News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-11-08

FTitY1 WOWm INTO tine
cellar and get some corned beef, and butter,
and eggs and potatoes; that is all / can
do now" Artists may wish for our prayers
but they also want practical help from men
who can give them work You have heard
scores of sermons for all other kinds of suffer
ing men and women, but [ think this is the
first sermon ever preached that made
plea for the suffering men and women of
American art. Their work is i.Ore t-;le to
nature and life than any of the master
pieces that have become immortal on the
other side of the sea, but it is the fashion
of Americans to mention foreign artists,
and to know little or nothing about our
own Copley, and AllStOn and Inman, and
Greenough and Kensett. Let the atf1uent
fling out of their windows and into the back
yard valueleSS daubs on canvas, and call in
the splendid but unrewarded men, and tell
them to adorn your walls, not only with
that which shall please the taste, but enlarge
the mind and improve the morals, and save
the sous OF those who gaze upon them.
Brooklyn and all other American cities
need great galleries of art, not only open
| annually for few days on exhibition, but
which shall stand open all the year round,
and from early morning until ten O'Clock at
night, and free to all who would come and
go. What a preparation for the wear
and tear of the day, a five min
utes' look in the morning at some
picture that will open door into some larger
realm than that in which our population
daily drudge OF what good thing the half
| nOur Oh aIblSUlC uIl lu6 way
home in the evening from exhaustion that
demands recuperation for mind and soul as
well as body! Who will do for Brook
lyn or the city where you live what w.
W. Corcoran did for Washington, and what
! am told John WannamaEer, by the dona-
tion of De Munkacsy'S great picture 'Christ
before Plate" is going to do for Philadel
phia! Men of wealth, if you are too modest
to build and endow such place during your
lifetime, why not go to your iron safe, and
take out your last will and testament, and
make a cOdicil that shall build for the city OF
your residence, throne for American arta
Take some of the money that would otherwise
spoil your children, and build an art gallery
that shall associate your name forever
not only with the great masters of
painting who are gone, but with the
great masters who are trying to live; and
also win the admiration and love of tens of
thousands of people, who, unable to have
fine pictures of their own, woIld be adj
vantaged by your henefaction. Build your
| own monuments, and not leave it to the
| within of others Some of the best people Sleep
| ing in Green wood have no monuments at all,
or some crumblinG stones that in few years
| will let the rain wash out name and epitaph;
| while some men whose death was the abate-
| ment of a nuisance have pile of polished
| Aberdeen high enough for king, and eulo-
| GUM enough to emharrasS a Seraph. Oh,
| man of large wealth, instead of
| leaving, to the whim of others your monumen
tai commemoration and epitaphoogy to be
! at the burial of others, build right down in
the heart of our great city, or the city where
yon live, an immense free reading room, or
a free musical conservatory, or free
! art gallery, the inches for sculpture,
| and the walls abloom with the rise
and fall of nations, and lessons of
| courage for the disheartened, and rest for the
! weary, and lie for the dead; and one hun.
bred and fifty Years from now you will be
| welding influences in this world for good
( among those whose great-grandfather was
/ your great grandchIid. How much better
| than white marble that chis you if you
/ put your hand on it when you touch
| it in the cemetery would be a monument in
| colorS, in beaming eyes, in living possession.
in spiendors which under the chandelier
would be glowing and warm, and looked at
by strollIng groups with catalogue in hand
on the January night, when the metropolis
where the body sleeps is all showed under
The tower of David was hung with one thou
sand dented shields of battle; but you, oh
man of wealth, may have a grander tower
named after You, one that shall be hung not
with the symbols of carnage but with the
victories of that art which was so long ago
recoy nized in my text as pleasant pictures"
Oh, the power of pictures! L cannot deride,
as some have done, Cardinal Mazarin, who,
when told that he must die, took his last
walk through the art gallery of his palace,
saying: Must quit ali thiss Look at that
Titiani Look at that COrregiol Look at
that deluge of Caraccii Farewell, dear pict-
ures," As the day of the Lord of Hosts, &C
cording to this text, will Scrutinize the
pictures, impiore q / parents to see that
IN their households they have neither
in book or newspaper or on canvas anything
that will deprave. Pictures are no longer
tine exclusive possession of the atliuent. There
Is not n respectable homo in these cities that
has not specimens of wOolcut or steel en-
craving, if not of painting, and your whole
family will feel the moral uplifting
or depression. Have nothing on your
wall or in books that will familiarize
the young with scenes of cruelty or wassaiI;
have only those sketches made by artists in
elevated moods, and none of those scenes that |
seem the product of artistic deirum tremenS |
Pictures are not only a strong but uni |
verSal language The human race is divided |
into almost as many languages as there are
nations, but the pictures may speak to |
people of all tongues. NoaFuk many have
hoped, with little reason, would become a |
worldwide language; but the pictorial is
always a world wide language, and printers
types have no emphasis compared with it.
We say that children arc fond of pictures;
but notice any man when he takes up a book,
and you will see that the first thing
that he looks at Is the pictures. Have
only those in your house that
appeal to the better nature. One
engraving has sometime decided eternal
destiny. Under the title of fine arts there
have come here from France a class of pic
lures which elaborate argument has tried to
prove lrreproachable They would disgrace
n barroom, and they need to be coniiscated.
Your children will carry the pictures of
their fathers house with them clear to
the grave, and, passing that marble pillar,
will take them through eternity.
Furthermore, let all relOrmerS and all
Sabbath school teachers, and all Christian
workers realize that if they would be efTec-
tive for good, they must make pictures,
If not by chalk on black-boards,
Gil on canvas, tnen by words. Arguments
are soon forgotten; but pictures, whether
IN language or in coiorS, are what produce
strongest effects. Christ was always telling
what a thing was like, and His Sermon on the
Mount was Il great picture gallery beginning
with a sketch of Il city on hill that cannot
be hid, y and ending with tempest beating
against two houses, one on the rock and the
other the sand. The parable of the prodi-
gal son, picture; parable of the sower who |
went forth to SOW, picture; parable of the |
unmercful servant, picture; parable of the |
ten virgins, picture; parable of the talents, |
a picture. The world wants pictures, and the |
appetite begins with the child who consents to |
90 early TO bed If the mother will sit beside |
him and Tehearse a story, which is only a |
picture. When we see how much has been |
accomplished in secular directions by pictures |
-Shakespeares tragedies a picture Victor
HugO'S writings all pictures john Ruskin's |
ami IennysOn's and Longfellow'S |
works all pictures-why not enlist, as
far as possible, for our churches and schools |
and retormatory work and evangelistIc en-
deavor, the power of thought that can be
cOlorl Yea, why not all young men draw
for themselves on paper, with pen pencil |
their coming career, of virtue if they |
prefer that. of vice if they prefer that.
After making the picture put it on the wall
or paste it on the fly leaf of some favorite
book, that you may have it before you. |
read the other day of a man who had been
executed for murder, and the jailor found
afterward picture made on the wa | of the
cell by the asSassln'S own hand, a pct
ure of a flight of stairs. On the lowest
step he had written: Disobedience
Of PARENTS" on the second: Sabbath break
ing" on the third: drunkenness and gam
bling" on the fourth: Murder" and on tho
fifth and top step: "a gallows." If that man
had made that picture before he took the
first step, he never would have taken any OF
them. Oh, man, make another picture, q
bright picture, an evangelical picture; | will
help you make it! L suggest six steps for this
Hight of stairs On the first step write tho
words: = nature changed by the Holy
Ghost and WASHED in the blood of the Lamb
On the second step: Industry and good
companionship;" on the third step: "A Christ
ian home with family altar ON the fourth
step: Ever widening usefulness on the fifth
step: "A glorious departure from this
world on the sixth step: Heaven! heaven!
neaven!" Write it three times, and let tho
letters of the one word be made up of ban
lers, the second of corOnets, and the third of |
thrones! Promise me that you viii do that, ]
and will promise 20 meet you on the sixth
step, II the Lord will through His pardoning |
grace bring me there too.
And here am going to say a word of |
cheer to people who have never had a word
Dt consolation on that subject. There are |
men and women III this world by hundreds
ot thousands, and some of them are here to
lay, VINO have fine natural TASTE and yet
I'll their lives that taste has been sun /
Il. and OIL