sume one average value
in the spectator's mind; and incidents from the Iliad and from the
Exodus to come within the same degrees of credibility. And, farther,
while the powers of the imagination were becoming daily more and more
languid, because unsupported by faith, the manual skill and science of
the artist were continually on the increase. When these had reached a
certain point, they began to be the principal things considered in the
picture, and its story or scene to be thought of only as a theme for
their manifestation. Observe the difference. In old times, men used
their powers of painting to show the objects of faith; in later times,
they used the objects of faith that they might show their powers of
painting. The distinction is enormous, the difference incalculable as
irreconcilable. And thus, the more skilful the artist, the less his
subject was regarded; and the hearts of men hardened as their handling
softened, until they reached a point when sacred, profane, or sensual
subjects were employed, with absolute indifference, for the display of
color and execution; and gradually the mind of Europe congealed into
that state of utter apathy,--inconceivable, unless it had been
witnessed, and unpardonable, unless by us, who have been infected by
it,--which permits us to place the Madonna and the Aphrodite side by
side in our galleries, and to pass, with the same unmoved inquiry into
the manner of their handling, from a Bacchanal to a Nativity.

Now all this evil, observe, would have been merely the necessary and
natural operation of an enthusiasm for the classics, and of a delight in
the mere science of the artist, on the most virtuous mind. But this
operation took place upon minds enervated by luxury, and which were
tempted, at the very same period, to forgetfulness or denial of all
religious principle by their own basest instincts. The faith which had
been undermined by the genius of Pagans, was overthrown by the crimes of
Christians; and the ruin which was begun by scholarship, was completed
by sensuality. The characters of the heathen divinities were as suitable
to the manners of the time as their forms were agreeable to its taste;
and Paganism again became, in effect, the religion of Europe. That is to
say, the civilized world is at this moment, collectively, just as Pagan
as it was in the second century; a small body of believers being now, as
they were then, representative of the Church of Christ in the midst of