living persons, and their miraculous powers seem quite natural to their office, so to speak. Some people, as you know, have upbraided Burne-Jones and myself for using so much Christian legend and symbolism in our work, all of which they say is quite outside the belief of any but most crudely superstitious minds; but the fools do not perceive that with us in our art Christian legends and symbolism are as true as with any of themselves—as true and as eternal as the world itself in which we live. When, for example, I look at Burne-Jones' "The Merciful Knight," in which the Christ figure on the crucifix stoops down to kiss the Knight, the meaning and lesson of the picture is not a whit less true or real to me than to Cardinal Newman or Bishop Lightfoot. In a sense, therefore, I am just as much a Christian as are professed Christians, and in the practical sense of believing in Christ's example and teaching I am, I hope, much more a Christian than the majority of them are. And I suspect that if we got to close terms we should find also that they are just about as much Atheists and Infidels as are Annie Besant and myself. What do you think?'
Then, after a moment, he observed, 'The truth is that none of us know what actually the universe is of which we ourselves form a part. Priests, prophets, and philosophers in all ages have puzzled themselves trying to find out God, and are no nearer the end of their quest to-day than five thousand years ago. We do not know what we ourselves are, or what the world is, nor, if it comes to that, do we know what poetry, or art, or happiness is. One thing is quite certain to me, and that is that our beliefs, whatever they be, whether concerning God, or nature, or art, or happiness, are in the end only of account in so far as they affect the right doings of our lives, so far, in fact, as they make ourselves and our fellows happy. And in actual fact I find about the same amount of goodness and badness, happiness and misery among peoples of all creeds—Jew, Christian, and Gentile. On the whole, therefore, I opine that our religion, our duty, and our happiness are one and
