purposes.

The strangest thing, however, is that this baby's face is the only one of Jesus that I have seen in which something like force and dominion break from the eyeballs; and there they are out of place so, at least, it appears to my poor judgment.

FROM THE REV. PERCY S. GRANT

Of the Church of the Ascension (P. E.), New York City The traditional face of Christ in art does not seem to me to be a strong face. It is not the face of a man capable of successful struggle with other men. It has not the power of blood and iron-of a Bismarck. It is not the face of one who has had to wrestle with temptation of a St. Paul. It does not denote patient endurance and sufering in a great cause nobly contended for-that is to say, it is not the face of a Lincoln. Nor do we find in the traditional face of Jesus a moral superiority so great that it could dominate material and physical forcescalm a tempest, heal the sick, raise from the dead.

The kind of strength of char

strong according to our common definition. Neither did his character unfold through temptation-that is to say, as the average man understands temptation. The temptations in the wilderness were either typical or they were local. Jesus's life was not spent in resisting evil, but in realizing the good. His character developed, therefore, more as a woman's character develops -in innocence, sweetness, and love. are not, therefore, to expect the Christ face to exhibit moral struggle. Nor can we look for that sadness which creeps into the eyes of great men who die without accomplishing

acter that we are most familiar with is that which is developed by the force of a competitive civilization. Among college athletes, among soldiers, young business men, and even city roughs we find this typical modern strong face. It is resolute, determined, firm. In middle life such faces are apt to become stern. In old age they are fierce, as Gladstone's was called, or they are hard.

But Jesus took no part in the competitive life of his time, and he lived when competition was not as strenuous as to-day. He fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy, "He did not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street." We should not expect, then, the face of Jesus to be

.

We

the reforms upon which they set their hearts. It is true that Jesus was cut off and thwarted in his earthly career, but he could see the accomplishment of his purpose in its apparent de-. feat. The joy that was set before him must have robbed his face of melancholy, of weary endurance, and of hopelessness.

The Christ of the New Testa

ment had had spiritual power that was as elemental as the power of God, flowing inWe have no

deed from the same source. conception of a face that could match such a nature. The face of Christ in art will always, therefore, be disappointing.

FROM THE REV. E. M. HARDCASTLE, JR. Assistant Rector Grace Church (P. E.), New York City

The strength of the Christ face as portrayed in the Scriptures would lie, it seems, in the union of the elements that characterize his two natures. The divine strength would reside in holiness, while the human would be evidenced by an association of the strong elements of justice and truth with the gentler qualities of tenderness, loving-kindness, and patience. These have not been combined in due proportion in

art, too much emphasis being laid on the gentler virtues to the exclusion of those that would characterize strength. Christ is a King, Conqueror, and Judge as well as a Saviour and Mediator.

FROM THE REV. CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL, D.D.

President of Union Theological Seminary, New York City

The question is one which I steadily answer in the negative as I study the wellknown ancient delineations of our Lord's countenance, and those which have so abundantly appeared in connection with modern art. None of them approaches that ideal conception of his countenance which is

present in my

mind as a devout
believer in his

unique personal-
ity as the God-
man. If Christ
were only a man,
I see no reason
why the great art-
ists of the cen-
turies could not
satisfy our noblest
thought concern-
ing his personal
appearance; but
because of that
infinite element of
deity which blends
with his manhood,
no human hand

FROM THE REV. JAMES M. KING, D.D, Formerly Pastor of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, New York City

In looking at master pictures of Jesus the man, I find my idea of a strong face realized; but when I think of him as the Christ, no picture conveys to me an idea of adequate strength. To me ancient and modern art representations of the Christ are relatively satisfactory as they most perfectly portray some phase of his humanity illustrated by his teachings and

has yet been able to accomplish what I must believe to be an impossible task. The great artistic types of the Christ face constantly disappoint me by the lines of weakness and morbid emotionalism which enter into the pictures.

FROM THE REV. DAVID H. GREER, D.D. Of St. Bartholemew's Church (P. E.), New York City In reply to your question concerning the face of Christ in ancient and modern art, I beg to say that no representation of it with which I am familiar is satisfactory to me. In the attempt to make it divine, the artist in almost every case has simply made it weak.

ers in 1879, and it has of my study ever since.

FROM THE REV. WILLIAM WILMERDING MOIR Assistant Rector Church of the Holy Communion (P. E.), New York City

"Does Christ's face, as depicted in ancient and modern art, realize your idea of a strong face?" It does not. Strangely enough, in answer to your question, I only last Sunday preached on the last clause of the sixth verse of the fourth chapter of the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, "The Face of Jesus Christ." What I said then I think in part explains

ance was given by the prophet, some seven hundred years before his coming, who tells us that "his visage was so marred from that of men, and his form from that of the sons of men," and again, "He hath no form nor comeliness that we should look upon him; nor beauty that we should desire him." (Isaiah lii., 14; liii., 2.)

The early disciples of our Lord did not dare to give any representation of how he looked. He was too near to them, it has always seemed to me, and they understood so well the meaning of the spiritual face which he turned toward them. If they had to represent him, it was as a Lamb, or by the sacred symbols of his name: the Chi Rho, or the Alpha and Omega, or by the Holy Dove of his baptism, or by the Cross on which he died.

The centuries which followed were filled with persecutions, and upon the cross the poor persecuted ones, in their representations in art, place a representation of our Lord. Most of them are horrible and grotesque, but so were their lives and their deaths; and they were the closest approach that they could get to what they needed; but doubtless they always fell short of their real need; and as the dying martyr placed the crucifix to his lips, he closed his eyes and only felt the spiritual Christ.

The Middle Ages gave birth to the "Madonna and Child," but, beautiful as is the baby face in so many of the works of the mediæval artists, none of them could have satisfied the longings of the human heart. The present age's art and life alike have given us the divine comrade. Hofmann and Tissot, and other great men, have striven as best they could to satisfy the longings of the human heart, by giving us a friendly, kindly human being as their gift to the nineteenth century; but none of these are what we long for. None of these realize our idea of the strength that we would see in the face of Jesus Christ. Because, taking in its entirety the verse which I quoted at the beginning of my letter-"God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, giving the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," it is impossible for human art to give to the world a correct or satisfactory representation of the Christ. I doubt very much if any artist

has ever been satisfied with any picture of Jesus which he has given to the world, or a sculptor with the figure. Because we must see in that face the glory of God, spoken of by the Apostle; we must find in it strength for our weakness, womanliness, tenderness, gentleness, and sweetness to temper our robustness.

If it had been well for us to have such a representation, God would not have left. his Son without a witness; but it was that our hearts might be lifted above the earthly and human to the heavenly and the divine, that he gave us to understand that the face of Jesus Christ was beyond the painter's brush or the sculptor's chisel.

FROM THE REV. BROCKHOLST MORGAN General Agent of the New York Protestant Episcopal. City Mission Society

It seems to me that any face of Christ should first conform to what we know of Scripture, "A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," and again the remark of the Pharisees about his personal look, "Thou art not yet fifty years old," when, in fact, he was not yet thirty, indicating the of age appearance which was not

justified.

The mistake of all painters, ancient and modern, is effeminacy of feature and untrueness to the race to which Christ, as a man, belonged. The Italians paint an Italian Christ, the German school a German, and so on. The typical Christ is a Jew of that century, and the beauty of his face is not in ideal features, but in the soul revealed in the countenance.

Were it possible to conceive what has never been painted, it would be a composite face belonging to no special race nor country, for Christ is the "Son of man that is, of all humanity-not Jew not Roman, not Italian nor German, but enfolding all races and all conditions in his one humanity. This last fact is the chief fault I have to find in religious art, and no painter will come near to the truth who does not give this weight.

FROM THE REV. CHARLES H. PARKHURST, D.D.
Of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church,
New York City

I do not hesitate to say that, in my estimation, the artistic reproductions of the Christ face are weak-not only disappointing, but repulsive. I never see a pictured face of Christ that does not contradict my