ambition, is to come ever nearer to the perfection of the Infinite Artist
and Architect. The inspiration which filled the soul of Bezalel or Hiram
may not be so elevated or elevating as that which enabled Isaiah to soar
to the throne of the Eternal in speechless rapture, or which enabled
Michael Angelo to represent in form and colour his vast conceptions of
the beautiful and sublime; but it was as real, and in some aspects as
serviceable in suggestion and realisation, as these. "God fulfils
Himself in many ways." As the Divine Spirit plays on the minds of
special men, one is turned to music, another to painting, another to
sculpture, another to architecture, another to mechanics, and another to
a smith's imaginings; but it is still the same Spirit that worketh in all
and through all, and each may be perfected instruments by which He
accomplishes His wise and gracious purposes in the uplift of men.

What a living force among men is the true poet, the man who can take
words and weave them into forms of perfect rhythm, rhyme, and measure,
and then fill them with thoughts so suggestive and burning, as that they
become for ever a force in the hearts of men, thrilling the souls of men
and women with lofty ideals, prompting them to noble deeds, nerving them
to patience in suffering and courage in battle. What may not the artist
accomplish by throwing on the canvas landscapes or seascapes, like
Turner, Scripture scenes, like Raphael, or heroic deeds, like Millais?
Do these things not speak to the heart through the eye effectually? And
what refining influences may not be silently absorbed into the nature by
the artificer, who works in metals, or in pottery, in glass, or in wood,
producing shapes of graceful contour, and decoration of delicate beauty,
so that the articles of the household or the warehouse may be an
education to the mind, and become to it patterns of things in the
heavens. The command to Moses on the Mount was, concerning all the
furniture of the Tabernacle, which Bezalel and Aholiab had to construct