"All are stairs Of the illimitable House of God. ... And men as men Can reach no higher than the Son of God. The perfect Head and Pattern of Mankind. The time is short, and this sufficeth us To live and die by; and in Him again We see the same first starry attribute, 'Perfect through suffering,' our salvation's seal, Set in the front of His humanity. For God has other words for other worlds, But for this world the word of God is Christ." We must now take up again the thread of the Crown Princess's life, when, unshadowed by any sense of impending doom, she was absorbed in her husband and children and in her intellectual and artistic pursuits. Early in the year 1865 the Crown Princess had the joy of welcoming her sister, Princess Alice, on a visit to Berlin. Princess Alice wrote to the Queen: "Vicky is so dear, so loving! I feel it does me good. There is the reflection of Papa's great mind in her. He loved her so much and was so proud of her;" and she adds a vivid little picture of the baby: "Sigismund is the greatest darling I have ever seen--so wonderfully strong and advanced for his age--with such fine colour, always laughing, and so lively he nearly jumps out of our arms." It was a great pleasure to the Crown Princess when her husband was appointed to the curious office of Protector of Public Museums. Thenceforward they both took a very active part in the management of these institutions, and it was owing to their efforts that the Old Museum has but few rivals in Europe in completeness and arrangement. Prussia was then very backward in the practical application of art to industry, but the Crown Princess, who had seen how much her father had achieved in this direction in England, was determined to do all she could to secure a similar improvement in her adopted country. Early in 1865 she caused a memorandum to be drawn up setting forth the necessity of founding a School of Applied Art on the model of similar institutions in England. The movement thus started by the Crown Princess led eventually to the foundation of the Museum of Industrial Art at Berlin, which is connected with the School of Applied Art. It was largely due to the active support and interest of the Crown Prince and Princess that applied art not only found a home in Prussia, but in the course of time reached so high a pitch of excellence that other countries are now fain to learn from Germany. The Crown Prince and Princess, also, both suggested and themselves supervised the collection and arrangement of an exhibition of artistic objects in the Royal Armoury at Berlin. This, by showing Prussian craftsmen what had already been done, greatly promoted the development of applied art.