actors in this great drama. The swoon of Mary, the grief of the apostles, the tenderness of St. John, who embraces the Cross, ready to receive the last sigh of his master; the fright of the Pharisees, who fly trembling; the everlasting brutality of the soldiers, and, perhaps, the remorse of the traitor Judas, who prostrates himself on the earth, repentant and despairing.

"On the same plate Rembrandt goes on working in order that he may represent the full accomplishment of the sacrifice, the moment when Jesus, uttering a great cry, the cry of death, said 'It is finished.' The sun is eclipsed, the earth is covered with confusion and obscurity, the veil of the Temple is rent in twain, the rocks break, the tombs open. And, as a matter of fact, in the last state of the plate the artist has entirely changed his figures. The group around the Cyrenian has disappeared, some horses are rearing, a rider is overturned. The unrepentant thief is covered with a sinister shadow; a close rain is falling from the black clouds on this scene of iniquity, nubes pluant justum; and the eye can now only see the confused image of one of the Pharisees struck with terror, the silhouette of the executioners, the happy thief who has received the first fruits of the blood of Jesus Christ, and, at last, the form of the Just One who devotes himself for Humanity."

Many persons have perhaps seen prints of the picture barbarously called "The Great Descent from the Cross," and have been shocked by the revolting character of the figure of the Crucified. But let them study it well, and especially in connection with the whole of Rembrandt's conception of the sacrifice of the Son of Man ; let them above all bear in mind the thought that I have here tried to bring out, that Rembrandt was striving to depict the true Gospel -the Gospel to the Poor and Suffering-and they will see that nothing in the world could be more touching than the abjectness of the ignominy to which the Son of Man bas been reduced.

man,

On the cross, and in the midst of his agony, Jesus applied to himself the words of the twenty-second Psalm: "I am a worm, and no ... I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death." What increases the intensity of the feeling arising from the utterly helpless and ignominious manner in which the poor corpse falls, is to see the intense and reverent love and gentle carefulness with which the disciples are taking it down. This is all the more striking, since it is done by poor men who have no other appliance but a couple of ladders. In another plate, the corpse has been laid on the ground at the feet of the Mother, who is supported by sympathetic friends.

But the representation of this scene in which the genius of Rembrandt comes out most characteristically, is the one called "The Descent from the Cross by Torchlight." It is an intensely dark night, and only the lower portion of the Cross is seen on the brow of a hill;" the body has been lowered into a shroud, and a man below is preparing a bier to receive it. A brilliant light falls on the principal group, and the weird effect of the scene is enhanced by a white hand held up in the thick obscurity on which the light reflects.

This sad work has taken time, and the cold, grey dawn has come. With heavy hearts the mourners raise the bier, that they may carry its burden to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. We see them coming slowly round the rock, in which is the grave, where no man had yet been laid. How terrible is the rigidity of death! It is no question that life has for ever gone.

We enter, with the women and the disciples, into the sepulchre. It is a great cave, and the light is dispersed over the interior; but as the body descends a gradual withdrawal of light takes place. This is obtained by different proofs being taken at five successive stages of the plate, in each of which the darkness becomes more intense. At last all is in obscurity; the corpse and the mourners are scarcely seen; the torches are extinct; the night of the tomb has commenced. "Nothing remains but a far-off reflection, dull, nearly invisible, of something which was light, a vague souvenir of something which was life."*

The spirit of suffering and humiliation which Rembrandt represented manifests itself in the fact that he was far less successful with scenes like those of the Resurrection and Ascension than with those that relate to the life and death of our Lord. There is an unreality, not to say a want of imagination, in his rendering of these two subjects, which makes it evident he did not feel them.

When we remember how wonderfully he has portrayed the Annunciation to the Shepherds and the Resurrection of Lazarus, it cannot be said there was any reason in his genius why he should not have produced pictures of these subjects interesting as those of the Passion. It must therefore have been from the fact that the triumphant, victorious note was entirely wanting in the religion which he represented. That religion had been defeated, and had never got beyond the stage of persecution and martyrdom.

Thus in all the events connected with the forty days, the one in which Rembrandt feels most interest is the occasion when two poor men, lost in dismay at the end of all their hopes, are filled with joyful amazement by the sudden appearance of the Master in whom they had trusted. Rembrandt has poured out his whole soul in his efforts to depict the Supper at Emmaus.

"Jesus Made Known in Breaking of Bread" is the subject of the painting now at the Louvre.

In this affecting picture, the two things that strike us most are the extreme poverty of the actors, and the naturalistic conception. the painter has of the Resurrection body of Jesus. The risen Christ and the two disciples are represented as very poor men, the table being spread in the humblest manner. But there is the strongest possible contrast between the visage of Christ and that of the *Charles Blanc.

healthy old man who sits transfixed with astonishment as the conviction suddenly dawns, "It is the Lord." For the Christ looks like one who has lately passed through great physical suffering. He is plainly a being who is far more soul than body, and whom you might expect in a moment to prove but a vision. He seems to see what no one else sees. He has exactly the look of one of those men or women whom you are compelled to love because they are so near to God.

In a second picture, where Jesus is departing, Rembrandt does not appear to have been so successful; but in a final one, which is only an etching, the artist has surpassed himself. He has produced in a little picture of two or three inches a scene upon which the eye is never tired of gazing, the wonderful truth of expression and effect is so amazing.

The moment illustrated is that immediately after Jesus has vanished. The apartment is very small, and the table is pushed up almost close to the window, which is closed with a heavy shutter and bolted. The disciple on the further side has risen in astonishment; terror is almost apparent on that good and simple face at so supernatural a circumstance; a strong light from the candle on the table casts a powerful glare on his features, and casts a great, weird, black shadow on the wall. The disciple who is in front of the table turns, with equal surprise, towards the spot where the guest was the moment before; his face is traced in vivid outline by the light of the candle immediately behind. But the most eloquent point in the picture-its subject, the central fact which engages alike the attention of the spectator and of the disciples-is the empty chair; it seems, in some sense, to be itself endowed with life; its form, colour, and position speak to the imagination and to the heart.

Thus, nothing is more manifest in the works of Rembrandt-the works of a whole life-than this: that to him the Gospel of Jesus Christ was the Gospel of the Poor. From the moment he first depicts the babe lying in the stall of an ox, among the dark and gloomy shadows of a stable, to the hour when, still arrayed in the homely garments of the poor, he alternately consorts with angels and with men who wear patched clothes and clouted shoes, he represents Jesus as the Poor Man, the companion of the suffering children of want. He is the Man who goes about doing good, and has nowhere to lay his head. It is this brotherhood in poverty which he loves most to display in the Saviour's character. Doubtless he misses some of its grander features; but if he gives only a side of the Gospel it is an all-important one, since it is the conception of the Poor and Suffering of the true character of the Saviour of the World.

The outbursts which have most alarmed Europe,-Lollardism, the Jacquerie, Peasant Revolts, Anabaptism, the Camisard Insurrection,

the French Revolution, the Commune,-have been nothing so much as terrible screams from a Humanity crushed and hunted into a corner. If the movements which ended in these outbreaks be studied, they will be found one and all to have been efforts on the part of the People to realize exactly the same thoughts as those expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. The similarity of their objects in every country and all ages, and their likeness to those of Jesus Christ, is a wonderful testimony to the truth that the Gospel of Jesus Christ exactly corresponds to the wants of Humanity.

In that terrible edict by which the Imperial authority in the reign of Charles V. sought to stamp out Anabaptism by rendering every man, woman, or child suspected of it an outlaw, liable to death, there is a striking proof of the fact that its doctrine was fundamentally the cry of the oppressed in every age :-"We learn daily that, notwithstanding our warnings and commands, the sect of the Anabaptists, interdicted and condemned already many centuries past, augments day by day and gains continually in power and in influence." For this universal Reign of Justice, after which the common people everywhere so persistently aspire, always appears to the governing classes in a light either ridiculous or terrifying. As long

as it is an ideal, they mock it as impracticable; directly it seeks to realize itself in acts, they crush it as social anarchy. Thus the people are driven mad, and their cause becomes stained with outrages which every one shudders to think of, and those who shared in them, perhaps, most of all.

And so, too, in the minds of many who sincerely love justice, but who set an undue value on accepted notions of truth and the established order of society, the mountain of prejudice against the popular ideal of Christ's doctrine rises higher from age to age.

Perhaps a view of it through the softened medium of the mind of a man of genius and a great painter and humourist may tempt such persons to throw aside prejudice and to study for themselves the thought of the common people in all ages.

May this short paper then prove like the tree Moses was instructed to throw into the bitter waters of Marah,-may it especially lead those who have at heart the religious welfare of the people, to see that the Gospel they are asking for is one in harmony with their ideal of a Universal Reign of Justice-the doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount.

CONSEILS DE PRUD'HOMMES.

IN

N almost all the chief towns of France there are special tribunals -called Conseils de Prud'hommes-for the settlement of differences between masters and workmen, and between workmen among themselves, in matters relating to trade. The meaning of the phrase

is, a board or council of wise and experienced men. Its actual working can best be explained by an illustrative instance, such as may be found on almost any day in one of the manufacturing or industrial towns. The particular illustration is taken from a court held at the Tribunal of Commerce, opposite the Palace of Justice, in Paris. Entering the middle door and proceeding upstairs, we pass a long corridor containing a stuffed bench for the witnesses, a chair, and a table furnished with the usual inkstand and saucer of pounce, at which the office messenger is to sit and pretend to write while awaiting the bell-ringing from any of the rooms. Opening out of this corridor are doors labelled, "Cabinet of the Secretary," " Cabinet of Monsieur the President," "Hall of Conciliation," and so forth. The hall, which is rather a low room for its size of 30 feet long by 16 feet broad, is lighted by two windows, and is divided by a bar into two unequal parts. Within the bar, and between the two windows, there is a small table, at which sit the President for the day and another member of the council. At the right hand of the President is the secretary, at a second table. The President, who is a master manufacturer, is a tall, stout, well-made man, about sixty years of age, his closely shaven face and short grizzly hair showing an intellectual head and a firm mouth. His companion on the bench is a working-man about forty years old, with long black hair and thick moustache, worn without whiskers or beard. What his oval face loses in symmetry is gained in force by the projection of his temples. He seems to be in perfect accord with