The front of Notre Dame of Paris was similarly turned into a coach-office
when I last saw it--1872. [Footnote: See Fors Clavigera in that year.]
Within fifty yards of me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy Ghost is used
for a tobacco-store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere Caliban bestiality
and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and desperate, into every once
enchanted cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled and the miraculous-
ness of beauty was shrined in peace.
Deluge of profanity, drowning dome and tower in Stygian pool of vilest
thought,--nothing now left sacred, in the places where once--nothing
was profane.
For _that_ is indeed the teaching, if you could receive it, of the
Tower of Giotto; as of all Christian art in its day. Next to declaration of
the facts of the Gospel, its purpose, (often in actual work the eagerest,)
was to show the _power_ of the Gospel. History of Christ in due place;
yes, history of all He did, and how He died: but then, and often, as I say,
with more animated imagination, the showing of His risen presence in
granting the harvests and guiding the labour of the year. All sun and
rain, and length or decline of days received from His hand; all joy,
and grief, and strength, or cessation of labour, indulged or endured,
as in His sight and to His glory. And the familiar employments of the
seasons, the homely toils of the peasant, the lowliest skills of the
craftsman, are signed always on the stones of the Church, as the first
and truest condition of sacrifice and offering.
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