THE ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY.

IN

CHAPTER I.

CHRISTIANITY AND ITS ARGUMENT.

Who learns to swim,

Who to think,
What a man,

Unschooled in wavy water?
Except by use of thinking?
With shaping thought and hand may for himself,
No God will for him. Human wit is slow,

Stumbling nine times for one firm footing gained,
But still made strong by striving, and sharp-eyed
To find the light through darkness and distress
By time and toil and reason's happy guess.

-Robert Browning.

N the charming villa of Count Fabbricotti, at Florence, recently occupied by Her Majesty of England, there is a remarkable picture, representing Michael Angelo selecting material from which to shape his immortal conception of Moses. The scene is laid at Carrara; the mountains, whose white quarries show like snow in a garden of verdure, forming a striking background to an interesting group of admirably executed figures. Near the front of the painting a youth bends over an open portfolio, and among the sketches one is disclosed of the Hebrew lawgiver; to the right appears the form of the master workman, directing attention to an

enormous block of spotless marble, while in the center stands, and most conspicuous of all, the famous artist himself. Both the pose and the countenance of Michael Angelo are indescribably impressive and suggestive. He seems to be intent on searching the flawless stone for the outlines, proportions, and features of the wondrous hero who had dared supplicate the Almighty for the vision of his glory, and who had been exalted to be the mouthpiece of the ten commandments, before whose moral grandeur four thousand years have trembled. But there is a touch of pathetic indecision in the noble face of the sculptor, otherwise strong and resolute, as though he feared his hand might lose its cunning before the lofty ideal born of his genius could be imparted to the virgin marble.

One greater than Michael Angelo trod the obscure ways of Palestine two thousand years ago. A sublime purpose ruled in his mind and heart. The Christ had come to inaugurate a kingdom unlike any empire that had reigned in ages gone, and which was to be shaped out of discordant and anarchical humanity. It requires but a slight effort of the imagination to picture him with thoughtful brow, contemplating the rude and poor material not yet hewn from the quarries of worldliness and heathenism, in which and through which he should achieve most marvelously, and which, alas! would sometimes splinter beneath the stroke of his fashioning chisel. But, unlike the Italian artist, there is never, in his manner or expression, the least sign of doubt as to his ultimate success. And history since has proven that while the sculptor left his statue of Moses in an unfinished state,-evidence that he had conceived be