that he may flutter the heart. Fiction dramatizes the tragic sentiment
for the sake of literary effect. Cultured wickedness drinks wine
out of a skull, that by sharp contrast it may heighten its sensuous
delight; whilst estheticism dallies with the sad experiences of life
to the end of intellectual pleasure, as in ornamental gardening, dead
leaves are left on ferns and palms in the service of the picturesque.
But Christianity gives such large recognition to the pathetic element
of life, not that it may mock with the cynic, or trifle with the
artist; not because with the realist it has a ghoulish delight in
horror, or because with the refined sensualist it cunningly aims to
give poignancy to pleasure by the memory of pain; but because it
divines the secret of our mighty misfortune, and brings with it the
sovereign antidote. The critics declare that Rubens had an absolute
delight in representing pain, and they refer us to that artist's
picture of the "Brazen Serpent" in the National Gallery. The canvas is
full of the pain, the fever, the contortions of the wounded and dying;
the writhing, gasping crowd is everything, and the supreme instrument
of cure, the brazen serpent itself, is small and obscure, no
conspicuous feature whatever of the picture. The manner of the great
artist is so far out of keeping with the spirit of the gospel.
Revelation brings out broadly and impressively the darkness of the
world, the malady of life, the terror of death, only that it may
evermore make conspicuous the uplifted Cross, which, once seen, is
death to ever vice, a consolation in every sorrow, a victory over
every fear.



LORIMER