THE STATUE AND THE STOXE. 



1*5 



our individual growth in grace, the more we have cause 

 to exclaim : " Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the 

 wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable 

 are His judgments, and His ways past finding out ! " 



The statue remained as it was, a monument of human 

 pride and weakness, casting a small shadow before it in 

 the dreary desert which it did nothing to relieve ; the 

 stone grew into a huge mountain which served the 

 most important purposes in the economy of the world, 

 sent down from its summit the cooling winds and re- 

 freshing rains and fertilizing streams which redeemed 

 the wastes of the earth, and made the wilderness and 

 the solitary place to be glad, and the desert to rejoice 

 and blossom as the rose. 



The idea of growth is inherent in the Christian reli- 

 gion. It has created for itself a literature and an art in 

 which progress is essential. The horizontalism and 

 exact regularity of Greek and Assyrian architecture ex- 

 pressed the permanence and immutability of the reli- 

 gious system associated with it; while the verticalism 

 and endless variety of the Gothic architecture embodied 

 in a physical form the ideas of advancement, elevation, 

 and progress contained in the Christian religion, which 

 has chosen that style of art for its own. The religions 

 of the heathen keep man as he is confined to the 

 earth, limited and bounded on every side by the restric- 

 tions and incapacities of his faith ; the religion of Jesus 

 raises man from the ground, lifts up his nature to 

 another world, arouses his intellect and lightens his 

 cares, bursts the fetters of his flesh, sublimes his affec- 



