LONDON, September 1, 1894.

The realisation of a conception of Christ Christ, 1894. may often be, has often been, one of the most important events in the progress of the world. Hence it is not impossible that the startling, and to some, perhaps, the revolting, picture of the crucifixion, by Gay, the most famous of Russian painters, which I reproduce as a frontispiece, may influence more lastingly the course of civilisation, than the new tariff in America or the war between China and Japan over Korea. Practically European history for a millennium turned upon the idea which men formed of the Nazarene, and a really new living popular conception of Christ as He was might shape anew the destinies of mankind. Gay, some of whose previous pictures of the Passion appeared in the first Christmas number of this REVIEW, made it the labour of a lifetime to interpret on canvas the fashion in which Jesus lived and moved and died in Judea. Sacred art and popular theology have combined for centuries in a holy conspiracy to undo the Incarnation, and by their reverent but suicidal labour they have well-nigh destroyed in the popular mind the faculty of conceiving the real relation between the homeless wanderer of Galilee and the arrogant and imperious civilisation of His time. We may not agree with Tolstoi that the Russian artist has, in this terrible picture, shown us actually how He was crucified, but Gay has at least helped us to understand somewhat better the real meaning of the saying, "He was despised and rejected of man." Gay's pictures are to many a kind of latter-day resurrection of the real Passion, and it will be well if they could be collected together and sent as silent missionaries to make the tour of the world.

tent Thief.

¡Christendom The attitude of many in Christendom as the Peni- to-day is only to aptly portrayed in Gay's daring presentation of the Penitent Thief. That rogue has been so idealised during the centuries that we forget he was a thief, possibly enough a criminal brute, bullet-headed and fleshly, foul-mouthed and selfish, notwithstanding his sudden conviction that Jesus of Nazareth was in reality King of the Jews. He believed in Christ enough to know He was innocent and to think it worth while to bespeak betimes remembrance when He entered into His kingdom. He had got as far, indeed, as Christendom has got to-day. It also is brutal and fleshly, material and selfish, but with sufficient insight to see that Christ was of another order, and with a selfish instinct it seeks His favour and patronage. And now, as then, before the very eyes of the tardy and self-seeking convert, instead of the material crown and the confounding of all His enemies, He on whom we have pinned our faith expires on His Cross. Dismay, indignation, disgust, find expression even in the midst of slow death by torture, all these may be seen in the face of Gay's "Thief," and not less clearly in the attitude of Christendom, which after nineteen centuries is discovering, as did the Penitent Thief, the disappointment that confounds Materialistic Selfishness when it imagines it has done good business with the Incarnate Spirit of Sacrifice.