young wife in 1819, while on a visit to his native village of East Bergholt in Suffolk: "Everything seems full of blossom of some kind, and at every step I take, and on whatever object I turn my eyes, that sublime expression of the Scriptures 'I am the resurrection and the life' seems as if uttered near me."

As we look upon Constable's wonderful picture of Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, with its majestic group of trees towering upwards in rejoicing strength, its gentle river flowing with loving caress into every tender curve of reed-fringed bank, and its patient horses loyally pulling their load across the stream; as our eyes follow the breadth of the field-distances stretching away, to rest in rapt reverence on the glowing rainbow springing from the horizon, and circling far above the cathedral spire, an emblem of God's eternal promise, sweeping upward and beyond the aspirations of men into a vast eternity, we indeed feel that worship is not alone confined within those cloistered walls, but that "God who made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands: neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things." (Acts 17:24, 25.) The English landscape-painters of the eighteenth century led thought back to God.

Even more impressive, because more consciously metaphysical, was the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The son of the Headmaster of the Grammar School at Plympton, Devon, an intimate friend of Dr. Johnson, David Garrick, and Admiral Keppel, and the first President of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua's life is one long record of gentle breeding, loyal friendship, amazing industry, and an abstracted absorption in his art which resulted in his

literally creating a school of his own, and stamping it with a genius and a charm which our modern taste, with all its vagabond inventiveness, has not been able to scorn.

To be in the world and yet not of it has ever been an ideal of Christian perfection. Perhaps no man ever came so near to it as Reynolds. To him the leaders of the most outrageous fashion, and the representatives of the most bitterly opposed political parties, were translated into the realm of the ideal as types of beauty and grace. All factions met on his threshold, one man taking his place in the chair an opponent had just vacated. All were cordially received and well treated. Their faults were passed over, their good features preserved.

It was in his portraiture of children, however, that Reynolds excelled and proved the spirituality of his art. What more exquisite study than his "Age of Innocence" or his "Infant Samuel!"

Hannah More, in her sprightly fashionable days, visited Sir Joshua's studio when he had just finished a first study of the little prophet, not the best known one, where he is kneeling with folded hands, but a child eagerly lifting his face to the supernatural light which streams in from above, as the voice of the Lord strikes upon his ear. He told the poetess that he was often mortified when, on showing this picture to some of his great sitters, they asked him who Samuel was! a slight indication of how little Bible study was practised in that period. Hannah writes to her sisters at this time that Sir Joshua has also "done a St. John that bids fair for immortality." His angel heads are also among his best works, and inspire us with the devotional feeling that "in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father." (St. Matthew 18: 10.)

Sir Joshua has sometimes been called cold and ungenial.

Dr. Johnson asserted that "he was the most invulnerable man he knew," yet in his dealing with all his friends and relations he was kind, hospitable, and courteous. He was particularly fond of the charming niece "Offy," who made her home with him before her marriage, but no human being ever took the place of his art. In many respects as a man he puzzles all his biographers, as the true artist will always continue to do, so long as he is judged by ordinary human standards.

The artist's utter disregard for the affairs of his nation, whether at war or at peace, his passive insensibility to the joys or sorrows of his kith and kin, his curious aloofness from all class or social distinctions, tempt the critic to brand him as a selfish egotist. And yet it is not the kind of selfishness or the stamp of egotism which really merits such severe censure. The fact is the true artist lives in a world apart, in new concepts, loftier visions of his own. He is in communion with a more enduring order of life than images which occupy the mind of the dweller upon the earth. He is always striving to create, and in his creations to sweep aside the material, and to pattern more closely the divine. As a rule the brush is his only medium. He cannot express in words the inmost beatings of his heart.

Fortunately for posterity, as President of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua was obliged to try to give advice to students in a discourse at every yearly opening. He struggled painfully over these literary effusions, and even after hours of effort the message often remained inarticulate, and consequently not clearly understood. The truth is, that while the world demanded academic teaching, what he had to present was a spiritual revelation. The language of the address which he gave to the Academy Schools, in which he expressed the hope that "the national

glories might at length be enhanced by a School of British Artists," is neither cold nor selfish to the ear of the truly spiritual metaphysician.

"The art which we profess," said he, "has beauty for its object; this it is our business to discover and express. The beauty of which we are in quest is general and intellectual: it is an idea that subsists only in the mind; the sight never beheld it, nor has the hand expressed it. It is an idea residing in the breast of the artist, which he is always labouring to impart, and which he dies at last without imparting, but which he is yet so far able to communicate as to raise the thoughts and extend the views of the spectator, and which, by a succession of art, may be so far diffused that its effects may extend themselves imperceptibly into public benefits, and be the means of bestowing on whole nations, refinement of taste which, if it does not lead directly to purity of manners, obviates at least their greatest deprivation by disentangling the mind from appetite, and conducting the thoughts through successive stages of excellence till that contemplation of universal rectitude and harmony, which began by taste, may, as it is exalted and refined, conclude in virtue."

In entire harmony with the higher, spiritual concept, Mrs. Eddy writes:

"Beauty, as well as truth, is eternal. . . . Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells for ever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness." (Science and Health, p. 247.)