consummation, nor in the hour of utter despair, but when doubt still tempers hope,—­so does the artist labor with prophetic zeal to express those sentiments of humanity and brotherhood which are not yet organized into institutions.  A careless eye might have perceived little departure from the old models in these pictures, but a keener one would have already discovered that Scheffer and his friends worked with a different aim from that of their predecessors.  Not merely to paint a well-composed picture on a classical theme, but to give expression to thought and feeling, was now the object.  “The Wreck of the Medusa” of Gericault is full of earnest, if niggling life.  Delacroix has followed his own bent with such independent zeal as has made him the object of intense admiration to some, of bitter hatred to others.  But Ary Scheffer has taken his rank at the head of the Spiritualist school, and has awakened a wider love and obtained a fuller appreciation than either of them.  The spirit which found in them its first expression is continually increasing in power, and developing into richer life.  The living artists of France are the exponents of her genuine Christian democracy.

“The entire collection of Rosa Bonheur’s works,” says a French writer, “might be called the Hymn to Labor.  Here she shows us the ploughing, there the reaping, farther on the gathering in of the hay, then of the harvests, elsewhere the vintage,—­always and everywhere labor.”  Edouard Frere, in his scenes from humble life, which the skilful lithographer places within the means of all, represents the incidents of domestic existence among the poor.  “The Prayer at the Mother’s Knee,” “The Woman at her Ironing Table,” “The Child shelling Peas,” “The Walk to School amid Rain and Sleet,” are all charming idyls of every-day life.  With yet greater skill and deeper pathos does the peasant Millet tell the story of his neighbors.  The washerwomen, as the sun sets upon their labors, and they go wearily homeward; the digger, at his lonely task, who can pause but an instant to wipe the sweat from his brow; the sewing-women bending over their work, while every nerve and muscle are strained by the unremitting toil; the girl tending her geese; the woman her cows:—­such are the subjects of his masterly pencil.  Do not all these facts point to the realization of Christian democracy?  If the king is now but the servant of the people, so the artist who is royal in the kingdom of the mind finds his true glory in serving humanity.  What a change from the classic subjects or monkish legends which occupied the pencils of David and his greater predecessors, Le Sueur and Poussin!

And yet those students of the antique have done French Art good service; they have furnished it with admirable tools, so that to them we are indebted for the thorough drawing, the masterly knowledge, which render Paris the great school for all beginners in Art.  Such men as we have named do not scorn the past, but use it in the service of the present.  While Scheffer always subordinated the material part of Art to its expression, he was never afraid of knowing too much, but often regretted the loss of valuable time in youth from incompetent instruction.