The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-03-26

n
q rope. His paintings, which have since
won the applause Of all civilized ma
tions-'The Fifth Plague of Egypt >
! Fishermen on a Lee Shore In Squally
Weather. y "Calais Pier, F" 1.-THE sur
Kissing Through Mist" and dido Build
ing Carthage"-were then targets fol
critics to shoot at In defense of this
outrageously abused man young au,
thor of "a years, just one year out Of
college, came forth with his pen anG
wrote the ablest and most famous ESSAYS
on art that the world ever saw or even
will see - John Ruskin's Modern
Painters. =" For II years this author
fought the battles Of the maltrea&ed art.
ist and after, in poverty and broken
the public tried to undo their cruelties
toward him by giving him big funeral
and burial i'll st. Paul's cathedral his
old time friend took out of a tin box
$4,000 pieces of paper containing draw
ings by the old painter, and through
many weary and uncompensated months
assorted and arranged them for public
observation. People say John Ruskin in
his old days is cross, misanthropic and
morbid. Whatever he may do that he
ought not to do and whatever he may
say that he ought not to say between
now and his death he will leave this
world insolvent as faBas it has any ca
pacity to pay this authors pen for it's
chivalric and Christian defense of a
poor painters pencil John Ruskin for
William Turner Blood for blood. Sub
stitution
What an exalting principle this which
leads one 70 suffer for another! Nothing
SO kindles enthusiasm or awakens elo-
quence or chimes poetic canto or moves
nations. The principle is the dominant
one i'll our religion-Christ the martyr,
Christ the celestial hero, Christ the
defender, Christ the substitute. No
new principle, for it was as old as hu-
man nature, but now on grander,
wider, higher, deeper and more world
resounding scale. The shepherd boy as
champion for Israel with a sling top
pied the giant of Philistine braggadocio
in the dust, but here is another David,
who for all the armies of churches mil
liant and triumphant, hurls the Goliath
OF perditiOn into defeat, the crash of
his brazen armor like an explosion at
He'll Gate. Abraham had at God rs COM
mand agreed to sacrifice his son Isaac,
and the same God just in time had pro-
vided ram of the thicket as a substi-
tute. But here is another Isaac bound to
the altar, and no hand arrests the sharp
edges of laceration and death, and the
universe shivers and quakes and recoils
and groans at the horror.
Forsaking Throne.
All good men have for centuries been
trying to tell whom this substitute was
like, and every comparison, inspired
and uninspired, evangelistic, prophetic,
apostolic and human falls short, for
Christ was the Great Unlike. Adam a
type of Christ, because he came directly
from God; Noah a type of Christ, be-
cause he delivered his own family from
the deluge; Melchisedec a type Of
Christ, because he had no predecessor or
successor; Joseph a type of Christ, be-
cause he was cast out by his brethren;
Moses type of Christ, because he was
deliverer from bondage; Samson
type of Christ, because of his strength
to Stay the lions and carry off the iron
gates of impossibility; Solomon type
of Christ i'll the affluence of his domin-
ion; Jonah type of Christ, because of
the stormy sea in which he threw him
self for the rescue of others. But put to-
gether Adam and Noah and Melchisedec
and Joseph and Moses and Joshua and
Samson and Solomon and Jonah, and
they would not make a fragment of
Christ, quarter of Christ, the half of
a Christ or the millionth part of
Christ.
He forsook throne and sat down on
his own footstool. He came from the
top of glory to the bottom of humilia-
ton and changed a circumference Sc
raphic for a circumference diabolic. |
Once waited on by angels, now Kissed |
at by brigands. From afar and high up !
he came down; past meteors swifter |
than they; by starry thrones, himself |
more lustrous; past larger worlds to
smaller worlds; down stairs of firma-
ments, and from cloud to cloud and
through tree tops and into the camel's
stall, to thrust his shoulder under our
burdens and take the lances of pain
through his vitals, and wrapped himself
in all the agonies which we deserve for
our misdoings and stood ON the splitting
decks OF a laundering vessel amid the
1renching surf of the sea and passed
midnights on the mountains amid wild
beasts of prey and stood at the point
where all earthly and internal hostilities
charged on him at once with their keen
substituted
When did attorney ever endure so
much for a pauper client or physician
'or the patient in the lazaretto or mother
Tor the child i'll membranous Group, as
christ for us, as Christ for you, as
Christ for me? Shall any man or woman
II child in this audience who has ever
suffered for another find it hard to I'M ,,
ierstand this Christly suffering for us?
Shall those whose sympathies have been
vrung in behalf of the unfortunate have
40 appreciation of that one moment
which was lifted out of all the ages of
eternity most w b,,, .