Practicable Socialism, New SeriesBarnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Religion
Practicable Socialism, New Series
Barnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class
If this be a correct account of the meaning of those great masterpieces
which may every day be performed in the ears of the people, it is easy
to see how they may be made to serve the purpose in view. The greatest
master is a man with much in him akin to the lowest of the human race.
The homage all pay to the great is but the assertion of this kinship,
the assertion of men’s claim to be like the great when the obstructions
of their mal-formation and mal-education shall be trained away. Men
generally will, therefore, find in that which expresses the thoughts of
the greatest the means of expressing their own thoughts. The music which
enfolds the passions that have never found utterance, that have never
been realized by the ordinary man, will somehow appeal to him and make
him recognize his true self and his true object. Music being itself the
expression of the wants of man, all who share in man’s nature will find
in it an expression for longings and visions for which no words are
adequate. It will be what prayers and meditations now so often fail to
be, a means of linking men with the source of the highest thoughts and
efforts, and of enabling them to enjoy God, a joy which so few now
understand.
More than this, the best existing expression of that which men have
found to be good has been by parables, whose meanings have not been
limited to time or place but are of universal application. Heard by
different people and at different times, parables have given to all
alike a conception of that which eye cannot see nor voice utter; each
hearer in each age has gained possibly a different conception, but in
the use of the same words all have felt themselves to be united. The
parable of the prodigal son has represented the God who has been won to
love by the sacrifice of Christ and also the God who freely forgives.
Such forms of expression it is most important to have in an age when
movement is so rapid that things become old as soon as they are new,
separating to-morrow those who have stood together to-day, and when at
the same time the longing for unity is so powerful that the thought of
it acts as a charm on men’s minds.
In some degree all art is a parable, as it makes known in a figure that
which is unknown, revealing the truth the artist has felt to others just
in so far as they by education and surroundings have been qualified to
understand it. Titian’s picture of the Assumption helped the mediæval
saint to worship better the Virgin Mother, and also helps those of our
day to realize the true glory of womanhood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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