Page:Val d'Arno (Ruskin, 1890).djvu/245

Rh description of the birth of Iamus, the yellow water-flag, which you know so well in spring, by the banks of your Oxford streams. But, in general, it means simply the springing of beautiful and orderly vegetation in fields upon which the dew falls pure. It is the expression, therefore, of peace on the redeemed and cultivated earth, and of the pleasure of Heaven in the uncareful happiness of men clothed without labour, and fed without fear.

253. In the passage, so often read by us, which announces the advent of Christianity as the dawn of peace on earth, we habitually neglect great part of the promise, owing to the false translation of the second clause of the sentence.

I cannot understand how it should be still needful