Oswald received, in some respects, a different impression.  In the first place, he was scandalized to see the Deity represented as he is by Michael Angelo, in human form and feature.  It was his opinion that thought dare not give Him shape and figure, and that hardly at the very bottom of the soul could be found an idea sufficiently intellectual, sufficiently ethereal to elevate it to the Supreme Being; as to subjects taken from the Holy Scripture, it seemed to him that the expression and the images left much to be desired.  He thought, with Corinne, that religious meditation is the most intimate sentiment that man can experience; and in this respect, it is that which furnishes the painter with the deepest mysteries of physiognomy and expression; but as religion represses every emotion which does not proceed immediately from the heart, the figures of the saints and martyrs cannot admit of much variety.  The sentiment of humility, so noble in the face of heaven, weakens the energy of terrestrial passions and necessarily gives monotony to most religious subjects.  When Michael Angelo applied his terrible genius to those subjects, he almost changed their essence by giving to his prophets a formidable expression of power more becoming a Jupiter than a Saint.  He, like Dante, often avails himself of the images of Paganism and blends the heathen mythology with the Christian religion.  One of the most admirable circumstances attending the establishment of Christianity, is the lowly estate of the apostles who have preached it, and the misery and debasement of the Jewish people, so long the depositaries of the promises that announced the coming of Christ.  This contrast between the littleness of the means and the greatness of the result, is in a moral point of view, extremely fine; but in painting, which exhibits the means alone, Christian subjects must be less dazzling than those taken from the heroic and fabulous ages.  Among the arts, music alone can be purely religious.  Painting cannot be confined to so abstract and vague an expression as that of sound.  It is true that the happy combination of colour, and of chiaro-oscuro produces, if it may be so expressed, a musical effect in painting; but as the latter represents life, it should express the passions in all their energy and diversity.  Undoubtedly it is necessary to choose among historical facts, those which are sufficiently known not to require study in order to comprehend them; for the effect produced by painting ought to be immediate and rapid, like every other pleasure derived from the fine arts; but when historical facts are as popular as religious subjects, they have the advantage over them of the variety of situations and sentiments which they recall.