deposed from their first place, yet the innovation of a painted tawdriness shows the introduction of the sensual element.* Not that the idea of great strength is in any way wanting. The statue of the Olympian Jupiter is a colossal form, forty feet high, exclusive of the pedestal, and bearing an expression of calm and majestic dignity. Quintilian says of it, that its majesty was Godlike. Mr. Westmacott remarks, "The great characteristic of the time is largeness, and grandeur in the masses." And yet, to use a common expression, we notice, that the thin end of the wedge has been introduced, and we observe the first traces of that sensual type, which is to become so clearly marked in the works of a succeeding artist. Praxiteles may be regarded as the father of the later school of soft and meretricious sculpture. Under his chisel, the lines of strength are cut away, and the first place is given to the mere beauty of outline. The embodiment of this last quality is indeed his sole aim. By far the greater number of his works consist of Venuses, Cupids and Nymphs. The Cnidian Venus is a wellknown example. ‡ This figure is a marble representation of the Ideal of the time. 'In no other period of the world's history," writes Mr. Lecky, "was the admiration of beauty in all its forms so passionate or so universal. It coloured the whole moral teaching of the time, and led the chief moralists to regard virtue simply as the highest type of supersensual beauty." And it is not to the time of Praxiteles, that these words are to be exclusively applied, they are also true of succeeding generations. The plague spot having gained a place extends itself in every direction. Increase in luxury is accompanied by increase in sensuality. The healthy instincts are destroyed, and at length men reach the lowest pitch of bestiality. This account applies to the six or sev en centuries before Christ The series of changes, through which the Ideal passes in that period, can be laid down roughly as follows:-(1) § courage and strength * Quatremère de Quincy: Le Jupiter Olympien, 3e partie; see also on the same subject Westmacott's History of Sculpture. + "Cujus pulchritudo adjecisse aliquid etiam acceptæ religioni videtur, adeo majestas operis Deum acquavit.”—Quint. xii., 10. Mulinger's Monuments of Grecian Art, No. x., p. 7. § Michael thus informs Adam— “In those days might only shall be admired, And valour and heroic virtue called. To overcome in battle, and subdue Paradise Lost, Bk. xi., 1. 689 seq. predominating, with wisdom and beauty as necessary adjuncts. (2) strength and beauty co-ordinate, with courage and wisdom dependent. (3) beauty pre-eminent, the other qualities altogether in the background, and entirely lost sight of, through the rapid increase in sensuality. These processes, it must be remembered, were always gradual. The path of degeneration was a steady, not a steep descent. Nemo repente turpissimus fuit. No man ever became a villain at a bound. It took some fourteen hundred years for that high conception, which in later ages exercised so surprising an influence over the great mind of Goethe, to give place to the bestial luxury* of the days immediately preceding the fall of Rome. Between the pages of Homer and the writings of Juvenal many centuries intervene, and the life of the civilised world as described by the latter writer, has in every respect arrived at the last point of baseness. Man, at that age, has by means of his passions, sunk as far below the beasts, as by force of his reason, he was first placed above them.† At this crisis, there occurred an event, which has since been accepted by all men as causing a distinct break in the world's history. Atheists, Deists and Christians have met on common ground, and have agreed in regarding the birth of Christ as demanding, from its historical importance, a new chronology. *The following is an extract on this subject from "The Early Victory of Christianity," an article in the London Quarterly Review for July. The author says:"The national life was corrupted at its source. The old Roman simplicity and comparative purity had given place to universal profligacy. or was most shameless, it is hard to say. Which sex had sunk lowest social position of the courtesan was far more considerable than that of the wife. Ordinary impurity was a matter of indifference. This is not mere rhetoric. Facts, if we could quote them, would bear out the strongest statements." And three pages after on the subject of the Roman luxury the same writer remarks :-" Side by side with abject misery went extravagance, the like of which the world has never since seen. Lollia Paulina, the spouse of Caligula, wore at a marriage festival a set of emeralds worth £400,000. Seneca says:- Women wear two or three estates in their ears.' In the matter of houses, dress, feasts, and gardens, the object seemed to be how to violate every law of economy, taste, and nature. The colonnades of Nero's Golden House were a mile long. In the vestibule, a statue of the Emperor rose to the height of 120 feet. The walls were literally covered with pearls. The painted ceilings of the banqueting rooms changed with the courses of the meals, and showered flowers and perfumes on the guests. Water from the sea, and sulphurated water from the Tiber, flowed through magnificent channels from gold and silver mouths into baths of many coloured marbles. 'Now I am lodged as a man should be,' said Nero." + See Mr. Winwood Reade's picture of Romans à la mode" in the "Martyrdom of Man," third edition, pp. 141, 142, and compare with it the description in the Sixth Satire of Juvenal. I have purposely used the expression "historical importance," for the religious view is not within the scope of this article. My only wish is to point out how, when a long course of weak indulgence had brought to the lowest ebb the high ideal of primitive life, the individual character of Christ both suggested and maintained amongst men a more noble standard, of which the influence in ever widening circles has impinged upon the opposite shores of the globe. In different ages there have been found men, who denied the Deity of Christ. No man, whose opinion is worth regarding for a moment, has ever denied His existence, and His life upon this earth. The evidence of history upon this point is such as will admit of no denial. It is acknowledged then by all, that Christ lived. It is also acknowledged universally, that His life, in pure nobility and allembracing goodness, is entirely without parallel throughout recorded time. Points of similarity have indeed been remarked between His character, and that of such men as Socrates, Plato, Zeno and Seneca. But I can find no instance, in which any individual has been put forward as the example of an equally sublime standard of morality. On all sides it is admitted, that He stands alone. It is not necessary here to attempt to picture that character. Being such as it is, the mind may, to a certain extent, form a conception of it, but the tongue can find no words to describe it in any adequate degree. It has once been expressed fitly in action, it will never be expressed fitly in words.* But the influence of that as In character is widely marked. We draw in that influence we draw our breath, without effort and without pause. every action of life, in every custom of society, its weight may be recognised. This naturally has been a gradual achievement. The leaven has been working for all but nineteen hundred years. At the very first it was only those in His immediate circle, who were privileged to recognise the beauty of His life, but as that circle widened, soon the effeminate Romans felt its wave. These, as we have seen, were sunken in the lowest depths of immorality. No doubt, the instinct of good still existed in their minds, for that instinct it may be averred, never wholly dies. But a long course of self-indulgence had crushed all power of putting forth effort, and Reference may be made to the "Ecce Homo;" Milton's "Paradise Regained," passim; "The Life of Christ," by Hess, published at Zurich; Farrar's do.; and Robertson's "Sermons." the man looking around, and seeing all others fallen as low as himself, would perhaps feel, that, whatever the promptings of conscience within him might mean, it was useless to contend against the superincumbent weight of savage and habitual passions. We may imagine, what it must have been to such an one when he looked up and saw walking before him a man like himself, with all the same instincts, with the same passions, with the same temptations on every side, yet leading a holy and noble life. Surely he must have felt: here is a man constituted in the same way as I am myself, here is evidence of what man can be, and such, whatever the effort may cost, I will be myself. He would then have made that effort, he would have struggled hard for the mastery over himself, instinctively, he would have sought the personal presence of the Exemplar, and by this influence would have been victorious. If the life of Christ had been allowed to be continuous, so that we men of the nineteenth century might have seen Him with our own eyes, have watched His noble presence, there is not one of us, who would not have experienced a similar awakening of the Idealism within; and yet it would have been a miserable circumstance for us, if His life had been thus continued, in so much as it would at once have made us recognise, that He was not entirely human, as we are ourselves. And it is not unlikely, that in the midst of the struggle we might have given up, and said to ourselves—" He is Immortal, and a God, and therefore He is holy; we are men, and our nature is such, that it is useless striving any longer." Such cowardice may no longer be entertained. We, indeed, have a nature, which is in many respects very base. Yet each of us knows, that there is in him an instinct, which hungers after what is noble and good. It is to this instinct, that the personal character of Christ appeals, and it is the universality of this instinct that makes Christianity essentially a religion for men as men. For Christianity is, in its entirety, an enthusiasm for the personal character of Christ. That any such enthusiasm can exist without some approximate realisation of what that character was, is impossible. That would be the blindest fanaticism. The important question then remains— How can we, who have never seen Christ, bridge across this of eighteen hundred years, and obtain that realisation? gap The question admits of a reasonable answer. There are around us, living in our midst, cating at the same table, individuals, who, in every respect human as ourselves, embody in their lives a pure and holy standard. What man is there so wretched, that he has never met any such? I cannot believe that such an one exists. All men have the opportunity of seeing something at least of such lives, if only they avail themselves of it. The life of Christ has perpetuated itself amongst us in images and reflections of Himself. Amongst men, as well as amongst women, but more generally with the latter, such images are to be found, and these by no means few and far between, but frequently recurring. And yet, it is by no means necessary in order to obtain this enthusiasm of humanity, that a man should see many men whom he can respect. As the author of " Ecce Homo" remarks, "the most lost cynic will get a new heart by learning thoroughly to believe in the virtue of one man." Our estimate of the possibilities of human nature can never be lower, than the height reached by the best specimen of it, which we have witnessed. Thus, the answer to the question above is, that each of us has had, or has, or will have the opportunity of observing some living, breathing image of the nobility of Christ Himself. Living examples are, as a general rule, more potent than those, of which we read in books, and the sight of very humble degrees of Christian humanity in action will do more to kindle the enthusiasm, in most cases, than reading the most impressive scenes in the life of Christ. Each of us knows the meaning of this from his own experience. In the presence of this human Image we breathe a purer air. We are lifted out of our meaner selves. The old life is at an end, and seems but a shadowy recollection of the past. A new life has dawned upon us, and the first presence of that Image is the date of its birth. St. Paul says:"I live no more, but Christ lives in me." I have referred to women as a class, amongst the individual members of which these exemplifications of a high Ideal may generally be found. Every thoughtful man must acknowledge that a true woman in all her womanliness, whether as daughter, wife or mother, presents in her character all those elements, which blended together form the loftiest conception of which the human mind is capable.* Self-sacrifice, purity, meekness, tenderness, patient endurance, truth-these, especially the first, are qualities, which constitute the very essence of a real woman. And which of us men is there, who in mother, sister and wife has not seen all these, and more than "Self-sacrifice," says Mr. Lecky, "is the most conspicuous element of a virtuous and religious character, and it is certainly far less common among men than among women, whose whole lives are usually spent in yielding to the will, and consulting the pleasures of another."-History of Morality, vol. II., p. 359. |