We are living, as John Ruskin lived, in days that are sombre and full of misgiving. This is no time for men to spend hours in idle contemplation of ancient stones or obsolete laws. The vast disasters which have overtaken us demand our utmost thought and strength in the task of reconstruction. Grief burdens the hearts of many; human need has taken to itself a thousand voices all of which cry for help. We cannot afford to wander pensively among ancient buildings or to make a profitless study of dead and mouldering walls, while the real world about us is threatened with dissolution. But, if we can learn from such study how temples and lordly palaces fell without the sacrilegious hand of despoilers, because they had, from their first inception, falsehood and disobedience within their stones and upon their decorations; or, if we find those which abide the passing of the years in strength and beauty, because they were conceived and fashioned in harmony with laws of life which are binding upon us as upon them; then may we return to our task in the world, with a strengthened and more compelling certainty that, though we have built amiss in life heretofore, yet is there a way by which

ever.

we may fashion a City of God that abideth forThis is the lesson Ruskin would have us learn from all our forms of education. "You do not educate a man by telling him what he knew not, but by making him what he was not." Our study has to do with life, not with things.

*

A notorious cynic, speaking of that distinguished man, whose loss is deplored by us as by our friends across the border, once said that Theodore Roosevelt was to be congratulated on his discovery of the Ten Commandments. The statement was a real contribution to our understanding of that forceful personality. His strength was not in subtlety of brain or ingenuity of intrigue; it was an expression of timeless and primal laws of life. We shall discover no new commandments" in Ruskin's Seven Lamps, but, "those we have heard from the beginning." There will, however, be lustrous fidelities, and unconquerable integrities, in the humblest life kindled into redeeming passion by these lamps of glowing light.

* This lecture was delivered a few days after Theodore Roosevelt's death.

66

"ALL

THE LAMP OF SACRIFICE

LL OLD work nearly has been hard work," declared Ruskin. "It may be the hard work of children, of barbarians, of rustics; but it is always their utmost." Turning to the great works of genius, he found, in the fair fronts of variegated mosaic charged with wild fancies and dark hosts of imagery, in vaulted gates, in pinnacles and diademed towers, what vast burdens men endured for their faith. "All else for which the builders sacrificed has passed away-all their living interests and aims and achievements. We know not for what they laboured, and we see no evidence of their reward. But of them, and their life and their toil upon the earth, one reward, one evidence, is left to us in those gray heaps of deep-wrought stones. They have taken with them to the grave their powers, their honours, and their errors; but they have left us their adoration."

Great and precious as is the bequest made to us in their work, still greater and more precious was the spiritual quality wrought in the builders themselves by their devotion. Life without

sacrifice is like some dark tower unrelieved by cheerful flame, a haunt of gloom and discontent.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass." Who desires to hear one speak, if, behind an eloquent tongue, there lies a selfish heart? "And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all knowledge, and though I have all faith, and have not love, I am nothing." This loveless creed is religion's perpetual stumbling block. "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." The man, who gives from some selfish motive, may help others by his gift, he leaves, unrelieved, the dreadful poverty of his own heart. Sacrifice is the law of life.

Human nature is so constituted that not one of us can do his true work in the world without putting forth all his powers. There are coward spirits within which crave for ease and self-indulgence, and from which there can be no deliverance save by crucifixion. The War has shown us the high capacity of average human nature, when held by the splendid compulsion of a great ideal. The dark fields of battle have had upon

them this ray of light. Shall we then, now that peace has come, turn-and blow out that light which God kindled within our hearts? We are confronted by new difficulties: never was the need of sacrifice greater than to-day. Self-assertion threatens to wreck the whole fabric of our social system, leaving nothing behind but chaos. We refuse, however, to believe that human nature can only be acted upon by selfish considerations. Such statements might have been listened to before the war; they cannot be accepted by those who have seen men and women sacrifice life with no hope of selfish gain. Christ's glorious faith in man has been abundantly justified before our eyes. If only we maintain the spirit which brought us through the dark days of the great conflict, we shall erect an enduring fabric, cemented by sacrificial blood. There is no other way. Society cannot be held together by ingenious adaptations of the much-vaunted doctrine of " enlightened selfishness," nor by what Edmund Burke termed, "the small arts of great statesmen." Christ's law of sacrifice is the human law, and abides in the nature of things. His cross shines across the centuries, proclaiming the