The divine origin of art is easily proved by its history every where, and indeed is so manifest that it can not well be doubted. High art, indeed, can not and never will surrender its claim to a divine power and sanctity: it must insist upon the recognition of this its high sanction. If we could conceive an age or country where religion should entirely cease and be forgotten--where not only all positive faith and revelation, but even the universal belief in a Divinity above them, should die away and perish among men--the light of all higher and heaven-directed thoughts and aims should become extinct--that echo of eternity and of eternal love which the inmost feelings of the human soul spontaneously gives back, should be hushed forever--then and there at the self-same moment would all high art be withdrawn and disappear. In our own age the state of things is the direct contrary to that which we have been supposing. While from the universal prevalence of freethinking in politics--a natural consequence of the reign of religious skepticism--the whole of life, and especially public life, has ceased to be regarded and understood in its symbolical character and dignity; while the little of religious sentiment that still survives is more or less distracted and secularized by sectarian controversy, and scarcely one inviolable sanctuary is left for a simple and undoubting faith to shelter in--art and the beautiful are for a certain portion of the educated classes the only fresh oasis of divinity amid the surrounding desert of worldliness. It is the last treasure left to them, and, indeed, prized by them as such, and regarded as the true palladium of a higher intrinsic life; but this, in its isolated state and by itself, it never can be. In this respect the present age may be likened to a noble house, fallen from its primitive wealth and magnificence into decay and ruin. Its revenues dissipated by misfortunes, mismanagement and extravagance; its mansion and domains mortgaged or encumbered with debt, nothing remains to it but the family jewels. These time-honored heirlooms of better days are all that it still retains of its former opulence. And even in these many a false stone has been introduced among the old genuine diamonds; much spurious metal has been substituted for the sterling gold of antiquity. Apparently, however, the whole are still preserved as the last relic of a former splendor, and of a wealth which once seemed inexhaustible. In the same way the present generation supports its inner and higher life on the mere external treasures of art, while the great capital of ancient faith, to which among other excellent fruits that ornament of beauty owed its existence, has by the great majority been long squandered on the “_spirit of the age_.”