144 ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING

122. Perhaps there are some of you here who would not allow that the religion of the thirteenth century was Christianity. Be it so; still is the statement true, which is all that is necessary for me now to prove, that art was great because it was devoted to such religion as then existed. Grant, that Roman Catholicism was not Christianity-grant it, if you will, to be the same thing as old heathenism-and still I say to you, whatever it was, men lived and died by it, the ruling thought of all their thoughts; and just as classical art was greatest in building to its gods, so mediæval art was great in building to its gods, and modern art is not great, because it builds to no God. You have, for instance, in your Edinburgh Library, a Bible of the thirteenth century, the Latin Bible, commonly known as the Vulgate. It contains the Old and New Testaments, complete, besides the books of Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, the books of Judith, Baruch, and Tobit. The whole is written in the most beautiful black-letter hand, and each book begins with an illuminated letter, containing three or four figures, illustrative of the book which it begins. Now, whether this were done in the service of true Christianity or not, the simple fact is, that here is a man’s lifetime taken up in writing and ornamenting a Bible, as the sole end of his art; and that doing this, either in a book or on a wall, was the common artist’s life at the time; that the constant Bible reading and Bible thinking which this work involved, made a man serious and thoughtful, and a good workman, because he was always expressing those feelings which, whether right or wrong, were the groundwork of his whole being. Now, about the year

annuals, books of ballads, story books, and so on. Then look for the books which have most plain bindings and printings. You find them your Psalm books.

“In the Middle Ages it was the exact reverse. Whatever luxuries a man denied himself, one thing about his house at least was splendid-his Psalter. Do not leave the question in hand, to tell me that you think Psalm books ought to have plain bindings, and plain printings. That is not the question. I do not inquire what effect this modern principle has upon Psalm singing. I only say it has a prejudicial effect upon book-binding.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]