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Val d'Arno, a non-fiction book by John Ruskin |
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Lecture 10. Fleur De Lys |
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_ LECTURE X. FLEUR DE LYS 249. Through all the tempestuous winter which during the period of history we have been reviewing, weakened, in their war with the opposed rocks of religious or knightly pride, the waves of the Tuscan Sea, there has been slow increase of the Favonian power which is to bring fruitfulness to the rock, peace to the wave. The new element which is introduced in the thirteenth century, and perfects for a little time the work of Christianity, at least in some few chosen souls, is the law of Order and Charity, of intellectual and moral virtue, which it now became the function of every great artist to teach, and of every true citizen to maintain. 250. I have placed on your table one of the earliest existing engravings by a Florentine hand, representing the conception which the national mind formed of this spirit of order and tranquillity, "Cosmico," or the Equity of Kosmos, not by senseless attraction, but by spiritual thought and law. He stands pointing with his left hand to the earth, set only with tufts of grass; in his right hand he holds the ordered system of the universe--heaven and earth in one orb;--the heaven made cosmic by the courses of its stars; the earth cosmic by [Illustration: PLATE IX.--THE CHARGE TO ADAM. MODERN ITALIAN. ] the seats of authority and fellowship,--castles on the hills and cities in the plain. 251. The tufts of grass under the feet of this figure will appear to you, at first, grotesquely formal. But they are only the simplest expression, in such herbage, of the subjection of all vegetative force to this law of order, equity, or symmetry, which, made by the Greek the principal method of his current vegetative sculpture, subdues it, in the hand of Cora or Triptolemus, into the merely triple sceptre, or animates it, in Florence, to the likeness of the Fleur-de-lys. 252. I have already stated to you that if any definite flower is meant by these triple groups of leaves, which take their authoritatively typical form in the crowns of the Cretan and Laciuian Hera, it is not the violet, but the purple iris; or sometimes, as in Pindar's description of the birth of Ismus, the yellow water-flag, which you know so well in spring, by the banks of your Oxford streams. [1] But, in general, it means simply the springing of beautiful and orderly vegetation in fields upon which the dew falls pure. It is the expression, therefore, of peace on the redeemed and cultivated earth, and of the pleasure of heaven in the uncareful happiness of men clothed without labour, and fed without fear. [Footnote 1: In the catalogues of the collection of drawings in this room, and in my "Queen of the Air" you will find all that I would ask you to notice about the various names and kinds of the flower, and their symbolic use.--Note only, with respect to our present purpose, that while the true white lily is placed in the hands of the Angel of the Annunciation even by Florentine artists, in their general design, the fleur-de-lys is given to him by Giovaiini Pisano on the facade of Orvieto; and that the flower in the crown-circlets of European kings answers, as I stated to you in my lecture on the Corona, to the Narcissus fillet of early Greece; the crown of abundance and rejoicing.] 253. In the passage, so often read by us, which announces the advent of Christianity as the dawn of peace on earth, we habitually neglect great part of the promise, owing to the false translation of the second clause of the sentence. I cannot understand how it should be still needful to point out to you here in Oxford that neither the Greek words [Greek: *"en anthriopois evdokia,"*] nor those of the vulgate, "in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis," in the slightest degree justify our English words, "goodwill to men." Of God's goodwill to men, and to all creatures, for ever, there needed no proclamation by angels. But that men should be able to please _Him_,--that their wills should be made holy, and they should not only possess peace in themselves, but be able to give joy to their God, in the sense in which He afterwards is pleased with His own baptized Son;- -this was a new thing for Angels to declare, and for shepherds to believe. 254. And the error was made yet more fatal by its repetition in a passage of parallel importance,--the thanksgiving, namely, offered by Christ, that His Father, while He had hidden what it was best to know, not from the wise and prudent, but from some among the wise and prudent, and had revealed it unto babes; not 'for so it seemed good' in His sight, but 'that there might be well pleasing in His sight,'-- namely, that the wise and simple might equally live in the necessary knowledge, and enjoyed presence, of God. And if, having accurately read these vital passages, you then as carefully consider the tenour of the two songs of human joy in the birth of Christ, the Magnificat, and the Nunc dimittis, you will find the theme of both to be, not the newness of blessing, but the equity which disappoints the cruelty and humbles the strength of men; which scatters the proud in the imagination of their hearts; which fills the hungry with good things; and is not only the glory of Israel, but the light of the Gentiles. 255. As I have been writing these paragraphs, I have been checking myself almost at every word,--wondering, Will they be restless on their seats at this, and thinking all the while that they did not come here to be lectured on Divinity? You may have been a little impatient,--how could it well be otherwise? Had I been explaining points of anatomy, and showing you how you bent your necks and straightened your legs, you would have thought me quite in my proper function; because then, when you went with a party of connoisseurs through the Vatican, you could point out to them the insertion of the clavicle in the Apollo Belvidere; and in the Sistine Chapel the perfectly accurate delineation of the tibia in the legs of Christ. Doubtless; but you know I am lecturing at present on the goffi, and not on Michael Angelo; and the goffi are very careless about clavicles and shin-bones; so that if, after being lectured on anatomy, you went into the Campo Santo of Pisa, you would simply find nothing to look at, except three tolerably well- drawn skeletons. But if after being lectured on theology, you go into the Campo Santo of Pisa, you will find not a little to look at, and to remember. 256. For a single instance, you know Michael Angelo is admitted to have been so far indebted to these goffi as to borrow from the one to whose study of mortality I have just referred, Orcagna, the gesture of his Christ in the Judgment, He borrowed, however, accurately speaking, the position only, not the gesture; nor the meaning of it. [1] You all remember the action of Michael Angelo's Christ,--the right hand raised as if in violence of reprobation; and the left closed across His breast, as refusing all mercy. The action is one which appeals to persons of very ordinary sensations, and is very naturally adopted by the Renaissance painter, both for its popular effect, and its capabilities for the exhibition of his surgical science. But the old painter-theologian, though indeed he showed the right hand of Christ lifted, and the left hand laid across His breast, had another meaning in the actions. The fingers of the left hand are folded, in both the figures; but in Michael Angelo's as if putting aside an appeal; in Orcagna's, the fingers are bent to draw back the drapery from the right side. The right hand is raised by Michael Angelo as in anger; by Orcagna, only to show the wounded palm. And as, to the believing disciples, He showed them His hands and His side, so that they were glad,--so, to the unbelievers, at their judgment, He shows the wounds in hand and side. They shall look on Him whom they pierced. [Footnote: I found all this in M. Didron's Iconographie, above quoted; I had never noticed the difference between the two figures myself.] 257. And thus, as we follow our proposed examination of the arts of the Christian centuries, our understanding of their work will be absolutely limited by the degree of our sympathy with the religion which our fathers have bequeathed to us. You cannot interpret classic marbles without knowing and loving your Pindar and AEschylus, neither can you interpret Christian pictures without knowing and loving your Isaiah and Matthew. And I shall have continually to examine texts of the one as I would verses of the other; nor must you retract yourselves from the labour in suspicion that I desire to betray your scepticism, or undermine your positivism, because I recommend to you the accurate study of books which have hitherto been the light of the world. 258. The change, then, in the minds of their readers at this date, which rendered it possible for them to comprehend the full purport of Christianity, was in the rise of the new desire for equity and rest, amidst what had hitherto been mere lust for spoil, and joy in battle. The necessity for justice was felt in the now extending commerce; the desire of rest in the now pleasant and fitly furnished habitation; and the energy which formerly could only be satisfied in strife, now found enough both of provocation and antagonism in the invention of art, and the forces of nature. I have in this course of lectures endeavoured to fasten your attention on the Florentine Revolution of 1250, because its date is so easily memorable, and it involves the principles of every subsequent one, so as to lay at once the foundations of whatever greatness Florence afterwards achieved by her mercantile and civic power. But I must not close even this slight sketch of the central history of Val d'Aruo without requesting you, as you find time, to associate in your minds, with this first revolution, the effects of two which followed it, being indeed necessary parts of it, in the latter half of the century. 259. Remember then that the first, in 1250, is embryonic; and the significance of it is simply the establishment of order, and justice against violence and iniquity. It is equally against the power of knights and priests, so far as either are unjust,--not otherwise. When Manfred fell at Benevento, his lieutenant, the Count Guido Novello, was in command of Florence. He was just, but weak; and endeavoured to temporize with the Guelphs. His effort ought to be notable to you, because it was one of the wisest and most far-sighted ever made in Italy; but it failed for want of resolution, as the gentlest and best men are too apt to fail. He brought from Bologna two knights of the order--then recently established--of joyful brethren; afterwards too fatally corrupted, but at this time pure in purpose. They constituted an order of chivalry which was to maintain peace, obey the Church, and succour widows and orphans; but to be bound by no monastic vows. Of these two knights, he chose one Guelph, the other Ghibelline; and under their balanced power Gruido hoped to rank the forces of the civil, manufacturing, and trading classes, divided into twelve corporations of higher and lower arts. [1] But the moment this beautiful arrangement was made, all parties--Guelph, Ghibelline, and popular,--turned unanimously against Count Guido Novello. The benevolent but irresolute captain indeed gathered his men into the square of the Trinity; but the people barricaded the streets issuing from it; and Guido, heartless, and unwilling for civil warfare, left the city with his Germans in good order. And so ended the incursion of the infidel Tedeschi for this time. The Florentines then dismissed the merry brothers whom the Tedeschi had set over them, and besought help from Orvieto and Charles of Anjou; who sent them Guy de Montfort and eight hundred French riders; the blessing of whose presence thus, at their own request, was granted them on Easter Day, 1267. [Footnote: The seven higher arts were, Lawyers, Physicians, Bankers, Merchants of Foreign Goods, Wool Manufacturers, Silk Manufacturers, Furriers. The five lower arts were, Retail Sellers of Cloth, Butchers, Shoemakers, Masons and Carpenters, Smiths.] On Candlemas, if you recollect, 1251, they open their gates to the Germans; and on Easter, 1267, to the French. 260. Remember, then, this revolution, as coming between the battles of Welcome and Tagliacozzo; and that it expresses the lower revolutionary temper of the trades, with English and French assistance. Its immediate result was the appointment of five hundred and sixty lawyers, woolcombers, and butchers, to deliberate upon all State questions,-- under which happy ordinances you will do well, in your own reading, to leave Florence, that you may watch, for a while, darling little Pisa, all on fire for the young Conradin. She sent ten vessels across the Gulf of Genoa to fetch him; received his cavalry in her plain of Sarzana; and putting five thousand of her own best sailors into thirty ships, sent them to do what they could, all down the coast of Italy. Down they went; startling Gaeta with an attack as they passed; found Charles of Anjou's French and Sicilian fleet at Messina, fought it, beat it, and burned twenty-seven of its ships. 261. Meantime, the Florentines prospered as they might with their religious-democratic constitution,--until the death, in the odour of sanctity, of Charles of Anjou, and of that Pope Martin IV. whose tomb was destroyed with Urban's at Perugia. Martin died, as you may remember, of eating Bolsena eels,--that being his share in the miracles of the lake; and you will do well to remember at the same time, that the price of the lake eels was three soldi a pound; and that Niccola of Pisa worked at Siena for six soldi a day, and his son Giovanni for four. 262. And as I must in this place bid farewell, for a time, to Niccola and to his son, let me remind you of the large commission which the former received on the occasion of the battle of Tagliacozzo, and its subsequent massacres, when the victor, Charles, having to his own satisfaction exterminated the seed of infidelity, resolves, both in thanksgiving, and for the sake of the souls of the slain knights for whom some hope might yet be religiously entertained, to found an abbey on the battle-field. In which purpose he sent for Niccola to Naples, and made him build on the field of Tagliacozzo, a church and abbey of the richest; and caused to be buried therein the infinite number of the bodies of those who died in that battle day; ordering farther, that, by many monks, prayer should be made for their souls, night and day. In which fabric the king was so pleased with Niccola's work that he rewarded and honoured him highly. 263. Do you not begin to wonder a little more what manner of man this Nicholas was, who so obediently throws down the towers which offend the Ghibelliues, and so skilfully puts up the pinnacles which please the Guelphs? A passive power, seemingly, he;--plastic in the hands of any one who will employ him to build, or to throw down. On what exists of evidence, demonstrably in these years here is the strongest brain of Italy, thus for six shilling a day doing what it is bid. 264. I take farewell of him then, for a little time, ratifying to you, as far as my knowledge permits, the words of my first master in Italian art, Lord Lindsay. "In comparing the advent of Niccola Pisano to that of the sun at his rising, I am conscious of no exaggeration; on the contrary, it is the only simile by which I can hope to give you an adequate impression of his brilliancy and power relatively to the age in which he flourished. Those sons of Erebus, the American Indians, fresh from their traditional subterranean world, and gazing for the first time on the gradual dawning of the day in the East, could not have been more dazzled, more astounded, when the sun actually appeared, than the popes and podestas, friars and freemasons must have been in the thirteenth century, when from among the Biduinos, Bonannos, and Antealmis of the twelfth, Niccola emerged in his glory, sovereign and supreme, a fount of light, diffusing warmth and radiance over Christendom. It might be too much to parallel him in actual genius with Dante and Shakspeare; they stand alone and unapproachable, each on his distinct pinnacle of the temple of Christian song; and yet neither of them can boast such extent and durability of influence, for whatever of highest excellence has been achieved in sculpture and painting, not in Italy only, but throughout Europe, has been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in following up the principle which he first struck out. "His latter days were spent in repose at Pisa, but the precise year of his death is uncertain; Vasari fixes it in 1275; it could not have been much later. He was buried in the Campo Santo. Of his personal character we, alas! know nothing; even Shakspeare is less a stranger to us. But that it was noble, simple, and consistent, and free from the petty foibles that too frequently beset genius, may be fairly presumed from the works he has left behind him, and from the eloquent silence of tradition." 265. Of the circumstances of Niccola Pisano's death, or the ceremonials practised at it, we are thus left in ignorance. The more exemplary death of Charles of Aujou took place on the 7th of January, then, 1285; leaving the throne of Naples to a boy of twelve; and that of Sicily, to a Prince of Spain. Various discord, between French, Spanish, and Calabrese vices, thenceforward paralyzes South Italy, and Florence becomes the leading power of the Guelph faction. She had been inflamed and pacified through continual paroxysms of civil quarrel during the decline of Charles's power; but, throughout, the influence of the nobles declines, by reason of their own folly and insolence; while the people, though with no small degree of folly and insolence on their own side, keep hold of their main idea of justice. In the meantime, similar assertions of law against violence, and the nobility of useful occupation, as compared with that of idle rapine, take place in Bologna, Siena, and even at Rome, where Bologna sends her senator, Branca Leone, (short for Branca-di-Leone, Lion's Grip,) whose inflexible and rightly guarded reign of terror to all evil and thievish persons, noble or other, is one of the few passages of history during the middle ages, in which the real power of civic virtue may be seen exercised without warping by party spirit, or weakness of vanity or fear. 266. And at last, led by a noble, Giano della Bella, the people of Florence write and establish their final condemnation of noblesse living by rapine, those 'Ordinamenti della Giustizia,' which practically excluded all idle persons from government, and determined that the priors, or leaders of the State, should be priors, or leaders of its arts and productive labour; that its head 'podesta' or 'power' should be the standard-bearer of justice; and its council or parliament composed of charitable men, or good men: "boni viri," in the sense from which the French formed their noun 'bonte.' The entire governing body was thus composed, first, of the Podestas, standard-bearer of justice; then of his military captain; then of his lictor, or executor; then of the twelve priors of arts and liberties-- properly, deliberators on the daily occupations, interests, and pleasures of the body politic;--and, finally, of the parliament of "kind men," whose business was to determine what kindness could be shown to other states, by way of foreign policy. 267. So perfect a type of national government has only once been reached in the history of the human race. And in spite of the seeds of evil in its own impatience, and in the gradually increasing worldliness of the mercantile body; in spite of the hostility of the angry soldier, and the malignity of the sensual priest, this government gave to Europe the entire cycle of Christian art, properly so called, and every highest Master of labour, architectural, scriptural, or pictorial, practised in true understanding of the faith of Christ;--Orcagna, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Lionardo, Luini as his pupil, Lippi, Luca, Angelico, Botticelli, and Michael Angelo. 268. I have named two men, in this group, whose names are more familiar to your ears than any others, Angelico and Michael Angelo;--who yet are absent from my list of those whose works I wish you to study, being both extravagant in their enthusiasm,--the one for the nobleness of the spirit, and the other for that of the flesh. I name them now, because the gifts each had were exclusively Florentine; in whatever they have become to the mind of Europe since, they are utterly children of the Val d'Arno. 269. You are accustomed, too carelessly, to think of Angelico as a child of the Church, rather than of Florence. He was born in l387,-- just eleven years, that is to say, after the revolt of Florence _against_ the Church, and ten after the endeavour of the Church to recover her power by the massacres of Faenza and Cesena. A French and English army of pillaging riders were on the other side of the Alps,-- six thousand strong; the Pope sent for it; Robert Cardinal of Geneva brought it into Italy. The Florentines fortified their Apennines against it; but it took winter quarters at Cesena, where the Cardinal of Geneva massacred five thousand persons in a day, and the children and sucklings were literally dashed against the stones. 270. That was the school which the Christian Church had prepared for their brother Angelica. But Fesole, secluding him in the shade of her mount of Olives, and Florence revealing to him the true voice of his Master, in the temple of St. Mary of the Flower, taught him his lesson of peace on earth, and permitted him his visions of rapture in heaven. And when the massacre of Cesena was found to have been in vain, and the Church was compelled to treat with the revolted cities who had united to mourn for her victories, Florence sent her a living saint, Catherine of Siena, for her political Ambassador. 271. Of Michael Angelo I need not tell you: of the others, we will read the lives, and think over them one by one; the great fact which I have written this course of lectures to enforce upon your minds is the dependence of all the arts on the virtue of the State, and its kindly order. The absolute mind and state of Florence, for the seventy years of her glory, from 1280 to 1350, you find quite simply and literally described in the ll2th Psalm, of which I read you the descriptive verses, in the words in which they sang it, from this typically perfect manuscript of the time:--
You will please now look at my staff of the year 1300, [Footnote: Page 33 in my second lecture on Engraving.] adding the names of Dante and Orcagna, having each their separate masterful or prophetic function. That is Florence's contribution to the intellectual work of the world during these years of justice. Now, the promise of Christianity is given with lesson from the fleur-de-lys: Seek ye first the royalty of God, and His justice, "and all these things," material wealth, "shall be added unto you." It is a perfectly clear, perfectly literal,--never failing and never unfulfilled promise. There is no instance in the whole cycle of history of its not being accomplished,--fulfilled to the uttermost, with full measure, pressed down, and running over. 273. Now hear what Florence was, and what wealth she had got by her justice. In the year 1330, before she fell, she had within her walls a hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, of whom all the men--(laity)-- between the ages of fifteen and seventy, were ready at an instant to go out to war, under their banners, in number twenty-four thousand. The army of her entire territory was eighty thousand; and within it she counted fifteen hundred noble, families, every one absolutely submissive to her gonfalier of justice. She had within her walls a hundred and ten churches, seven priories, and thirty hospitals for the sick and poor; of foreign guests, on the average, fifteen hundred, constantly. From eight to ten thousand children were taught to read in her schools. The town was surrounded by some fifty square miles of uninterrupted garden, of olive, corn, vine, lily, and rose. And the monetary existence of England and France depended upon her wealth. Two of her bankers alone had lent Edward III. of England five millions of money (in sterling value of this present hour). 274. On the 10th of March, 1337, she was first accused, with truth, of selfish breach of treaties. On the l0th of April, all her merchants in France were imprisoned by Philip Valois; and presently afterwards Edward of England failed, quite in your modern style, for his five millions. These money losses would have been nothing to her; but on the 7th of August, the captain of her army, Pietro de' Rossi of Parma, the unquestioned best knight in Italy, received a chance spear-stroke before Monselice, and died next day. He was the Bayard of Italy; and greater than Bayard, because living in a nobler time. He never had failed in any military enterprise, nor ever stained success with cruelty or shame. Even the German troops under him loved him without bounds. To his companions he gave gifts with such largesse, that his horse and armour were all that at any time he called his own. Beautiful and pure as Sir Galahad, all that was brightest in womanhood watched and honoured him. And thus, 8th August, 1337, he went to his own place.--To-day I trace the fall of Florence no more. I will review the points I wish you to remember; and briefly meet, so far as I can, the questions which I think should occur to you. 275. I have named Edward III. as our heroic type of Franchise. And yet I have but a minute ago spoken of him as 'failing' in quite your modern manner. I must correct my expression:--he had no intent of failing when he borrowed; and did not spend his money on himself. Nevertheless, I gave him as an example of frankness; but by no means of honesty. He is simply the boldest and royalest of Free Riders; the campaign of Crecy is, throughout, a mere pillaging foray. And the first point I wish you to notice is the difference in the pecuniary results of living by robbery, like Edward III., or by agriculture and just commerce, like the town of Florence. That Florence can lend five millions to the King of England, and loose them with little care, is the result of her olive gardens and her honesty. Now hear the financial phenomena attending military exploits, and a life of pillage. 276. I give you them in this precise year, 1338, in which the King of England failed to the Florentines. "He obtained from the prelates, barons, and knights of the [Illustration: PLATE X.--THE NATIVITY. GIOVANNI PISANO. ] shires, one half of their wool for this year--a very valuable and extraordinary grant. He seized all the tin "(above-ground, you mean Mr. Henry!)" in Cornwall and Devonshire, took possession of the lands of all priories alien, and of the money, jewels, and valuable effects of the Lombard merchants. He demanded certain quantities of bread, corn, oats, and bacon, from each county; borrowed their silver plate from many abbeys, as well as great sums of money both abroad and at home; and pawned his crown for fifty thousand florins." [1] [Footnote 1: Henry's "History of England," book iv., chap. i.] He pawns his queen's jewels next year; and finally summons all the gentlemen of England who had forty pounds a year, to come and receive the honour of knighthood, or pay to be excused! 277. II. The failures of Edward, or of twenty Edwards, would have done Florence no harm, had she remained true to herself, and to her neighbouring states. Her merchants only fall by their own increasing avarice; and above all by the mercantile form of pillage, usury. The idea that money could beget money, though more absurd than alchemy, had yet an apparently practical and irresistibly tempting confirmation in the wealth of villains, and the success of fools. Alchemy, in its day, led to pure chemistry; and calmly yielded to the science it had fostered. But all wholesome indignation against usurers was prevented, in the Christian mind, by wicked and cruel religious hatred of the race of Christ. In the end, Shakspeare himself, in his fierce effort against the madness, suffered himself to miss his mark by making his usurer a Jew: the Franciscan institution of the Mount of Pity failed before the lust of Lombardy, and the logic of Augsburg; and, to this day, the worship of the Immaculate Virginity of Money, mother of the Omnipotence of Money, is the Protestant form of Madonna worship. 278. III. The usurer's fang, and the debtor's shame, might both have been trodden down under the feet of Italy, had her knights and her workmen remained true to each other. But the brotherhoods of Italy were not of Cain to Abel--but of Cain to Cain. Every man's sword was against his fellow. Pisa sank before Genoa at Meloria, the Italian AEgos- Potamos; Genoa before Venice in the war of Chiozza, the Italian siege of Syracuse. Florence sent her Brunelleschi to divert the waves of Serchio against the walls of Lucca; Lucca her Castruccio, to hold mock tournaments before the gates of vanquished Florence. The weak modern Italian reviles or bewails the acts of foreign races, as if his destiny had depended upon these; let him at least assume the pride, and bear the grief, of remembering that, among all the virgin cities of his country, there has not been one which would not ally herself with a stranger, to effect a sister's ruin. 279. Lastly. The impartiality with which I have stated the acts, so far as known to me, and impulses, so far as discernible by me, of the contending Church and Empire, cannot but give offence, or provoke suspicion, in the minds of those among you who are accustomed to hear the cause of Religion supported by eager disciples, or attacked by confessed enemies. My confession of hostility would be open, if I were an enemy indeed; but I have never possessed the knowledge, and have long ago been cured of the pride, which makes men fervent in witness for the Church's virtue, or insolent in declamation against her errors. The will of Heaven, which grants the grace and ordains the diversities of Religion, needs no defence, and sustains no defeat, by the humours of men; and our first business in relation to it is to silence our wishes, and to calm our fears. If, in such modest and disciplined temper, you arrange your increasing knowledge of the history of mankind, you will have no final difficulty in distinguishing the operation of the Master's law from the consequences of the disobedience to it which He permits; nor will you respect the law less, because, accepting only the obedience of love, it neither hastily punishes, nor pompously rewards, with what men think reward or chastisement. Not always under the feet of Korah the earth is rent; not always at the call of Elijah the clouds gather; but the guarding mountains for ever stand round about Jerusalem; and the rain, miraculous evermore, makes green the fields for the evil and the good. 280. And if you will fix your minds only on the conditions of human life which the Giver of it demands, "He hath shown thee, oh man, what is good, and what doth thy Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God," you will find that such obedience is always acknowledged by temporal blessing. If, turning from the manifest miseries of cruel ambition, and manifest wanderings of insolent belief, you summon to your thoughts rather the state of unrecorded multitudes, who laboured in silence, and adored in humility, widely as the snows of Christendom brought memory of the Birth of Christ, or her spring sunshine, of His Resurrection, you may know that the promise of the Bethlehem angels has been literally fulfilled; and will pray that your English fields, joyfully as the banks of Arno, may still dedicate their pure lilies to St. Mary of the Flower. _ |
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