Ruskin, in words of biting force, has defined a town of to-day as "the modern aggregate of bad building, and ill-living held in check by constables, which we call a town, of which the widest streets are devoted by consent to the encouragement of vice, and the narrow ones to the concealment of misery." May we not hope that the wish now so obvious among us to rebuilt so far as may be, those glorious piles which are instinct with "the beauty of holiness," is a proof that we are beginning to realize both the squalor and the sin of this condition of things? So far we have seen, it may be, but the little cloud no larger than a man's hand; may it be indeed the earnest of that refreshing rain for which the land has panted, a reviving influence which shall make English art once more the expression of a sincere and devoted faith. CHAPTER VIII. Conclusion. In our rapid review of the various uses to which the sacred figure of the cross has been put, we have been considering the most widely-spread illustration of a tendency of the human mind, namely, the universal love of emblems. This trait in man's character, a strange one, perhaps, but a very powerful one, has been forgotten or ignored by the iconoclast and the Puritan, and it is owing to this characteristic that they have never been able to obtain more than a transient victory. Scarce anything which moves the heart of man, rouses his enthusiasm, or binds him more closely to his fellows, but he has commonly represented it by a symbol. Amongst the earliest of such influences was the family or tribal bond carrying us back to days of patriarchal simplicity. In the last blessing bestowed by Jacob upon his sons, we find the earliest allusion to the _family emblem_, in the lion of Judah, the serpent of Dan, the hind of Naphtali, Joseph's "fruitful bough," and the other symbols of the twelve ancestors of the chosen race. A striking parallel to this catalogue, in the _totems_ of the North American Indians, will occur to almost everyone. But, indeed, the custom of selecting some natural object to denote the idea of the family was well-nigh universal. The inhabitants of the East Indies are as familiar with the spirit of totemism as their brethren of the west. In Africa, the Hottentot, the Bechuana, and others distinguish their tribes by the figure of some animal; in far off China the flowers serve the same purpose, and in Australia the same practice obtains under the name of _Kobong_. Not to multiply examples, we may refer only to the ancient Greek tribes as affording another instance, and suggest the parallel supplied by the crests used in mediæval and modern heraldry. The adoption of national symbols was but the inevitable extension of these practices, consequent on the nation, and not the tribe, coming to be recognized as the political unit; and thus we get the Roman Eagle, the White Horse of the Saxons, the Black Raven of the Danes, and the countless national emblems of more modern times.