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beneath the pines that suffered in another fashion from the hands of man, bled by his knife until they wept drops of resin. He sometimes went by himself to examine the old donjon towers, built very near together in the days of the Black Prince, the Tower d'Avance, for example, or the Mill of Barbaste, but he carefully avoided all of the few chateaux that are still occupied. Occasionally, with his gun under his arm, he would visit a certain melancholy lake at the top of a hill surrounded by heath and moor, where he amused himself by firing at the waterfowl.

This was all that was known of him by Constance. The idea that the Park was owned by some one who shunned all society sometimes worried her a little, in spite of herself. Why should he insist on solitude? What sorrow could he have, what mystery? This would have been enough to set to work the imagination of a girl of eighteen, even had it not been stimulated by the comments and conjectures of a cousin like Henriette.

"M. de Glynne has never come to see us again," she said, "and so far he has not even asked papa to come to see him. It is most extraordinary."

The invisible man from Paris had become the chief object of public attention, in a very little social circle, when on an evening in the middle of June, Escaloup, a servant at the Park, came running breathlessly to the doctor, imploring him to come at once, without a minute's delay, to see a lady who was dying.

"A lady!" cried Constance, who was sitting in the open air beside her father, in the vine-clad porch of the Priory.

"Yes, a lady who arrived this very day."

"And she is ill? You had better go and call Dr. Lafourcade. You know very well, and M. de Glynne knows, too, that I am not a doctor for rich people."

"M. de Glynne did not send me himself. My wife told me to run and fetch a doctor," said Escaloup with some confusion. "So as this was the nearest, I came here."

"The case is then so serious? What is the matter with the lady?" asked the doctor.

At this question the messenger seemed to make up his mind, not without some pain, to say what he had probably been advised not to spread abroad, that the "poor thing" had something very bad indeed-in facta wound from a knife right in her breast.

Constance gave a cry of horror.

"I'll go at once," said the doctor. "Béréto!" (that was the usual name for his factotum, who was seldom seen without his blue béret, which some people said was nailed to his head,) "Come, Béréto, harness up quickly! And if I have to be away till late, my little one, don't sit up for me. A stab in the breast," he repeated, "and it was not he who sent for the doctor. Que diable! Is it a murder or a suicide? A bad business in any case. The lady is young?" he asked on the way of Escaloup, whom he had taken into the gig.

She was a young lady, a beautiful young lady, with hair that looked as if it had been dipped in gold, such hair as one only saw in Paris, without doubt.

"Diable!" repeated the doctor, hurrying the pace of the old mare.

(To be continued.)

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F

THE LIKENESS OF CHRIST REX REGUM.

Augustine, or anybody else during this period, objected to the likeness, and proposed its destruction from the churches, when we know that it was not destroyed, but, on the contrary, was cherished, and copied from church to church throughout the world until every Christian knew the face of the Redeemer? What were the fathers doing all this time with regard to the likeness? When Constantine crowned the triumphal arch of S. Paolo with it, had he no clerical advisers to restrain him? If it had been contrary to the honest convictions of the ecclesiastical authorities of his time, would it have found acceptance, or have been allowed to stand? Arius, for instance, was not afraid to oppose the emperor. Athanasius was the emperor's right hand when he sent Arius into banishment, and the first General Council settled the Nicene Creed. We read the Nicene Creed to-day, but there is nothing in it condemning the likeness or the use of it. How could there be, when the makers of the creed were also the makers of the mosaics which are the beautiful records of Rome Christian before it became Rome Papal?

The Dean of Canterbury's argument, therefore, so far as it is based upon the opinions of the fathers, falls to the ground; or, if it serves any purpose at all, it tells precisely in the opposite direction to that which he supposes. For myself, I take the objections of the fathers simply as proving that the thing to which they objected did really exist. For observe, the whole purpose of their argument is against the abuse of a thing already in familiar use. We hear their voices in the far-off pastpleading, cautioning, censuring. One is entreating a woman to turn her

thoughts from the representation which art can give, limited as it must be to the human form of the Master, to the higher presentment of Him, including His divine nature, which she will find in the written Word. That is Eusebius; but he never for a moment challenges the fact that the likeness is the likeness, so far as it goes, of the Man Christ Jesus. If he could have done so if he could have told Constantia that the so-called portrait she asked for was fictitious-that it was invented, for instance, by one Hermogenes, a painter whom Tertullian had denounced-if he could have said anything like this, and proved it, the matter would have ended there; no basilica would have been erected to enshrine a likeness believed to have been the invention of Hermogenes.

Then we hear another voice. It is that of St. Augustine. The possession of the likeness of Christ has led to the desire for the likeness of the Blessed Virgin also. Augustine sees the peril -for no likeness of the Virgin has been preserved. His soul recoils from the dishonesty of inventing one, for he says: "We know not the countenance of the Virgin Mary; even the countenance of our Lord Himself in the flesh is variously fancied by the diversity of countless imaginations, and yet it was one; but the countenance of Mary is altogether beyond our knowledge or our faith." Thus Augustine bases his objection to a representation of the Virgin Mary on the fact that it could only be imaginary, contrasting it in that respect with the likeness of Christ -an objection impossible to one who believed the likeness of Christ to be imaginary also.

This brings me to very close quarters with the dean. He says that I confuse the issue when I speak of pictures of Christ as a sham, or a deception, or a misleading delusion, unless they are directly derived from trust

worthy descriptions or paintings. Is it necessary to remind the dean that the question whether an imaginary picture is a sham or not depends upon the use that is made of it? No one pretends that the modern painter, who places before the public his new ideal of how the face of Christ should be painted, is guilty of deception. I am not afraid that the readers of "Rex Regum" will be so stupid as to suppose that any of the later pictures I place before them, from Giotto and Fra Angelico to Léon Bonnat and Fritz von Uhde, were ac

tually painted from life. deception in modern art.

There is no

But the case

is very different when a church, establishing a new worship-the worship of its Founder, in which the belief in His humanity is an essential element— sets forth before all men of all sorts and conditions a visible and attractive presentment of that Founder, and steadily adheres to it for more than a thousand years. It is to this constant setting forth and repetition of a fixed type that I apply the word "misleading," if the type is all the while false. When the basilicas were consecrated, who explained to the people that the great mosaic above the altar was only an imaginary invention? If that had been suspected, the people would have torn it from its place. When the likewas transmitted from land to land, so that the same Christ might be known everywhere, who informed the new converts that it was only an imaginary Christ? When, at the Reformation, Albert Dürer and Lucas Cranach, sturdy Reformers as they were, continued to paint the likeness, which of them was persuaded that it was an invention of the Dark Ages? If the likeness of Christ, brought from the Catacombs in the beginning of the fourth century-wrought in mosaic on the walls of the basilicas-accepted by the Reformers-is not a true likeness, one of two things is certain. Either

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the Church of Christ has been deceived, or it has been a deceiver. Before I can believe this I must be convinced that two special miracles have been wrought: the first to conceal the true likeness, in order that it might not be degraded to superstitious uses; the second for the purpose of misleading the universal church into accepting the false. In reply to the first hypothesis, it is sufficient to point out that if a miracle has been wrought for such a purpose it has been ineffectual. The second hypothesis is even more untenable. It violates our faith in the Divine Being as the author of verity. This is a question that cannot be properly dealt with through the ordinary weapons of humor or satire. It is impossible, however, to be unmoved by a grim sense of incongruity in the dean's supposition that it could be in accordance with the will of Christ that throughout the Christian dispensation a false image should have been held steadily before the eyes of His people, misleading them in all their thoughts of Him, showing them always another, not Himself, doing the things He didblessing the children, comforting the women, teaching the men, suffering for us all. There was, indeed, amongst the old gods, one who had two faces. He represented the rising and setting sun. He held the keys of heaven and hell. Through him alone it was believed that our prayers could reach Olympus. But the temple of Janus was shut by Augustus in the very year when Christ was born. I know not whether it is right or safe to regard one attribute of the Divine Being as of more account than another. If the sense of His love comes very closely home to our hearts, the confidence in His sincerity comes equally home to our intelligence. Christ has shown to us not only His hands and His feet, but His face. Where then, and when, was the knowledge of the face of

Christ lost-if it is lost? Not in the grave, for He saw no corruption. Not in the Resurrection, for He was recognized by more than five hundred brethren. Not in the Ascension, or we have the promise of His coming again in like form. The disciples beWhy do we dis

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lieved not for joy. believe?

Now in my "Rex Regum" I claim that the Church of Christ has neither been a deceiver, nor has it been deceived; but that the likeness it holds in its keeping is the likeness of Christ. I am impatient to get to the proofs of this, which seem to me irrefragable; but I must not review my own book, nor repeat it in these pages. The courtesy of the editor is extended to me for the purpose of replying to the very reverend dean, and I must limit what I say to meeting the objections he has raised. I think, however, that I may now fairly pass from the fathers to the contemporaries of the apostles, and examine the records they have left upon the subject. Here there arise some very beautiful points which interest me much more than do the opinions of the good bishops of the Middle Ages. What did the apostles think about these pictures of Christ? Surely they knew that the practice of portraiture was common amongst the people with whom they lived. Surely they were aware of the custom of the artists of those days to make sketches of every one, distinguished or notorious, whose face might be of interest, in the hope of selling these sketches to collectors, or of being commissioned to paint them over their graves. Where are St. Paul's and St. John's words of caution to the early converts of Rome against this practice in the case of Christ? Where is there a word in the Gospels or Epistles to guard the flock against such a pitfall-such an abyss of idolatry? There is much on the other side. St. Paul contrasts the

freedom with which they could look on the face of Christ with the veiling of the face of Moses. St. John dwells on the beauty of the face of the Redeemer, which he declares was full of grace and truth. He could not forget that he had leaned on the Master's breast. To him Christ was one whom he had seen with his eyes, and his hands had handled. The reference seems to be to the pathetic incident when one of them had doubted, and said he would not believe unless he could put his fingers into the print of the nails, and Christ had replied, "Handle me and see."

But no! the Dean of Canterbury shakes his head. He says that these men preserved no record of the face they had loved, because they believed that it was expedient He should go away. But why was it expedient? Surely not in order that they might forget Him, but because He would send to them the Comforter, who should "bring all things to their remembrance." The dean admits expressly "that portraiture was common in the days of the apostles;" "that likenesses were preserved of other men;" "that antecedent probabilities would have pointed to some attempt having been made to preserve His features;" "that we should not have expected that Christians would SO completely lose every vestige of tradition as to the human form of Him whom they so passionately loved and adored as the Lord of Life and of all the worlds." The dean admits all this, but still thinks that the disciples soon forgot what Christ was like-that they could think of Him only as the invisible God or as a white lamb, and that the Paraclete brought to their remembrance everything concerning Him except the knowledge of His face. And this, the dean says, is easily explained.

The dean's explanation is as as

tounding as his conclusion. It takes a threefold form. The first is, that "to the Jewish disciples any picture of Christ would have been a violation of the Second Commandment." Does the dean quite realize that these likenesses of the first century were made by Roman artists for Romans, and not by Jews, or for Jews, at all? If the antecedent prejudices of the Jew count for anything amongst the Jews, the antecedent prejudices of the Roman must count for as much amongst the Romans. It is a little hard to expect that the Roman converts should have precipitately adopted the traditions of the people they most hated, and have voluntarily bound themselves by a religion (the Jewish) they had never accepted, and which they supposed the new religion of Christ to have overthrown or supplanted. To the Romans it was the most natural thing in the world to make portraits of their heroes, or ideal representations of their gods. That they made portraits of St. Peter, and St. Paul and St. John is certain; and that with these portraits they grouped the figure of our Blessed Lord is equally certain. The dean does not question the genuineness of the illustrations I give in "Rex Regum." Now St. Paul wrote a special epistle to these men. Where do we find in it the friendly warning, the fearless rebuke, that would have been due from the apostle, who had lived amongst them and knew their customs, if the thing were in itself dangerous or evil? A century later, when we come to the fathers, one of their first acts was to denounce the painter and his art; but we find nothing of this in the writings of the apostles. The dean's argument proves too much. It is a denial that the likeness existed because, after it had existed for a hundred years, it was denounced and an unsuccessful attempt was made to suppress it.

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