Part 3 (1/2)

desired So the old wife helped hiht-cap on his head had suddenly becoave him a little Reinfell wine He took a very little of it, and then desired to get into bed again and thanked her And when he had got into bed he fell at once into his last agony The old wife quickly kindled the candle for him and repeated to hione God be e, ran quickly to one I saw the dead with great sorrow, because I had not been worthy to be with hiht before S Matthew's eve my father passed away, in the year above mentioned (Sept 20, 1502) --the merciful God help me also to a happy end--and he left my mother an afflictedbehind hi what a good wife she herefore I intend never to forsake her I pray you for God's sake, all ye my friends, when you read of the death of my father, to remember his soul with an ”Our Father” and an ”Ave Maria”; and also for your own sake, that weof a good end For it is not possible for one who has lived well to depart ill froh which rant us, after this pitiful life, the joy of everlasting salvation--in the nainning and at the end, one Eternal Governor Amen

The last sentences of this may seem to share in the character of the vain repetitions of words hich professed believers are only too apt to weary and disgust others They are in any case coe has taken the place of the object; the Father in heaven is not considered so overnor of the inner life as the ruler of a future life and of this world The use of such phrases is as much idolatry as the worshi+p of statue and picture, or as little, if the words are repeated, as I think in this case they were, out of a feeling of awe and reverence for preceding mental impressions and experiences, and not because their repetition in itself was counted for righteousness Their use, if this was so, is no more to be found fault with than the contees in order to help theof a poe eht in children and other sie in e of their passion just as children cut their teeth It is a pity to see individuals or nations remain childish in this respect just as much as in any other, or to see them return to it in their decrepitude But a temper, a spirit, an influence cannot easily be apprehended apart froes; and perhaps the clearest reason is only the exercise of an infinitely elastic idolatry, which with sprightly efficiency finds and worshi+ps good in everything, just as the devout, in Durer's youth, found ser saint, bishop, or Virgin And Durer all his life long continued to produce pictures and engravings which were intended to preach such sermons

Goethe admirably remarks:

”_Superstition_ is the poetry of life; the poet therefore suffers no harlaube)

Superstition and idolatry are an expenditure of eree which the true facts would not warrant; poetry when least superstitious is a like exercise of the emotions in order to raise and enhance them; superstition when

This gliives of the way in which death visited his holoith that temper of docility which made Colet school hielo's so fervent outpourings And all through the accounts which remain of his life, wehi his resolution to learn both fros and from his senses

XI

As I took a sentence froelo, I will now take a sentence froelical strain so characteristic of him, born of his intuitive sense for huue 306, he concludes: ”It is right, therefore, for one man to teach another He that doeth so joyfully, upon him shall much be bestowed by God”[14] These last words, like the last phrases of my former quotation from him, may stand perhaps in the way of solib or irreverent But are we less convinced that only tasks done joyfully, as labours of love, deserve the reward of fuller and finer powers, and obtain it? When Durer thought of God, he did not only think of a ht of a oodness” Words so easily come to obscure what they were oodness rules and sways such a man's mind, we shall not wonder that he did not stumble at the omnipotency which revolts us, cowed as we are by the presence of evil The old gentle;--this was not the part of his ideas about God which occupied Durer's mind He accepted it, but did not think about it: it filled ould otherwise have been a blank in his mind and in the minds of those about hiht to do and study in order to fulfil the best in hiht to be done by his town, his nation, and the civilisation that then was, in order to turn man's nature and the world to an account answerable to the beauty of their fairer aspects God was the will that commanded that ”consummation devoutly to be wished” Obedience to His law revealed in the Bible was the means by which this co from the Church as it then existed to the newly translated Bible texts, the commands of God as declared in those texts seemed of necessity reason itself compared with the commands of the Popes; were, in fact, infinitely ood man's mind and will Luther's revolt is for us now characterised by those elements in it which proved inadequate--were irrational; but then these were insignificant in coht honesty shed on the e closed society of bigots and worldlings which arrogated to itself all powers hu to the lusts and inteia, a Julius II, and a Leo X, was that farce perception of which hter, and which roused such consuloolish, and Americans were shut up for two hundred years, as Matthew Arnold puts it But Durer was not so immured: even Luther at heart neither was himself, nor desired that others should be, prevented fro the free use of their intellectual powers It was because he was less perspicacious than Erasmus that he did not see that this hat he was inevitably doing in his wrath and in his haste

XII

Erasmus was, perhaps, the man in Europe who at that time displayed most docility; the man whom neither sickness, the desire for wealth and honour, the hope to conquer, the lust to engage in disputes, nor the adverse chances that held him half his life in debt and necessitous straits, and kept hirant, constantly upon the road--the s could weaken a marvellous assiduity to learn and help others to learn He it ho hadthe artists then alive; for Durer is very e the to see how he once turned to Erasmus in a devouthis journey to the Netherlands His voice coed with the electric influence of the greatest Reformer, Martin Luther, who had just disappeared, no h all men suspected foul play In his daily life, by sweetness of ion, the admiration and love that bound his life, in a way that at all tination of the following passage may in tiht and uncouth We must reion to the teaching and inspiration of Jesus, and had beco, clear and orderly thought, honesty, freedo turned to a s directly, and indirectly art itself, seemed to him threatened by the corruption of the Papal power We must remember this; for we shall naturally feel, as Erasmus did, that the path of martyrdom was really a short cut, which a wider view of the surrounding country would have shown hiest way in the end Indeed the world is not altogether yet arrived where he thought Eras it in less than two years And Luther himself returned to the scene and was active, without any such result, a dozen years and more

Oh all ye pious Christian men, help me deeply to bewail this ain to send us an enlightened man Oh Erasmus of Rotterdam, where wilt thou stop? Behold how the wicked tyranny of worldly power, the ht of Christ! Ride on by the side of the Lord Jesus Guard the truth Attain the martyr's crown Already indeed art thou a little old ivest thyself but two years more wherein thou mayest still be fit to accoood of the Gospel, and of the true Christian faith, and make thyself heard So, as Christ says, shall the Gates of hell in no wise prevail against thee And if here below thou wert to be like thy master Christ, and sufferest infamy at the hands of the liars of this time, and didst die a little sooner, then wouldst thou the sooner pass frolorified in Christ For if thou drinkest of the cup which He drank of, _with Hie with justice those who_ HAVE _dealt unrighteously_ Oh! Erasmus!

cleave to this, that God Himself may be thy praise, even as it is written of David For thou mayest, yea, verily thou mayest overthrow Goliath Because God stands by the Holy Christian Church, even as He alone upholds the Ro to His Godly will May He help us to everlasting salvation, who is God the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, one eternal God! Ae with justice those that have dealt unrighteously” This will seee; and so perhaps it was Still it may have been, as it seems to ive their sin--and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book”; or the ”Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” of Jesus If the necessity for victory was uppere may scarcely have been present to Durer's nised than in Luther's day that however sweet vengeance may be, it is not admirable, either in God or man

The total impression produced by Durer's life and work must help each to decide for himself which sense he considers most likely The truth, as in most questions of history, remains for ever in the balance, and cannot be ascertained

XIII

I have called docility the necessary ion is a discipline that constrains us to learn The religion of Jesus constrains us to learn the s, binds us to the most arduous tasks that the mind of man sets itself, as a lover is bound by his affection to accomplish difficult feats for his elo and Durer set theerness and zest shall not be exhausted; and to keep them fresh and abundant, in spite of cross circumstances, a discipline of the mind and will is required This is what they found in the worshi+p of Jesus The influence of this religious hopefulness and self-discipline on the creative power prevents its being exhausted, perverted, or embittered; and in order that it may effect this perfectly, that influence must be abundant not only within the artist, as it was in Michael Angelo and Durer, but in the world about theious influence to creative art: and though we to-day necessarily regard the personages, localities, and events of the creed as cos that are not,” we s of that categorythe superstitious reverence for the creed and its unprovable states often been with the things that were not, but which were thus ardently desired and expected? To inquire which of those things are best calculated to advance and nourish creative power, and in what e the artist's attention far more than it has of late years For what he loves, what he hopes, and what he expects would seem, if we study past examples, to exercise as important an influence on a e of, and respect for, the materials and instruments which he controls do upon his executive capacity

The universe in whichit contains is so: then it must for ever remain our only wisdoe to be evil into likeness or conforlects the forces of hope and adoration in that effort, neglects the better half of his practical strength? The central proposition of Christianity, that this end can only be attained by contemplation and imitation of an example, is, we shall in another place (pp [305-312]) find, ard to art by Durer, and by Reynolds, our greatest writer on aesthetics These great artists, so dissiree in considering that the only way of advancement open to the aspirant is the atte them not slavishly or mechanically, but in the same spirit in which they imitated their forerunners: even as the Christian is bound to seek union with Christ in the same spirit or way in which Jesus had achieved union with his Father--that is, by laying down life to take it again, in meekness and lowliness of heart Docility is the sovran help to perfection for Durer and Reynolds, and reat artists who have treated of these questions

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: Of course all that elist of Art” is that Durer illustrated the narrative of the Passion; but by this he is not distinguished froestive of far more]

[Footnote 12: Froude's ”Life of Erasmus,” Lecture vi]