--the Lamp of Sacrifice, of Truth, Power, Beauty, Life,
Memory, Obedience,--looks upon architecture "as the revealing medium or
lamp through which flame a people's passions,--the embodiment of their
polity, life, history, and religious faith in temple and palace, mart
and home." Akin to these two eloquent works, in which their author
thoughtfully sets forth the civic virtues and moral tone, as well as the
debased characteristics, by which architecture is produced at certain
eras in a people's life, is the earlier volume on "The Poetry of
Architecture" (1837), which discusses the relation between architecture
and its setting of landscape or other environment, illustrated by
examples drawn from regions he had visited,--the English Lakeland,
France, Switzerland, Spain, and northern Italy.

After these works followed lectures on drawing, perspective, decoration,
and manufacture, with later theories (crotchets, some have impiously
called them) on political economy, Pre-Raphaelitism, _et cetera_, with a
flood of opinions on social, ethical, and art subjects, enriched by rare
intellectual gifts and much religious fervor. Ruskin's whole writings
form a body of literature unique of its kind, pervaded with great charm
of literary style, and inspired by a high moral purpose. Ruskin's
excursions into non-aesthetic fields, and the strange jumble of
Christian communism to which, late in life, he gave vehement expression,
it must be honestly admitted, have detracted much from his early fame.
In everything he wrote the Ruskinian spirit comes strongly out, colored
with an amiable egotism and enforced by great assurance of conviction.
The moral purpose he had in view, and the charm and elevated tone of his
writings, lead us to forget the wholly ideal state of society he sought
to introduce, while we are won to the man by the passion of his noble
enthusiasms.

Like Carlyle and Emerson, Ruskin was by his parents intended for the
ministry; but for the ministry he had himself no inclination. The
broadening out early of his mind and the freeing of his thought on
doctrinal subjects, which took him far from the narrow evangelicalism of
his youth, made the ministry of the church repugnant to him, though he
was always a deeply religious man and a force ever making for
righteousness. At the same time, he numbered many divines among his most
cherished friends, and he frequently, and with admitted edification, was
to be found in chapel and church.