142 ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING

armies of France, between the ancient word “devoir,” and modern word “glorie.” And, again, ask yourselves what you expect your own children to be taught at your great schools and universities. It is Christian history, or the histories of Pan and Silenus? Your present education, to all intents and purposes, denies Christ, and that is intensely and peculiarly Modernism.

119. Or, again, what do you suppose was the proclaimed and understood principle of all Christian governments in the Middle Ages? I do not say it was a principle acted up to, or that the cunning and violence of wicked men had not too often their full sway then, as now; but on what principles were that cunning and violence, so far as was possible, restrained? By the confessed fear of God, and confessed authority of His law. You will find that all treaties, laws, transactions whatsoever, in the Middle Ages, are based on a confession of Christianity as the leading rule of life; that a text of Scripture is held, in all public assemblies, strong enough to be set against an appearance of expediency; and although, in the end, the expediency might triumph, yet it was never without a distinct allowance of Christian principle, as an efficient element in the consultation. Whatever error might be committed, at least Christ was openly confessed. Now what is the custom of your British Parliament in these days? You know that nothing would excite greater manifestations of contempt and disgust than the slightest attempt to introduce the authority of Scripture in a political consultation. That is denying Christ. It is intensely and peculiarly Modernism.

120. It would be easy to go on showing you this same thing in many more instances; but my business to-night is to show you its full effect in one thing only, namely, in art, and I must come straightway to that, as I have little enough time. This, then, is the great and broad fact which distinguishes modern art from old art; that all ancient art was religious, and all modern art is profane. Once more, your patience for an instant. I say, all ancient art was

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