When, in the history of Christianity, it became necessary to re-assert and emphasize the truth that "the just shall live by faith," Luther was raised up; and nothing is more apparent to the student than that the age which produced him demanded him--that he fitted into his age, supplied its wants, and cut a new channel, through which the richest life of the world has flowed for centuries. He found his country tied up to formalism, scholasticism, and tradition; and by strokes as remarkable for boldness as strength he set it free. He stands at the head of a great historical epoch, which was prepared to receive and crown him. In another field, we have, even in this day, a reformer whom his age has called for, and who will surely do in the world of art what Luther did in religion. No one can read Ruskin, and mark his enthusiasm, his splendid power, his earnestness, his love of truth, his reverence for nature, and above all, his love of God, without feeling that he has a great mission to fulfil in the world. I bow myself in homage before this man, and acknowledge his credentials. He speaks with authority, and not as the common run of scribes, at all. Fearlessly he tears the mask away from conventionalism and pretension, sparing neither age nor nation, and scattering critics right and left "Like chaff from the threshing-floor." It seems to me that the sight of this single, unsupported man, plunging boldly into a fight with a whole world full of liars and lies, thrusting right and left, anxious only for the triumph of truth, and everywhere devoutly recognizing God and his glory, and Christ and his honor, as the ultimate end of true art, is one of the most striking and beautiful the world has ever seen. Was there not need of him? Had not art become superstitious and infidel and missionless? Had it not faded to little more than the repetition of old inanities, traditional mannerisms, stereotyped lies? Ruskin came to tell his age that art was doing nothing toward making the world better--that, instead of lifting the heart toward God, and enlarging the field of human sympathy, it was only ministering to the vanity of men--that nature was dishonored that men might win the applause of vulgar crowds by falsehood and trickery. Nobly has he done and nobly is he still doing his work; and the world is reading him. It matters not that critics carp, and scold, and whine--the world is reading, and will regard him. The eternal truth of God and nature is on his side; and we are to see, as I firmly believe, resulting from his noble labors, a beautiful resurrection of art from the grave in which its friends have laid it. It shall come forth, though now bound hand and foot, and be restored to the sisterhood whose happiness it is to serve and sit at the feet of Jesus Christ.