Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into everything which is the object of his contemplation.
The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and watery depths, all these have vanished; They live no longer in the faith of reason.
Never yet did there exist a full faith in the Divine Word (by whom light as well as immortality was brought into the world) which did not expand the intellect, while it purified the heart--which did not multiply the aims and objects of the understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and passions.
And though thou notest from thy safe recess old friends burn dim, like lamps in noisome air love them for what they are; nor love them less, because to thee they are not what they were.
Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is everywhere and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole.
Enlist the interests of stern Morality and religious Enthusiasm in the cause of Political Liberty, as in the time of the old Puritans, and it will be irresistible.
For more than a thousand years the Bible, collectively taken, has gone hand in hand with civilization science, law; in short, with the moral and intellectual cultivation of the species, always supporting and often leading he way.