“THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ART” 173

thought and love about the separate stones; and-machine-work once tolerated-the eye itself soon loses its sense of this very evidence, and no more perceives the difference between the blind accuracy of the engine, and the bright, strange play of the living stroke-a difference as great as between the form of a stone pillar and a springing fountain. And on this blindness follow all errors and abuses-hollowness and slightness of frame-work, speciousness of surface ornament, concealed structure, imitated materials, and types of form borrowed from things noble for things base; and all these abuses must be resisted with the more caution, and less success, because in many ways they are signs or consequences of improvement, and are associated both with purer forms of religious feeling and with more general diffusion of refinements and comforts; and especially because we are critically aware of all our deficiencies, too cognizant of all that is greatest to pass willingly and humbly through the stages that rise to it, and oppressed in every honest effort by the bitter sense of inferiority. In every previous development the power has been in advance of the consciousness, the resources more abundant than the knowledge-the energy irresistible, the discipline imperfect. The light that led was narrow and dim-streakings of dawn-but it fell with kindly gentleness on eyes newly awakened out of sleep. But we are now aroused suddenly in the light of an intolerable day-our limbs fail under the sun-stroke-we are walled in by the great buildings of elder times, and their fierce reverberation falls upon us without pause, in our feverish and oppressive consciousness of captivity; we are laid bedridden at the Beautiful Gate, and all our hope must rest in acceptance of the “such as I have,” of the passers by.¹

6. The frequent and firm, yet modest expression of this hope, gives peculiar value to Lord Lindsay’s book on Christian Art; for it is seldom that a grasp of antiquity so comprehensive, and a regard for it so affectionate, have

¹ [Acts iii. 6.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]