I am inclined to think that the ugliness and unreality of sacred art had something to do with the zeal of the early iconoclasts; the superstition was as manifest as in an African Greegree or fetish; and this set the Eastern Church at work against carved images in every material. The first sagacious act of Leo the Isaurian was to assemble a great council of bishops and senators, who thought to mend the matter by decreeing that all images should be placed at such a height in the churches that they might be visible, but inaccessible to the worship of the people. Then came a second edict against pictures, and soon the churches of Constantinople were dismantled of all such representations, and had a smooth plaster surface on the inner But the ignorant and superstitious multitude felt themselves defrauded, and rose furiously against the iconoclasts. The question convulsed Christendom; not only was there strife between the East and the West, but in each province and in cach city the two parties were arrayed against each other.

walls.

While the war has ceased, the controversy has never been fully decided, but presents itself to our consideration in this day of light and progress as one of those small but important questions-nuga difficiles-in which is found the conflict of the abstract and the concrete, the issue between a simple principle and its practical consequences.

It would seem that temples dedicated to the Almighty may be fittingly adorned, for in this we have the sanction of God himself in the elder dispensation. In à Christian church, what at first sight seems more proper than that representations in wood or marble, or in the richest style of pictorial art, of Christ and the Christian apostles should be displayed? The words of the preacher draw for us delineations of our Saviour and his carthly history; the tenderness of the Virgin Mother, the shame of the persecution, the agonies of the crucifixion: why should not the artist do the same, and leave them in perpetual memory where men congregate to meditate on these solemn subjects? Abstractly there is no reason why this should not be. But let us look at it in the concrete of history. The statue was placed in a niche and became a shrine. The speaking picture became not only a symbol, but an object of superstitious regard-a worker of miracles, an impudent usurper of the power of God.

Then, to the ignorant men and women who could not understand doctrine, the saint became nearer if not greater than the Almighty, and made his bargain with heaven for his clients; and so the supreme idea of the unity of God, daily asserted in creeds, was practically as much ignored as in any system of pagan idolatry.

Thus in carlier days the beauties of art were perverted by the waywardness and ignorance of the multitude, and became an instrument of enormous evil. And the lesson remains as long as waywardness and ignorance and superstition exist among men, the danger stands before us.

I have hinted at the unreality of Christian art. By this I do not mean to refer only to that which is grotesque and unskilful, but also to those works which, however finished and lovely, do not represent to us the true ideal. It has been justly said by Ruskin, after a large review of the subject, that religious art has not been of service to man, because it has not been complete, just, and sincere. In this respect it is worse than bad preaching and bad music, for those may be more readily removed or corrected. If art is beautiful but false, it is the more injurious; we are inclined to become devout towards it rather than towards God.

I have been confined, by the limits of this paper, to a few illustrations of architecture and statuary, brought together to commend a new method in the study of history as a science. The subject of painting is even richer in this relation, and the interest excited in the great numbers of our people who frequent the magnificent galleries of Europe gives it a popularity and intelligent appreciation in this country which never existed before.

If the American traveller would awake to this historic view, and not be satisfied with mere form and color, light and shade -with "what pleases him"-but see in every great work its lesson of historic philosophy, in every period and school the interpretation of national character and progress, Art would not indeed cease to entertain, but would add useful instruction to entertainment, and exalt many a virtuoso and dreamer into a historian and philosopher.

HENRY COPPÉE.

SPE

TAXATION OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.

PECIALISTS are prone to magnify, not perhaps the absolute, but the relative value of their work; and if it lies in the direction of an attack upon any evil, to exaggerate the evil itself. But a man of the breadth of scholarship and of view of Dr. Temple, the present Bishop of Exeter, said, a few years ago, in measured phrase, that “of all the preventable evils of the world intemperance was the greatest." Whether the reader will assent to the whole sweep of this statement may resolve itself into a question of definitions. But it seems to us that there must be a general concurrence of all thoughtful minds in the declaration. of Charles Buxton, the English brewer and Member of Parliament: "That if a statesman who heartily wished to do the utmost good to his country were thoughtfully to inquire which of the topics of the day deserved the most intense force of his attention, the sure reply—the reply which would be exacted by full deliberation-would be, that he should study THE MEANS by which this worst of plagues can be stayed."

Of course it will not be understood that "the means" embraces only measures of legislation. The battle against intemperance is a battle against an inward as well as an outward foe; and, as some one has tersely put it, we are interested both to keep the man from the drink and the drink from the man." It is plain that the aggregate amount of drunkenness depends on the presence of the two factors, appetite and temptation, and that whatever diminishes either diminishes the product; and even beyond this the sight of the temptation not only involves the opportunity for the gratification of the appetite, but its excitement, its growth, and its persistence. Law, therefore,

which has to do with the temptation, has much to do with the solution of this great problem.

Even the most thorough advocates of what Huxley calls "Administrative Nihilism" in government have had to acknowledge that the traffic in intoxicating liquors is of such an exceptional nature as to require, at least in the way of police regulation, unusual interference by the State. And in all highly civilized countries, especially in Great Britain and in the United States, the history of legislation shows a constant effort to restrict and restrain the traffic in the public interest. The general modes resorted to have been License and Regulation, both being more frequently combined; the object of license being to determine who should sell, and the object of regulation being to determine how and when the sale should be made. Our forefathers seem to have had a long and persistent trust in the system of license. Their theory was that the fruits of the liquor traffic depended on the personal character of those engaged in it. It would have been wiser to have observed that, as a general thing, the personal character of those engaged in the traffic partook of the character of the traffic itself, and that the

"Nature is subdued

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand."

It is curious to see how long and persistently the double delusion was cherished, that it was possible to confine the traffic in intoxicating liquors to "respectable" retailers, and that, if so confined, the effect of the alcoholic poison would in some way be neutralized or modified by a transmutation into the liquid of the virtues of the rumseller. Thus, in Massachusetts, the old Puritans and their descendants for a long series of years required what has been called "the double imposition of hands" to set apart men as worthy to deal out this poison to their fellow-citizens. After repeated amendments, the system of laws finally established required the selectmen of the different towns to take a special oath," faithfully and impartially, without fear, favor, or hope of reward, to discharge the duties of their office respecting all licenses, and respecting all recommendations." They were then to determine what number of licenses they judged "to be necessary for the public good," and thereupon they

were to recommend to the County Court of General Sessions only such persons as they should approve “as a person of sober life and conversation, suitably qualified and provided for the exercise of such an employment, and firmly attached to the constitution and laws of this commonwealth" (or, as expressed in another statute, "he being, to the best of our knowledge and belief, a person of good moral character''); and armed with such a recommendation the applicants were to present themselves to the Court of General Sessions and undergo the ordeal of their judgment before they obtained a license. With all this machinery (and much more) a Committee of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, of which the Hon. Linus Child was chairman, reported in 1838 that "it may well be doubted whether intemperance would have increased with more rapid strides if no legislative regulation of the sale of intoxicating liquors had ever been made."

A similar despairing cry comes to us from the other side of the Atlantic after full trial of the system of license. Perhaps there is some exaggeration about it; for we are disposed to assent to the position of Recorder Hill, of England, in his volume on "The Repression of Crime," that "the traffic in alcoholic drinks obeys that great law of political economy which regulates all other commerce-viz., that any interference with the free action of manufacturer, importer, vender, or purchaser, diminishes consumption." And wherever the experiment of freetrade in intoxicants has been tried, this law has been verified inversely. But still it is true that as a remedy for the evils and dangers of the liquor traffic license has proved a sad and mis

erable failure.

Taxation, either in the form of a direct tax upon the liquors themselves, or as a special tax upon the occupation of the vender, is not entirely a new experiment. Taxation of spirits has been a constant source of immense revenue in Great Britain ; and since the civil war in the United States we all know the large contribution thus made to our own national revenue. Nor have there been wanting attempts both in England and in our own country to restrict the traffic itself by such impositions. By the memorable act of the 9th George II., chap. 23 (1736), it was enacted that spirits should not be sold in less than two

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