54 
that we should object to the cultivation of the fine 
arts, 
of 
those 
which disarm the natural fero- 
arts 
city of man? We may as well be told that the 
doctrine of peace and life ought to be proscribed in 
the world because it is pernicious to the practice 
of war and slaughter, as that the arts which call 
011 man to exercise his intellectual powers more 
than his physical strength, can be contrary to 
Christianity, and adverse to the benevolence of the 
Deity. 
speak 
I 
I10t: 
however, 
the Fme arts as 
of 
the means of amusement, nor the study of them 
as pastime to fill up the vacant hours of business, 
though even as such, the taste for them deserves 
to be regarded as a manifestation of Divine favour, 
in as much as they dispose the heart to kind and 
gentle 
inclinations. 
For: 
think 
them ordained 
by God for some great and holy purpose. 
not know that the professors of the fine 
D0 we 
arts are 
commonly men greatly distinguished by special 
gifts of a creative and discerning spirit P If there 
be any thing in the usual course of human affairs 
which exhibits the immediate interposition of the 
Deity, it is in the progress of the fine arts, in 
which it would appear he often raises up those 
great characters, the spirit of whose imaginations