ors--but it means the faith which
enables work to be carried out steadily, in spite of adverse appearances
and expediencies; the faith in great principles, by which a civic ruler
looks past all the immediate checks and shadows that would daunt a
common man, knowing that what is rightly done will have a right issue,
and holding his way in spite of pullings at his cloak and whisperings in
his ear, enduring, as having in him a faith which is evidence of things
unseen.

58. And Hope, in like manner, is here not the heavenward hope which
ought to animate the hearts of all men; but she attends upon Good
Government, to show that all such government is _expectant_ as well as
_conservative_; that if it ceases to be hopeful of better things, it
ceases to be a wise guardian of present things: that it ought never, as
long as the world lasts, to be wholly content with any existing state of
institution or possession, but to be hopeful still of more wisdom and
power; not clutching at it restlessly or hastily, but feeling that its
real life consists in steady ascent from high to higher: conservative,
indeed, and jealously conservative of old things, but conservative of
them as pillars, not as pinnacles--as aids, but not as idols; and
hopeful chiefly, and active, in times of national trial or distress,
according to those first and notable words describing the queenly
nation: "She riseth, _while it is yet night_."

59. And again, the winged Charity which is attendant on Good Government
has, in this fresco, a peculiar office. Can you guess what? If you
consider the character of contest which so often takes place among kings
for their crowns, and the selfish and tyrannous means they commonly take
to aggrandize or secure their power, you will, perhaps, be surprised to
hear that the office of Charity is to crown the King. And yet, if you
think of it a little, you will see the beauty of the thought which sets
her in this function: since, in the first place, all the authority of a
good governor should be desired by him only for the good of his people,
so that it is only Love that makes him accept or guard his crown: in the
second place, his chief greatness consists in the exercise of this love,
and he is truly to be revered only so far as his acts and thoughts are
those of kindness; so that Love is the light of his crown, as well as
the giver of it: lastly, because his strength depends on the affections
of his people, and it is only their