Bible became the library of Europe" (§ 36)—the library of Europe, presented everywhere to the Church as of common authority (§ 39), and everywhere inscribed on the stones of its buildings. "The Life, and Gospel, and Power of it, are all written in the mighty works of its true believers in Normandy and Sicily, on river islets of France and in the river glens of England, on the rocks of Orvieto, and by the sands of Arno. But of all, the simplest, completest, and most authoritative in its lessons to the active mind of North Europe, is this on the foundation stones of Amiens" (Ch. iv. § 57).

6

This passage brings us to the point in which Ruskin's description of the Cathedral of Amiens (Ch. iv.) is, as I said, less complete than those which may be found elsewhere. He does, indeed, glance at many of its features, and always in a most suggestive way. His insistence upon the purity of its Gothic (§ 2) served as the startingpoint for Mr. Pater's essay on the cathedral.1 Ruskin's remarks upon the economy of means by which the effect of size was attained by the builders (§ 9) is a happy illustration of a passage in the Seven Lamps. Let your building, he there says, "be well gathered together"; for "those buildings seem on the whole the vastest which have been gathered up into a mighty square, and which look as if they had been measured by the angel's rod, the length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal." The words must have occurred to many a traveller as on leaving Amiens he has seen the cathedral gather itself into an increasing mass as it recedes from view. Ruskin's description, again, of the wood-carvings of the choir (§ 5) catches in a few lines the very spirit of the wonderful work. То the choir-screen, partly described in Chapter i., he did not revert; a modern writer, it will be remembered, has made it the subject of an interesting chapter. Upon one part of the cathedral, the south door, Ruskin did not here enter, because he had described it already in an earlier book; others he left alone, perhaps because their destruction by restoration was too painful a subject. But his reason for concentrating attention on the quatrefoils of the western façade was that in them is "the series of sculpture in illustration of Apostolic and Prophetic teaching which constitutes what I mean by the Bible' of Amiens" (p. 161). It is to them, therefore, that Chapter iv. ("Interpretations") is mainly devoted.

3

1 See his Miscellaneous Studies, p. 105: "The greatest and purest of Gothic churches, Notre-Dame d'Amiens," etc.

Ch. iii. § 8 (Vol. VIII. p. 108).

3 La Cathédrale, by M. Huysmans, ch. xiii. Two Paths, Vol. XVI. pp. 281, 355-357. 5 See below, p. 141.

3

In The Bible of Amiens we may find, I think, the final phase, and the central truth, of Ruskin's religious views. The evangelical phase was long passed, and more and more indeed he had come to revolt against narrowness and self-sufficiency in creed. But he had passed also through the phase of rationalism and doubt. For some years, as we have already seen,1 he had asked his readers to note a more distinctively Christian tone in his teaching. It was, in one sense, a more "Catholic tone." In his Letters to the Clergy (1879)2 he had deplored the changes of the liturgy in the English Book of Common Prayer; he paid more and more attention to the saints and martyrs of mediæval Christendom. It was his friendship with Cardinal Manning, perhaps, that suggested the rumour of his impending reception into the Church of Rome. One letter (1887) in which he denied this very emphatically has been given already; another (1888) will be found in a later volume. A passage from this later letter, in which he explains 16 the breadth of his communion," should be connected with some words. in The Bible of Amiens. "I gladly take," he wrote to his correspondent, "the bread, water, wine, or meat of the Lord's Supper with members of my own family or nation who obey Him, and should be equally sure it was His giving, if I were myself worthy to receive it, whether the intermediate mortal hand were the Pope's, the Queen's, or a hedge-side gipsy's." The words throw light on what he says in this book: 5 "All differences of Church put aside, the words 'except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood ye have no life in you' remain in their mystery, to be understood only by those who have learned the sacredness of food, in all times and places, and the laws of life and spirit, dependent on its acceptance, refusal, and distribution." On its acceptance, in the spirit of Longfellow's

lines:

"A holy family, that makes

Each meal a Supper of the Lord;"

on its refusal, in a double sense-Ruskin's meaning being, on the one side, that he who refuses "the good gifts of God" shuts himself off from an intended use, and, on the other side, that all immoderate indulgence must be refused both as harmful to the individual and

1 Vol. XXIII. P. xlvi.

2 Vol. XXXIV.

* Vol. XXIX. p. 92.

In Arrows of the Chace, Vol. XXXIV. (No. 142 of the letters in Ruskiniana). * See p. 154.

The Golden Legend.

as wrongful to others; and thus, lastly, on its distribution, in the spirit of Lowell's lines: 1

"The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,

In whatso we share with another's need."

Here are two aspects of Ruskin's religion, and their point of contact with his social and economic teaching. "All true Christianity," he says in his ninth Letter on the Lord's Prayer, "is known, as its Master was, in breaking of bread, and all false Christianity in stealing it. Let the clergyman only apply-with impartial and level sweep-to his congregation the great pastoral order: The man that will not work, neither should he eat': and be resolute in requiring each member of his flock to tell him what-day by day-they do to earn their dinners;—and he will find an entirely new view of life and its sacraments open upon him and them." He believed intensely that "every good gift and perfect gift is from above," and he had little sympathy with the ascetic ideal, which would renounce them. But he believed no less intensely, with his "dear friend and teacher," Lowell, that faith without works was dead. If his communion was thus broad, so also was his creed. He believed in the universality of inspiration; he attributed it to "the whole body of believers, in so far as they are partakers of the Grace of Christ, the Love of God, and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost" (p. 115). He believed also in what theologians call, I think, "continuous" or "developing" inspiration; his desire was that his writings should "be found by an attentive reader to bind themselves together into a general system of interpretation of sacred literature,-both classic and Christian, which will enable him without injustice to sympathise in the faiths of candid and generous souls, of every age and every clime" (p. 119). He states no precise dogmas, but in the beautiful passage which closes The Bible of Amiens he defines what was to him the substance of religion, and throughout its pages, and those of his other later works, he insists on the revelation of the Divine Spirit as the fact which gives the clue to history, meaning to life, and hope for the future.

The illustrations to The Bible of Amiens are in this edition very numerous. They fall into three categories. First, the Plates which Ruskin included in the book. The frontispiece to the volume is that

3 James i. 17. See Vol. XIX. p. 32, Vol. XXII. p. 435.
Vol. VII. p. 451.

which he used as frontispiece to the book. It is perhaps not without significance, in connexion with foregoing remarks, that he chose as frontispiece to the first volume in a series of sketches of Christian History a picture-Cimabue's-of the Madonna. "After the most careful examination," he writes elsewhere,1 "neither as adversary nor as friend, of the influences of Catholicism for good and evil, I am persuaded that the worship of the Madonna has been one of its noblest and most vital graces. . . . There has probably not been an innocent cottage home throughout the length and breadth of Europe during the period of vital Christianity, in which the imagined presence of the Madonna has not given sanctity to the humblest duties, and comfort to the sorest trials of the lives of women." The engraving from Ruskin's study of Cimabue's Madonna was given, further, in illustration of his discussion of successive types (see p. 165). Another engraving (Plate II.) was from a drawing of Amiens Cathedral seen from the river, which Ruskin made in 1880. His drawing of the northernmost of the three Western Porches (Plate XI.) is of special interest, as having been made in 1856, before the restoration of the façade. A comparison of it with the photogravure of the restored façade (Plate X.) will show how ruthless was the process of reducing the front to complete regularity. In previous editions of the book, Ruskin's drawing has been represented by Mr. Allen's engraving of it. The steel-plate was found, however, to be too much worn to give a satisfactory result; and a photogravure direct from the drawing (at Oxford 2) has been substituted. The other Plates included in the earlier editions were the Historical Maps of "The Dynasties of France" (VI.) and the Plan of the Western Porches (XII.).

Secondly, this edition includes 23 Plates, containing the photographs which Ruskin had taken, and which he placed on sale, to illustrate the book. There were in all twenty-six of these, as shown in his Appendix II. (below, p. 178). The first (not there included in the numbered series) was of four scenes from the Life of St. Firmin (Plate IV.). Then came the twenty-one numbered photographs of details of the sculpture on the West Front. Of these, Nos. 1-3 are now given together (Plate XIII.). Nos. 4-21 were of the quatrefoils; these are reproduced on Plates XIV. to XXXI. No. 22 was a general view of the Western Porches (Plate X.). No. 23 was of "The Porch of St. Honoré": this has been given in The Two Paths, where the porch is

1 Fors Clavigera, Letter 41 (1874): Vol. XXVIII. p. 82.

Educational Series, No. 51. Ruskin's note upon the old front, now "replaced by a modern design," should be consulted: Vol. XXI. p. 121.

described.1 No. 24-a view of "The South Transept and Flèche "—is on Plate VIII.; and No. 25-"General View of the Cathedral from the other bank of the Somme "-is on Plate III. In order that the reader may readily be able to find any particular quatrefoil, references to the Plates in the present volume have been added to Ruskin's Index Lists (pp. 179–185).

Thirdly, three other illustrations have been added. One is a steelengraving (Plate V.) which Ruskin had executed from drawings made for him in 1880 by Mr. Frank Randal, and which he entitled "The Two Dogs"; the dogs occur in the series of sculptures of the Life of St. Firmin (see below, p. 30 n.). Another additional Plate (VII.) is from a photograph of part of the choir stalls; while the third (IX.) is a steel-engraving which was made for Ruskin of the Madonna over the South Door.

The text of the book is unchanged in this edition, except that a few revisions, noted by Ruskin in his own copies of the book,2 have been made, and that some misprints—occasionally rather disconcerting to the sense 3-have been corrected. Particulars on this matter are given in the Bibliographical Note.

The manuscript of the greater part of The Bible of Amiens is preserved at Brantwood. This MS. includes of The Bible of Amiens, the Preface; Ch. i. §§ 1-33; of Chapter ii., a first draft of §§ 8-36, and a fair copy of §§ 8-28: this shows many variations from the printed text, portions of the fair copy having ultimately been transferred to § 10 of Ch. iii. and to §§ 20, 22, 23 of Candida Casa; of Ch. iv. §§ 1-33, notes for §§ 34-47, and then §§ 48 to the end. Of Ch. iii. (originally entitled by Ruskin "Monte Cassino ") there are only some rough notes. A few additional passages from the MS. are now given as footnotes (see pp. 96, 108, 146); and a page of it is reproduced in facsimile (p. 122).

"VALLE CRUCIS"

The Bible of Amiens was, as we have seen, the first Part in a projected series of Studies in Christian History and Architecture. Ruskin's scheme for the series, printed in this volume (p. 186), is very attractive, and of his many Unwritten Books this is perhaps the most to be

1 Plate XVI. in Vol. XVI. (p. 356).

A copy of chapter ii. slightly revised by the author is in the Ruskin Museum 3 See pp. 35, 65 nn.

at Coniston.