The strongest human emotion being love, it is not surprising that art should so commonly have been prompted and sustained by this emotion. And since the highest love that a creature can receive is that of his Maker for himself, and the highest he can give is that of himself for his. Maker, it is not surprising that religion should have inspired and controlled so many art works.

I am not forgetting the contributions of Paganism. But may it not be said that they were great in so far as they sprang from the human emotion of love, or were informed by great ethical ideals and aspirations towards the worship of an Infinite Being?

In an essay, “Paganism, Old and New,” Francis Thompson shows that the poetry and beauty of Paganism arise merely from an “idealising retrospective.” “Pagan Paganism,” he says, “was not poetical . . . the poetry of Paganism is chiefly a modern creation.” And as to beauty, he says, “When Heine, addressing the Venus of Melos called her ‘Our Lady of Beauty’ the idea no less than the expression, was centrally modern. I will go further— it was centrally Christian.”