For seventeen years Mr. Ruskin's name was in every one's mouth as the model and mirror of prose writers. His grace of diction was unequalled; his canons of art stood firm against all criticism; the loftiness of his moral teaching was almost inspired. But, one day, the unequalled style, the stern logic, and sterner purity of mind, were all concentrated into one sweeping denunciation of the social system of the nineteenth century; declaring that our greed of gold had led us to such a state of wretchedness, degradation, and folly as were never witnessed before in any state, savage or civilized, and that, for salvation of the nation, we must return to the simple rules of our Master, Christ. Naturally, the practical world resented the imputation that its boasted civilization was a mistake. The merchant derided the idea that he existed, not that he might make money for himself, but that his employés might live. The professional man did not like being told that, in the soul of things, he deserved less reward than the agricultural labourer, for his work, because his real reward was in his work, while the labourer's was for it. And one and all declared that the Sermon on the Mount was a beautiful ideal-but totally impracticable.

Strong words, my friends, but I hope to show you,—or, if I cannot, it is my fault, not his,--that Mr. Ruskin asks no more, in any book of his, than that man should obey the law of life given from Christ's own mouth: and the newspaper press of this country, by its almost unanimous derision of his later books, shows how far we have fallen from any realization of pure religion.

But he is content to take lower ground than this. Even supposing that our hopes for a future life be taken as groundless, that our faith is vain,—and that the ears of those who have travelled to the farthest confines of thought have heard only the cry of a fatherless world, Mr. Ruskin takes his stand on those simple laws of justice and mercy which constitute the morality underlying all religions of the world, and says no more and no less, than that the nation which has left these must retrace its steps, or, as a nation, perish. Maybe a gloomy view, but, assuredly, not a mad one!

Another ground of his supposed madness merely rests in the general-and no less foolish than general—opinion that anything worth knowing can be known at a casual reading, and that all truth is expressed in one unvarying mode of simplicity. Those who judge thus forget that scholars and thinkers for the last eighteen hundred years have been digging deep in the resources of one book alone, and do not seem to have at all exhausted them; they forget the innumerable commentaries on our own Shakespeare, as well as on every other great writer of the past; they forget the somewhat amazing fact that there is one man, now living, confessedly the greatest thinker of modern times, whose books are yet not understood by even a tithe of the reading public-Thomas Carlyle.

That two men should give forth substantially the same message—the one, indeed, everywhere acknowledging the other as master-and yet the one be honoured, the other

scorned, seems due to the fact that Carlyle's rugged strength carries conviction of its truth, even where only slightly understood:-just as the grip of death carries conviction of the existence of a God to the dullest blockhead. But Mr. Ruskin, with a strength of conviction, and force of eloquence not second to Carlyle, has a heart as gentle and womanlike as it is strong; it pities and loves even where it despises : his amazement at the blindness which does not realize, and the indifference which allows, the festering mass of human misery around, bursts out in passionate, uncontrollable indignation: he is driven to preach recklessly, as it seems, in season and out of season :—conjuring for love, threatening by prophecied calamity, startling by strange rhetoric, if, by any means, he may awake a world which sleeps on the verge of its ruin.

As usual the newspapers, catering more for the amusement than the good of their readers, and neglectful of their mighty, almost infinite responsibility, take care to publish those parts of his writings which may raise a smile or provoke a sneer. But, if ever the canon of criticism put forth by himself applied to any one, it does to him:

"Be sure," he says, "if the author is worth anything you will not get at his meaning all at once-nay, that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong

SESAME AND LILIES, p. 13.

words too; but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, will not but in a hidden way, and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it."

There is a third ground for the accusation of madness which I can only touch with reverent hands.

Endowed with that rare delight in nature granted only to great painters and poets, he has seen into nature and its mysterious connections with the powers above us as we cannot see. Not without reason did Wordsworth write :

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." and the wonderful ways in which, to the poet, external nature symbolizes and enshrines the spiritual, are apt to excite ridicule among those of whom Peter Bell was pilloried as everlasting type in the famous "yellow primrose" stanza.

And, as devoting all his life to Art, he has had to face the mysterious study of the meaning of the many religions which have only, or best, expressed themselves in their art he has had the problem continually before him of reconciling the art, the religion, and the history of peoples.

But when, as result of all this life-long study, he proclaims, that not alone in Protestantism, not even in all the Churches which unite themselves only under the name of Christian,--but everywhere, in all art, in all religions, in all history,-he finds God working: that even the Greek myths have lessons for us Christians: and that in that far-off age the storied

heroes and demigods were probably such messengers as God saw fit for the times-of course the modern religious world which prays weekly for a Church Universal, but hates the rival denomination over the way, finds this man an enthusiast, a dreamer, a madman-even a dangerous one.

But let any one who thinks such ideas merely the extravagance of a poet's dream, in his next woodland walk, try at anyrate to imagine that the flowers which meet his careless eye have a something resembling human life, that the rose blushes with delight in our admiration, and the lily grows pale with rapture; let him fancy that the dog which leaps and gambols responsive to the joy in his master's eye, or crouches sadly sympathetic in his sorrow, has a counterpart in all the living things that too often shrink and fly from the ill-usage they have learned to expect; let him only try to imagine all this, and human life will become more sacred to him; he will get a better idea of John Ruskin, and of God.

I would it were possible to give you any idea how foolish and cruel this imputation of madness, or anything approaching to it, is. If it were only himself who was now addressing you, instead of a very humble though faithful disciple: if you could see that spare stooping figure, that rough hewn kindly face, with its mobile, sensitive mouth, and clear deep eyes, so sweet and honest in repose, so keen, and earnest and eloquent in debate, you would feel how noble and true a gentleman he is. But a life spent in unselfish work has