“Why should we follow ancient Greece? As long as the Athenian was stalwart, patriotic, full of rugged simplicity, the influence of Greece was all powerful in shaping the thought of the world and in moulding its history. But when its brave warriors, orators and poets sank into luxurious excesses, succumbing to vice, vying with each other in the mere promotion of enjoyment, its influence waned, its people degenerated, until today it is a memory only serving to teach the world, that its people as a nation were unfit to survive. And when Grecian methods permeated Rome and Judea, these nations, too, became practically blotted out. Shall we permit American valor, patriotism and healthful vigor to have engrafted upon it these ideas so fatal to Greece, Rome and Judea? Shall we permit, by such an education of public morals, a gradual loss of respect of all those pure ideals taught by Him, who preached the sermon on the mount?” He paused here, but no one stirred. “But this is not all. These Bohemian rebels, who create and produce and publish these things do worse than this. They make their own universe, enact their own laws, defy mankind, and yet society grovels at their feet and elevates all such so-called gifted creatures to a pedestal high above the church itself! They are worshiped, and Christ, who made for man the most agonizingly sublime sacrifice of which the mind can conceive, is insulted, neglected and made a common mockery! “This woman Ouida Angelo, who gave to the world ‘A Grecian Temptress,’ who is she? A luring siren whose devotion to all that is voluptuous and sensual, reveals in her work only that which characterizes her ignoble life. She should be driven forth from achievements, that alike disgrace herself, art and humanity. Instead of worshiping her with idolatrous affection, we should freeze her with a monstrous condemnation.” Again he ceased and staggered almost out of the pulpit as though filled to the quick with some strange emotion. A rustling gown with a queenly woman under it arose from a cushioned pew and majestically stepped down the aisle to the door. She was Ouida Angelo, the sculptress! Just then a startling crash was heard, and the pane of glass, upon which had been exquisitely done the face of the Madonna, fell and broke into countless pieces. The sermon on “The Nude in Art” had done its work, and Monday’s papers were full of it. CHAPTER II. FROM POVERTY TO WEALTH.