Page:Surrey Archaeological Collections Volume 1.djvu/90

 While, however, the altar which archæology has reared has received many worshipers, there have likewise sprung up around this new religion many sceptics. These latter, who seek in all things for the positive and the useful, will coldly ask of what importance is a moss-covered stone, a shattered column, or a headless statue. In their estimation, a bale of merchandise is preferable to a flowered capital; and all the obelisks that lie scattered on the sands of Egypt are, in their eyes, less valuable than the marble chimney-pieces which adorn their rooms.

This preference is excusable in those, indeed, who make industry their sole religion, but it will not hinder the ardent worshippers of art from preserving the purity of their faith. In the midst of those despised ruins, the imposing memorials of a bygone age, there is more than one lesson to be gathered. The philosopher submits his reason to the teaching of the past; the poet nourishes his imagination by his recollections; the artist studies the models which its earlier and purer traditions had created; the historian verifies the speculations he conceives by the records it has left; and the religionist derives from its silent and impressive teaching an ever-recurring testimony to the vanity of all earthly things, which leads him to look up alone to Him, by Whom all things "were and are created."

Let no one, then, exclaim against the inutility and folly of that which tends so greatly to elevate man's heart and soul! No; the sacred dust, the venerable ruin, the shattered urn, are not dumb to those who know how to inspire them with feeling and with speech. An eloquent voice speaks to them from those ruins, and upon walls, blackened by time, they recog-