SERMON VI.

SIXTH PANEL-THE PAINTER.

"And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good."-First chapter of the book of GENESIS; part of the last verse.

No question will arise in the mind of anyone present as to the utility of God's works, and as to their value in making up the happiness of mankind. We feel quite sure that what God has done He has done for a great purpose. His works have been done in accordance with design, and there is nothing to be added to the declaration which we have just read by way of text, that all that God has made is very good. But we would ask, was that good intended for God's pleasure only, or was it mainly for the creature who was yet to be created. And when created was this creature capable of enjoying those things; understanding them; understanding whence they came; and understanding their uses. Allowing that the intellect of man was clouded by the fall so as to render him less able to enjoy the works of God, is there any truth in the statement that God

contemplated a restoration not only to peace and reconciliation with Himself, but to the power of comprehending in their varied aspects, the wonders of a created world. If these premises are allowed, a series of important questions arise which, if they can be answered in the affirmative, will at once give an important place to the painter. Is it necessary that man should be educated? Has God given to particular men superior talents? Is it the duty of all possessing such talents to instruct their fellows? Is the power of personal observation limited? Is knowledge conveyed to the mind through the senses? Is it possible by a proper representation of God's works to increase man's admiration of, and love for, the great Creator? If you say "yes' " in answer to all these questions you at once place the painter in an exceedingly high, honourable, and responsible position, because he of all men presents most clearly to the eye, and thus to the understanding the wondrousness of God's works. Music enters into the soul, and soothes and charms for a little while, and then its strains are forgotten. The sculptor gives something more lasting, but it is only the outline, cold and hard. But painting gives so much detail, clothed with such a warm, soft, and life-like expression that we lose consciousness of distance and stand, as it were, on the very spot depicted or set forth on the canvass. Or better still, we feel as if we were in the presence of, and conversing with, some loved lost one. We have something of the feeling which Cowper had in writing to Sir Joshua

Reynolds the great portrait painter when, addressing

him as a painter he says:

"Dear President, whose art sublime

Gives perpetuity to time,

And bids transactions of a day,

That fleeting hours would waft away

To dark futurity survive,

And in unfading beauty live."

Herein lies the value and the power of the artist. It brings before us, as if alive, that which we have so long mourned as dead. The sculptor deals mainly with form. Painting, by combining form, light, shade, and colour represents the passions and the emotions of the human mind, and also the external circumstances which excite them. With word painting we are all familiar. instruction in all ages. aware, is an important painting. None have adoption of this method. In the parable of the Sower, how clearly we have brought before us the man going forth with his seed! In that of the marriage supper how we can see the very men engaged in those pursuits which they pleaded as an excuse for non-attendance! And in the parable of the Ten Virgins, how we can understand the confusion of five of them as the cry was raised "Behold the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him!" And then again, how clearly the good Samaritan stands before us sympathizing with the wounded man, pouring into his wounds oil and wine,

It has been a method of The parable, as you are example of this kind of equalled Christ in the

setting him on his beast, and conveying him to a place of safety! The unfruitful fig tree is also. clearly depicted; and what shall we say of the lost sheep, the lost piece of money, and the Prodigal Son? By word painting we have been made so familiar with these things that we can almost imagine that we hear the very music, of which we spoke last week, as they rejoice over the long lost, but now returned one. And surely the description given by Christ of the last judgment has rivetted itself on our minds. And it is thus by word painting that we describe scenes and places. This is the art of conveying to the mind through the ear. But unfortunately it often happens that things heard are soon forgotten. We may hear a description of persons or places, but a few days pass away and we remember nothing whatever of that which was told us. But the painter conveys to the mind through the eye. We behold that which he sets forth and because it is fixed on the mind, because it is carried back, as it were, to the warehouse of the mind, and there stored, we can return though years may have passed away, and most vividly the picture reappears. Some of us can bear testimony to this, and you know how a picture on which you gazed many years ago now rises up before you fresh, and full, and beautiful as when you first beheld it. The history of painting I shall not attempt. Suffice it to say that the art did not flourish until some four or five centuries before Christ. From that time, with intervals of decline, it has continued to this

day, and it has furnished us with some of the most beautiful treasures the world possesses. There have been and still are, English artists of whom we are proud. Their works are worth looking at, and will live in the memories of men and will be beautifully fresh in ages yet to come.

But of painters there are two classes-the imitative and the imaginative. The imitative painter gives more or less correct copies of landscape scenery, groups of animals and men, according to his taste and talent. The imaginative painter places on canvass that which has been conceived in his own mind. In either case, when we have paintings before us we cannot but rejoice in the goodness of God for having given such power unto men, and we feel as we gaze upon man's handiwork that our human nature is exalted thereby. Let us contemplate the painter at his work. Supposing he is a landscape painter, he has before him the wonderful beauty and completeness of the works of God. He must study form, and it is impossible to study the form of God's creatures, animate or inanimate, without being astounded at the perfection, symmetry, and beauty of those forms. You take the form of a tree, or of a flower, or of an animal running about the field, or you take the human form-the human form divine-and you are struck with their completeness, perfectness, and fulness. Such a painter must study not only the form of such things as I have spoken of, but he must study the form of the waves of the sea, and the clouds in the heavens, and as he