that this incarnate personality should be impressive in his marble.

Christianity, on the other hand, made the moral and spiritual nature of
man all-essential. It sprang from an earlier religion, that judged it
impious to give any form to God. The body and its terrestrial activity
occupied but a subordinate position in its system. It was the life of the
soul, separable from this frame of flesh, and destined to endure when
earth and all that it contains had ended--a life that upon this planet was
continued conflict and aspiring struggle--which the arts, insofar as they
became its instrument, were called upon to illustrate. It was the worship
of a Deity, all spirit, to be sought on no one sacred hill, to be adored
in no transcendent shape, that they were bound to heighten. The most
highly prized among the Christian virtues had no necessary connection with
beauty of feature or strength of limb. Such beauty and such strength at
any rate were accidental, not essential. A Greek faun could not but be
graceful; a Greek hero was of necessity vigorous. But S. Stephen might be
steadfast to the death without physical charm; S. Anthony might put to
flight the devils of the flesh without muscular force. It is clear that
the radiant physical perfection proper to the deities of Greek sculpture
was not sufficient in this sphere.

Again, the most stirring episodes of the Christian mythology involved pain
and perturbation of the spirit; the victories of the Christian athletes
were won in conflicts carried on within their hearts and souls--"For we
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and
powers," demoniac leaders of spiritual legions. It is, therefore, no less
clear that the tranquillity and serenity of the Hellenic ideal, so
necessary to consummate sculpture, was here out of place. How could the
Last Judgment, that day of wrath, when every soul, however insignificant
on earth, will play the first part for one moment in an awful tragedy, be