in later times, to the deeper sense of its mysteries which are our
bounding horizons round about, and especially to the impulse given to
emotion by the opening of the doors of immortality by Christianity to
thought, revery, and dream, to hope and effort, the romantic element has
been more marked in modern art, has in fact characterized it, being fed
moreover by the ever increasing inwardness of human life, the greater
value and opportunity of personality in a free and high civilization,
and by the uncertainty, confusion, and complexity of such masses of
human experience as our observation now controls. The romantic temper is
inevitable in men whose lives are themselves thought of as, in form, but
fragments of the life to come, which shall find their completion an
eternal task. It is the natural ally of faith which it alone can render
with an infinite outlook; and it is the complement of that mystery which
is required to supplement it, and which is an abiding presence in the
habit of the sensitive and serious mind. Yet in classical art the
definite may still be rendered, the known, the conquered. Idealism has
its finished world therein; in romanticism it has rather its prophetic
work.

Such, then, as best I can state it in brief and rapid strokes, is the
world of art, its methods, its appeals, its significance to mankind.
Idealism, so presented, is in a sense a glorification of the
commonplace. Its realm lies in the common lot of men; its distinction is
to embrace truth for all, and truth in its universal forms of experience
and personality, the primary, elementary, equally shared fates,
passions, beliefs of the race. Shakspere, our great example, as
Coleridge wisely said, "kept in the highway of life." That is the royal
road of genius, the path of immortality, the way ever trodden by the
great who lead. I have ventured to speak at times of religious truth.
What is the secret of Christ's undying power? Is it not that he stated