deals of the
beautiful and in shaping modern opinion and taste in art. How great is
the work he has done, and what a library of stimulating, inspiring books
he has left us, comparatively few realize, as they little realize what
the age owes to him for his noble activities in well-doing and his many
and impressive lessons and influence. In a commonplace, commercial time,
how stimulating as well as ardent have been his appeals for
sensitiveness of perception in regard to art, and of the tone and
spirit in which it ought to be viewed and valued! And with what tender,
reverent feeling has he not opened our hearts to compassion and to
consideration for the welfare of our fellow-man, and how potent have
been his counsellings pointing to the true and abiding sources of
pleasure in life! Long must his formative opinions and influence extend,
and in the minds of all who think and reflect abiding must be the charm
as well as the power of his imaginative, glowing thought. That he met
with opposition and hostility in his day was but the price to be paid
for the disturbing, correcting, disciplining, yet inspiring part he
played in the work he so impulsively set himself to do. One smiles now
at the epithets of scorn and contumely once hurled at him, at the man
who, little understood as he has been, has done so much to uplift and
purify the thought of his time and do battle with the forces opposed to
reform and arrayed against those of light and truth. And how great were
the weapons with which he was armed, and how varied as well as
marvellous the talents he brought into play in the onslaught upon
shallowness, convention, and ignorance! Truly, he has done much for his
time, and great has been the gain Modern Art has won from his inspiring
lessons and thought. The coming of such a man, and at the time that was
his, one cannot help reflecting, was one of the providences of an
overruling Power, and adequately to estimate his influence and work,
and the tone and temper in which he wrought, we have but to consider
what the age would have been, in countless departments of thought and
activity, had the century now passed possessed no John Ruskin.

AUTHORITIES.

Collingwood, W. G. Life of Ruskin.

Harrison, Frederic. Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and other Estimates.

Mather, Marshall. John Ruskin, his Life and Teaching.

Bayne, Peter. Lessons from my Masters--Carlyle, Tennyson, and Ruskin.

Japp, Alex. H. Carlyle, Tennyson, and Ruskin.

Sp