ship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold and in silver and
in brass and in cutting of stones for setting, and in carving of wood,
to work in all manner of workmanship,"--that is to say, of manual
dexterity. With him God had appointed Aholiab; "and in the hearts of all
the wise-hearted I have put wisdom." Thus should be fitly made the
tabernacle and its furniture, and the finely wrought garments, and the
anointing oil and the incense.

So then it appears that the Holy Spirit of God is to be recognised in
the work of the carpenter and the jeweller, the apothecary and the
tailor. Probably we object to such a statement, so baldly put. But
inspiration does not object. Moses told the children of Israel that
Jehovah had filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, and also Aholiab,
for the work "of the engraver ... and of the embroiderer ... and of the
weaver" (xxxv. 31, 35).

It is quite clear that we must cease to think of the Divine Spirit as
inspiring only prayers and hymns and sermons. All that is good and
beautiful and wise in human art is the gift of God. We feel that the
supreme Artist is audible in the wind among the pines; but is man left
to himself when he marshals into more sublime significance the voices of
the wind among the organ tubes? At sunrise and sunset we feel that

"On the beautiful mountains the pictures of God are hung";

but is there no revelation of glory and of freshness in other pictures?
Once the assertion that a great masterpiece was "inspired" was a clear
recognition of the central fire at which all genius lights its lamp:
now, alas! it has become little more than a sceptical assumption that
Isaiah and Milton are much upon a level. But the doctrine of this
passage is the divinity of all endowment; it is quite another thing to
claim Divine authority for a given product sprung from the free human
being who is so richly crowned and gifted.

Thus far we have smoothed our way by speaking only of poetry, painting,
music--things which really compete with nature in their spiritual
suggestiveness. But Moses spoke of the robe-maker, the embroiderer, the
weaver, and the perfumer.

Nevertheless, the one is carried with the other. Where shall we draw the
line, for example, in architecture or in ironwork? And there is another
consideration which must not be overlooked. God is assuredly in the
growth of humanity, in the progress of true civilisation--in all, the
recognition of which makes history phi