense of trustfulness in the
presence, kindness, and word of God; in which form it has been exhibited
under the Christian dispensation. For whether in one or other form,
whether the faithfulness of men whose path is chosen and portion fixed,
in the following and receiving of that path and portion, as in the
Thermopylae camp; or the happier faithfulness of children in the good
giving of their Father, and of subjects in the conduct of their king, as
in the "Stand still and see the salvation of God" of the Red Sea shore,
there is rest and peacefulness, the "standing still" in both, the
quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of expectation
unimpatient: beautiful, even when based only as of old, on the
self-command and self-possession, the persistent dignity or the
uncalculating love of the creature,[23] but more beautiful yet when the
rest is one of humility instead of pride, and the trust no more in the
resolution we have taken, but in the hand we hold.

Sec. 5. Its universal value as a test of art.

Hence I think that there is no desire more intense or more exalted than
that which exists in all rightly disciplined minds for the evidences of
repose in external signs, and what I cautiously said respecting
infinity, I say fearlessly respecting repose, that no work of art can be
great without it, and that all art is great in proportion to the
appearance of it. It is the most unfailing test of beauty, whether of
matter or of motion, nothing can be ignoble that possesses it, nothing
right that has it not, and in strict proportion to its appearance in the
work is the majesty of mind to be inferred in the artificer. Without
regard to other qualities, we may look to this for our evidence, and by
the search for this alone we may be led to the rejection of all that is
base, and the accepting of all that is good and great, for the paths of
wisdom are all peace. We shall see by this light three colossal images
standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality
above the whole world horizon, Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante; and
then, separated from their great religious thrones only by less fulness
and earnestness of