or entirely sceptical about a God: these views do not affect his plan. The object of the building is prescribed, and he has only to construct the walls and piers accordingly, developing such forms of elevation and interior construction as may best express his ideality and sense of beauty. This is æsthetic architectural design, and, like the handiwork, is merely intellectual and imaginative, having no religious side.

Proceeding one step further, we arrive at what is called the ornamental work, the carving, painting, metal work, and furniture these all are efforts of the imagination, and of the adapting mind, directing the experienced and facile hand, entirely without religious doctrine, sentiment, or aspiration. The art workman may be a religious man, the work may be devoted to religious service, but it is still entirely devoid of the religious sentiment.

Again, in what is called historic painting and in sculpture, there may be illustrations or fictitious records of prophetic, biblical, and sacred scenes; but these are efforts of imagination only, not of piety. Pietro Perugino was for many years a leading painter of religious subjects, and his pre-Raphaelite art would probably be called strictly religious, but the painter was by no means what the Church would call devout. His art was the expression of perception, not of sentiment. Many a scoundrel has depicted with consummate art the highest virtues in historic action. No one exceeded Raphael in pourtraying the sweet innocence of childhood, or the virtuous gaze of modest womanhood, but this was no expression of the painter's moral purity. The modesty that he pourtrayed was human, not religious; cognisant of man, and not perhaps of God. Or if we turn to Fra Angelico, whose miniatures and larger frescoes are etherealised so that the human forms appear unfit for mundane use, and only suitable for heavenly spheres, we find no utterance of religion in his paintings. The religious Frate, while he worked with perfect purity of motive, only made his pictures eminent for delicate refinement, in conception, and in form and colour. All the holy scenes that he so gracefully imagines and depicts, are phantoms of his mind, not utterances of his heart. His heart was in his work, undoubtedly, but in a mundane, not in a religious sense. The graceful, very striking fresco of the Annunciation

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on the wall of the San Marco corridor, shows how fervid and direct and simple his imagination was; but he depicts an act or incident, and not an aspiration.

Subjectively then we find that art has no 'religious side:' the artistic workman, whether pious or profane, is equally unable to develop true religious feeling in his work. His art discovers nothing of his holiness of life or even of desire. It is not personally 'religious.'

Negatively, however, a man's religious feeling will affect his work; it keeps it pure and free from immorality. A painting may be coarse, but this is very much a question of conventional and social manners. Coarseness of expression may result from no indelicacy, but from a simple and ingenuous rendering of the customs of the time. But many an artist's work has been of absolute intention vicious and profane. These qualities are basely human, and too often have been seen in works of art, which are a form of human utterance, quite capable of giving full expression to impiety and vice, though not attaining to a like facility in matters of religion.

Or if we put aside the artist, and consider the effect of art on the beholder, we shall find that its 'religious side' again is undiscoverable. Art has undoubted influence on the mind. It is a pleasurable impulse to imaginative action, and a healthful means of mental exaltation and development in the sympathetic, sensible admirer. It charms and glorifies the nonreligious side of human nature; but its very highest works, produced by men of various developments of mental, moral, and religious character, though they may exhibit the phenomena of nature in their greatest charm, and include every distinguishable action and expression in the human face and form, leave the religious feelings quite untouched. The sentiment evoked is not divine but human in its sympathy and aim.

Much has been said and written on 'old faith,' and of the wonders that it wrought in art. The theory is plausible and popular. There is a gratifying sense of mild religiousness in the idea that the excellence of our old buildings was an evidence of faith; and the beholder may with little effort make himself believe that his delight and admiration also are an act of faith,' and that, without need of any sacrifice or abnegation, all the merit of the beauty and the noble work

that he so well appreciates is efficiently his own, and thus that he is gloriously religious.' The fact, however, is that faith has no creative power in art; it works on very different lines. It does not deal, like art, with what is limited and tangible, but with the infinite and undiscovered. Old faith' did nothing in the way of art; the old workmen did the work, and then the faithful used it. The old master-workmen built with dignity, simplicity, and ease, and they were able thus to express themselves in stone with infinite delight. Their alert imaginations, unencumbered by the fashionable follies of the world, became an everflowing source of art in beautiful variety. The artificer in each material discoursed in his own workman's language, in accordance with the constantly advancing rules of art. All this humanity, variety of thought, and beauty of idea, when it is grandly emphasised by the majestic height, and the contrasted light and shade in a cathedral church, appears impressive and mysterious. The untutored, unaccustomed mind becomes confused; and as the building is devoted to religion, and is consecrated and called holy, the impression given by the holy place is without thought or question held to be 'religious.' Thus the 'religious side of art' is but a term of place. It only means that the religious' work of art was seen in church. Precisely the same art might be employed in a casino or a gambling-house, and then with equal reason it would be esteemed profane.

A man not wanting in sagacity attends a ritualist church. The building is correct in style and rubrical arrangements, and adorned with marbles tastefully arranged. The reredos is designed by somebody of eminence. The painted windows and the corresponding decoration on the walls are equally superior in their production, and the whole scene impresses our sagacious devotee. He is at once religious and admiring, and he imagines, or assumes, without a thought, that his admiring wonder helps, or is a side of his religion. Yet these two things have no relationship at all. The impression he receives is due to ignorance, and is directly kin to the delight of gaping rustics at a village fair. His scope of vision is entirely filled by things that he can apprehend, but is not by habitual discriminating knowledge capable of compre

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hending; and though these objects may in aspect be familiar, yet in meaning they appear mysterious, and thus and by association they become to him impressive and religious.'

The style of architectural ornament in general modern use is not, as those who talk of the religious side of art' suppose, a thing of beauty founded on intelligent design. It is a mere display of costliness, a travesty of art, a vulgar fashion. There are wise men whom it affects, but, most obviously in their weakness, not in their wisdom. It is that branch of luxury which claims the homage of the eye, and most impresses any region of the individual and social brain which is especially removed from understanding. The buildings of all kinds of architecture which for four hundred years have been the admiration of the age, are ornamental, not artistic, and our chief illustrations of the aesthetic side of culture and 'religion' are but monumental tributes to the deity of wealth, the lust of eye, and pride of life.

The term 'Religious Art' has been accepted by the clergy and the connoisseurs as a superior expression, without previous care to ascertain its meaning, and to find whether in fact it had a rational interpretation. The expression is entirely without meaning. It is a technical or trade term accepted ignorantly by the half-reasoning, inartistic multitude. It is applied particularly to insipid or spasmodic pietistic painting, and to mechanical and worthless work in architecture and in decoration. The modern German legendary paintings of religious subjects, and the trashy art that glorifies a popish shrine; the tawdry decorations of a ritualistic church or an advanced dissenting chapel; churches that jobbing draughtsmen build in sanctimonious imposture on the clergy; our cathedral restorations, and the carving and inlaid work that glorify a reredos or a range of stalls, are all, because connected, in some way entirely secular, with sacred history, or with the church, called, technically, by the trade, and by clerics and the connoisseurs, 'religious art.' These words, when used as an abbreviated form for art con'nected with religion,' are of course permissible as a trade technicality, just as in the trade religious bookbinding' might be used to signify the binding of religious books; and * Clerics, respectful, for clergymen, ridiculous!

yet the binder's art is not esteemed religious, nor do the binder's morals, or belief about the subject of the books he binds, in any way affect or sanctify his work. His art is wholly secular.

Again, we hear that history and doctrine were taught in 'form and colour.' Let us test the operation in a simple way. A painting of a woman carrying a man's head just severed, pale and bleeding, tells no tale. It represents a state of action merely, without progress, and with no scope for interest or sentiment. The head might be the relic of a battle-field or the last subject of the executioner, and may be destined for the surgery or directly for the grave; but nothing in the painting would instruct the ignorant beholder in the history of Judith or of the daughter of Herodias. The teaching that, in Bible history, two women were the heroines of such a scene, must come by language, not by art. The picture is an illustration only; an imaginative, and in most things totally inaccurate, description of the scene. Language alone informs us how the Baptist's head was brought to Herod. Form and colour, in a picture, as distinguished from an unimaginative diagram of actual fact, cannot teach anything, but only illustrate what has been taught; and this, invariably in sacred incidents, with a most painful diminution of the dignity and interest of the inspired narration. The exalted sentiment of sacred history is never made more manifest by art; but its events are used as a sublime and boundless all-engrossing theme for art to work upon in its inferior way. The story of the Crucifixion is the most impressive in the history of man; but, in his masterpiece at Venice, Tintoret entirely fails to impress the intelligent beholder with religious awe. The feeling is of admiration, not of gratitude; and watchers' say, 'How fine the picture is;' not 'Truly this man was the Son of God.'

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The pictures, carvings, and mosaics in the early Christian churches, though incapable of teaching, were very suitable as decorations. They were historical or legendary as accepted by the Church, and gave ample opportunity for the display of incident and for the imaginative use of form and colour. They became artistic illustrations of Church history and doctrine, but not independent and prevenient instructors. Were they so they would perhaps have been historically more