Representative of modern literature, Carlyle comes first with his _Sartor Resartus_. At the ominous and uncertain beginning of our modern thought he stood, blowing loud upon his iron trumpet a great blast of harsh but grand idealism, before which the walls of the pagan Jericho fell down in many places. Yet such an inspiring challenge as his was bound to produce _reactions_, and we have them in many forms. Matthew Arnold presses upon his time, in clear and unimpassioned voice, the claim of neglected Hellenism. Rossetti, with heavy, half-closed eyes, hardly distinguishes the body from the soul. Mr. Thomas Hardy, the Titan of the modern world, whose heart is sore with disillusion and the bitterness of the earth, and yet blind to the light of heaven that still shines upon it, has lived into the generation which is reading Mr. Wells and Mr. Shaw. These appear to be outside of all such distinctions as pagan and idealist; but their influence is strongly on the pagan side. Mr. Chesterton appears, with his quest of human nature, and he finds it not on earth but in heaven. He is the David of Christian faith, come to fight against the heretic Goliaths of his day; and, so far as his style and literary manner go, he continues the ancient role, smiting Goliath with his own sword. Francis Thompson's _Hound of Heaven_ is for many reasons a fitting close and climax to these studies. He is as much akin to Shelley and Swinburne as Mr. Chesterton is akin to Mr. Bernard Shaw. From them he has gathered not a little of his style and diction. He is with them, too, in his passionate love of beauty, without which no idealist can possibly be a fair judge of paganism. "With many," he tells us in that _Essay on Shelley_ which Mr. Wyndham pronounces the most important contribution to English letters during the last twenty years--"with many the religion of beauty must always be a passion and a power, and it is only evil when divorced from the worship of the Primal Beauty." In this confession we are brought back to the point where we began. The gods of Greece were ideals of earthly beauty, and by them, while their worship remained spiritual, men were exalted far above paganism. And now, as we are drawing to a close, it is fitting that we should again remind ourselves that religious idealism must recover "the Christ beautiful," if it is to retain its hold upon humanity. In this respect, religion has greatly and disastrously failed, and he who can redeem that failure for us will indeed be a benefactor to his race. Religion should lead us not merely to inquire in God's holy place, but to behold the beauty of the Lord; and to behold it in all places of the earth until they become holy places for us. Christ, the Man of Sorrows, has taught the world that wild joy of which Mr. Chesterton speaks such exciting things. It remains for Thompson to remind us that he whose visage was more marred than any man yet holds that secret of surpassing beauty after which the poets'