The crowding of the lawless throng against the front of the tribune, on which the chief characters of the scene are portrayed, though not in a material sense wrong, must be open to much aesthetic dispute; must mar the success and the action of reflex thought, the spiritual contest waging and recoiling between the Divine, meek victim and the surging rabble.  At all events, it is sad to trace no direct or secret hint at new or transcendental methods conspicuous or even dimly apparent in the painter’s art.  Little there is in the effort to draw our finer instincts to spiritual truths.  The utmost mechanical skill of the diligent artist is discernible, labouring incessantly without extraordinary or transcendental light to the appointed end, the goal accomplished.  It should be understood that as spiritual Art of its own property and nature is beset, environed on all impinging sides with a multifold range, a series of difficult corners around which the sense cannot immediately travel, but would for the fructification or sustentation’s sake of its etherealism, a process of counter argument may deduce this aphorism, that in works of art in which the eye travels quickly round all the corners of thought, motive, and expression, the priceless, highest crown of spirituality cannot be awarded to it.  The painter, honestly striving with his subject, and on lines of intimate understanding, has none of his physical reasons thrown into shade, either be it for the nobility of his art, or for urgency’s sake, or for the softer assuaging of sensitiveness in the breasts of his academic audience, having no inclination to be stung when in the precincts, the hands of Art; for to whom else is the pictorial homily directed?  The group of figures upon the raised tribune is classically adjusted to its position of prominence.  The spare figure of Christ, “The Man of Sorrows,” is well conceived; the face is wan, haggard, the attitude tastefully depicted.  A palpable and perilous digression is made by the artist in ignoring the text of Holy Writ, “Wearing the purple robe,” electing to substitute for the purpose of his science a scarlet “toga.”  But the “torso”!  This is essentially lacking in consummate understanding, skilful address.  In all that assists most to mature a native work of this immense importance it is sound sense, equivalent to the gravest optimism, to express this opinion, that the highest powers of science ought humbly, intelligently to co-operate towards achieving a grand and triumphant finale, perfect, harmonious in all its parts, and responsible to the academic dictates of its sacred title.  Such a figure Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, or Rubens would have painted and blessed our reasons with, for a certainty:  bountifully inspiring us at once and for time with their divine interpretation of the great, the majestic omnipotence.

Any failure in Art cannot rouse us to this pitch; our sensitive, appreciative spirits would assuredly flag unless some keynote of resonant power were sounded.