nally lavished upon the Utopian project. Reverently also must one
speak of the catholic creed to which its members were asked to
subscribe: namely, to trust in God, recognize the nobleness of human
nature, labor faithfully with one's might, be loyal to one's common
country, its laws, and its monarch's or ruler's orders, so far as they
are consistent with the higher law of God; while exacting obedience, and
a pledge that one will not deceive, either for gain or other motive;
will not rob; will not hurt any living creature nor destroy any
beautiful thing; and will honor one's own body by proper care for it,
for the joy and peace of life. All this is very exemplary and beautiful,
and not over-hard to live up to, though the working-men of Sheffield in
time wearied of the organization, and the Guild and its noble ideals is
now, we believe, but a memory, if we except the art museum and library
of the Order taken over and still maintained by the town.

More practical, may we not say, than this imitation of the Florentine
_arti_ of the Middle Ages was the Working Men's College, founded in
London in the fifties by that other earnest Christian Socialist, F.D.
Maurice, in which Ruskin lectured gratuitously, took charge of the
drawing classes, and hied off to the country with its members to sketch
from nature and otherwise instruct and entertain them. Yet good in many
respects came of the Guild of St. George, in the impulse it gave to the
revival of the then dormant industries, such as the hand-spinning of
linen, hand-weaving of carpets and woollen fabrics, lace-making,
wood-carving, and metal-working, besides the stimulus it gave, with the
infusion of higher ideals of workmanship, to the decorative arts, and
the improvement in the sightliness of factories, and in the homes and
surroundings of labor. Here Ruskin's philanthropy and reform zeal showed
themselves most worthily in the financial aid he gave in the pulling
down, in crowded districts of the British metropolis, of poor tenements,
and the building up in their place of clean, attractive, and wholesome
habitations. In such benevolences and well-doings, and in this life of
renunciation and self-sacrifice, Ruskin spent himself, and made serious
inroads into his bodily health and strength, as well as scattered the
fortune--about a million dollars--left him by his now deceased father.
But this was the manner and character of Ruskin, and this the mode of
expressing his love for his