It is a grave matter that the word religion holds such away among
us, making the very gap seem to yawn again which the Incarnation
once and for ever filled full. We have banished the protecting
gods that ruled in river and mountain, tree and grove; we have
gainsayed for the most part folk-lore and myth, superstition and
fairy-tale, evil only in their abuse. We have done away with
mystery, or named it deceit. All this we have done in an
enlightened age, but despite this policy of destruction we have
left ourselves a belief, the grandest and most simple the world has
ever known, which sanctifies the water that is shed by every
passing cloud; and gathers up in its great central act vineyard and
cornfield, proclaiming them to be that Life of the world without
which a man is dead while he liveth. Further, it is a belief whose
foundations are the most heavenly mystery of the Trinity, but whose
centre is a little Child: it sets a price upon the head of the
sparrow, and reckons the riches of this world at their true value;
it points to a way of holiness where the fool shall not err, and
the sage may find the realisation of his far-seeking; and yet,
despite its inclusiveness, it is a belief which cannot save the
birds from destruction, the silent mountains from advertisement, or
the stream from pollution, in an avowedly Christian land. John
Ruskin scolded and fought and did yeoman service, somewhat hindered
by his over-good conceit of himself; but it is not the worship of
beauty we need so much as the beauty of holiness. Little by little
the barrier grows and 'religion' becomes a RULE of life, not life
itself, although the Bride stands ready to interpret, likened in
her loveliness to the chief treasures of her handmaid-Earth. There
is more truth in the believing cry, "Come from thy white cliffs, O
Pan!" than in the religion that measures a man's life by the letter
of the Ten Commandments, and erects itself as judge and ruler over