When every defect has been admitted
that is chargeable against one or all of this group of sincere and
stalwart workers, it must be allowed that their power on their
countrymen has been largely wielded for good. Particularly is this
the case with Ruskin, whose influence has reached and ennobled many a
life that, from pressure of sordid circumstances, was in great need
of such help as his spirituality of tone, and deeply felt reverential
belief in the Giver of all good and Maker of all beauty, could
afford.
[Illustration: Dean Stanley.]
[Illustration: "I was sick, and ye visited me."]
We have preferred not to dwell on one department of literature which,
like every other, has received great additions during our
period--that of religious controversy. A large portion of such
literature is in its very nature ephemeral; and some of the disputes
which have engaged the energies even of our greatest masters in
dialectics have not been in themselves of supreme importance; but
many points of doctrine and discipline have been violently canvassed
among professing Christians, and attacks of long-sustained vigour and
virulence have been made on almost every leading article of the
Christian creed by the avowed enemies or the only half-hostile
critics of the Church, which the champions of Scripture truth have
not been backward to repel.
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