a solemn institution as their absolute right under the Christian law, the charity that proclaims it a paramount duty for all who have any available power, whether these be a community or individual members thereof, to listen to poverty pleading its pangs day and night before God and man-this public charity paganism knew nothing of; Christianity was the first to proclaim it, and a Christian emperor, Constantine, was the first to give to it practical effect. It was he, the first Christian Cæsar, who in testimony of that obligation which Christianity had laid on princes and their peoples, founded the first system of relief for pauperism. "The poor ye will always have with you." These words of the Divine Founder of Christianity were now accepted as at once a true prediction and an authoritative appeal.

What Christianity, since the times of Constantine, has done for the poor, and how much it has contributed if not to remove poverty out of the land-which is only to be thought of in the dreams of the visionary-at any rate to mitigate its sufferings, is patent to any one who will read the annals of philanthropy.

There is still one other observation I would add, in speaking of Christianity in connection with civilization, or the true solution of the great social problem. It alone, of all religious systems, has shown itself to possess the power to work in coöperation with time and progress, and to adapt itself to the

endless variations of epochs and locality. Systems there have been which could grapple with one condition of society, with one set of feelings, and one system of ideas, but when there came a change, and new elements had to be dealt with, these systems, having no power of plastic self-accommodation, became as a bed on which a man can not stretch himself; there was in them neither the length nor the breadth required by these new aspects of society, and of these new necessities of man. But Christianity has in it an infinite flexibility; it transfers itself, without needing to be stretched as a garment which has shrunk, from climate to climate, from land to land, from century to century, infolding within its endless adaptations the social problem, no matter where, when, or under what conditions, it is being solved.

CHAPTER III.

THE BIBLE THE PROMOTER OF LITERATURE AND THE ARTS-MODERN POETRY.

THERE are influences with power in them sufficient to initiate a movement, but which are not capable of consummating it. They give the first impulse, and then are left behind by that which themselves set in motion. This is abundantly illustrated in the history of science, philosophy, and literature. For many a book which exerted no small motive influence on the age when it first appeared, and perhaps on the age which succeeded, became at length antiquated, having fallen quite behind the very progress which in large measure might be traced to itself. Indeed the number of the books is exceedingly few, of which it could be said that they both commenced and consummated any great movement. Extremely few, at the most not over two or three, which, having served as a primer to the infancy of human thought, are still a sufficient "principia" for its manhood. Among these very few books the Bible stands out preëminent. Any other on the short but shining list is "secundus magno intervallo." The date of centuries, but not the decay of age is upon it. The first

to lead forth the human mind in the long quest after truth, it still keeps in the vanguard. Its vocation to man, as the child of immortality, is to press onward. Its own motto, woven as with lines of light on its every page, is meliora. Striking back to the eldest antiquity of our planet's history, it has stretched forward to its still uncircled periods; and as it moved on the past, so will it move on the future; for what it pioneers it promotes, what it commences it consummates. In sweeping the descending segment of its arc of motion, the ball of a pendulum acquires a momentum which carries it up an almost isometrical ascending segment; and so might we say it is likely to be the case with the Bible. It has been gathering a momentum or motive power in sweeping down the curve of the past, which will carry it forward through an equal curve in the future, if the earth last so long.

I am now to indicate some of the services which the Bible has rendered toward the advancement of

the higher arts and literature. But how may I hope adequately to discourse my theme? For were modern poetry to indite a thanksgiving hymn; and modern painting to hang up a commemorative picture; and modern sculpture to erect a memorial pillar; and modern music to compose an oratorio; and modern literature to write a eulogy, in acknowledgment of the services which the Bible has rendered to each of them; it would require the muse of a Milton to indite the hymn, the pencil of an

Angelo to paint the picture, the chisel of a Canova to sculpture the pillar, the symphonies of a Handel to swell the oratorio, and the pen of an Addison to write the eulogy.

Still, however inadequately, my subject requires of me that I shall essay the task of pointing out what services, not merely now as their pioneer, but as their promoter, the Bible has rendered to letters and the arts in the civilized nations of modern Europe. There will have to pass in review before us, poetry, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, and general literature; for by each of these has this marvelous book made its influence to be felt. We shall find that it has breathed into them a new life from its own undying vitality; that it has supplied them with materials out of its own exhaustless stores; that mixing as it were its own nurturing influences at their very roots, to it mainly is owing, even when the connection has ceased to be perceptible, that their branches have so widely burgeoned, blossomed, and borne fruit.

To the Bible modern poetry is under many obligations.

(1.) It has supplied it with subjects of song.

For if it is asked, in the first instance, Where have the great masters of the lyre, the high-priests of poesy's temple, her bards of the epic song, turned for subjects befitting their lofty muse? we reply, to the Bible. There at least, did he, most gifted of them all, find a theme equal to the immensity of