ed and devoted to religious
purposes: this keeps it pure for a time; but, like a stream
travelling and gathering other streams as it goes through wide
stretches of country to the sea, it receives greater and more
numerous impurities the farther it gets from its source, until, at
last, what was, in its rise, a gentle rilling through snows and over
whitest stones, roars into the ocean a muddy and contentious river.
Men soon long to touch and taste all that they see; savage-like, him
whom to-day they deem a god and worship, they on the morrow get an
appetite for and kill, to eat and barter. And thus art is degraded,
made a thing of carnal desire--a commodity of the exchange. Yes,
Sophon, to be instructive, to become a teaching instrument, the
art-edifice must be cleansed from its abominations; and, with them,
must the artist sweep out the improvements and ruthless restorations
that hang on it like formless botches on peopled tapestry. The
multitude must be brought to stand face to face with the pious and
earnest builders, to enjoy the severely simple, beautiful, aspiring,
and solemn temple, in all its first purity, the same as they
bequeathed it to them as their posterity.

_Kalon._ The peasant, upon acquaintance, quickly prefers wheaten
bread to the black and sour mass that formerly served him: and when
true jewels are placed before him, counterfeit ones in his eyes soon
lose their lustre, and become things which he scorns. The multitude
are teachable--teachable as a child; but, like a child, they are
self-willed and obstinate, and will learn in their own way, or not at
all. And, if the artist wishes to raise them unto a fit audience, he
must consult their very waywardness, or his work will be a Penelope's
web of done and undone: he must be to them not only cords of support
staying their every weakness against sin and temptation, but also,
tendrils of delight winding around them. But I cannot understand why
regeneration can flow to them through sacred art alone. All pure art
is sacred art. And the artist having soul as well as nature--the
lodestar as well as the lodestone--to steer his path by--and seeing
that he must circle earth--it matters little from what quarter he
first points his course; all that is necessary is that he go as
direct as possible, his knowledge keeping him from quicksands and
sunken rocks.

_Christian._ Yes, Kalon;--and, to compare things humble--though
conceived in the same spirit of love--with t