speaks with authority, and not as the common run of scribes, at all.
Fearlessly he tears the mask away from conventionalism and pretension,
sparing neither age nor nation, and scattering critics right and left

"Like chaff from the threshing-floor."

It seems to me that the sight of this single, unsupported man,
plunging boldly into a fight with a whole world full of liars and
lies, thrusting right and left, anxious only for the triumph of
truth, and everywhere devoutly recognizing God and his glory, and
Christ and his honor, as the ultimate end of true art, is one of
the most striking and beautiful the world has ever seen. Was there
not need of him? Had not art become superstitious and infidel and
missionless? Had it not faded to little more than the repetition
of old inanities, traditional mannerisms, stereotyped lies? Ruskin
came to tell his age that art was doing nothing toward making the
world better--that, instead of lifting the heart toward God, and
enlarging the field of human sympathy, it was only ministering to
the vanity of men--that nature was dishonored that men might win
the applause of vulgar crowds by falsehood and trickery. Nobly
has he done and nobly is he still doing his work; and the world is
reading him. It matters not that critics carp, and scold, and
whine--the world is reading, and will regard him. The eternal
truth of God and nature is on his side; and we are to see, as I
firmly believe, resulting from his noble labors, a beautiful
resurrection of art from the grave in which its friends have laid
it. It shall come forth, though now bound hand and foot, and be
restored to the sisterhood whose happiness it is to serve and sit
at the feet of Jesus Christ.