VI. THE CAMPO SANTO 353
a little Campo Santo of my own people, I was ready for that part of the lesson.
Secondly, the story of the Patriarchs, and of their guidance by the ministries of visible angels; that is to say, the ideal of the life of man in its blessedness, before the coming of Christ.
Thirdly, the story of Job, in direct converse with God himself, the God of nature, and without any reference to the work of Christ except in its final surety, “Yet in my flesh I shall see God.”1
Fourthly, the life of St. Ranieri of Pisa, and of the desert saints, showing the ideal of human life in its blessedness after the coming of Christ.
Lastly, the return of Christ in glory, and the Last Judgment.
119. Now this code of teaching is absolutely general for the whole Christian world. There is no papal doctrine, nor antipapal; nor any question of sect or schism whatsoever. Kings, bishops, knights, hermits, are there, because the painters saw them, and painted them, naturally, as we paint the nineteenth-century product of common councilmen and engineers. But they did not conceive that a man must be entirely happy in this world and the next because he wore a mitre or helmet, as we do because he has made a fortune or a tunnel.
Not only was I prepared at this time for the teaching of the Campo Santo, but it was precisely what at that time I needed.
It realized for me the patriarchal life, showed me what the earlier Bible meant to say; and put into direct and inevitable light the questions I had to deal with, alike in my thoughts and ways, under existing Christian tradition.
Questions clearly not to be all settled in that fortnight. Some, respecting the Last Judgment, such as would have occurred to Professor Huxley,-as for instance, that if
1 [Job xix. 26.]
XXXV. Z
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