LILY OF THE ANGEL GABRIEL 187 



to recover his father's money, a journey in 

 which he not only caught the fish whose gall 

 was to cure his father's blindness, but also found 

 a wife. It is the only subject from the Apoc- 

 rypha which now decorates Christian churches, 

 and owes this grace to the force with which the 

 story, despite its fantastic details, illustrates 

 the constant watchfulness of Heaven over those 

 still on their earthly pilgrimage. In the fifteenth 

 century it was a favourite subject for a votive 

 picture on behalf of one about to take a journey. 

 The young man, rather helpless in his youth 

 and inexperience, protected by the strong, wise 

 guardian angel, was a group painted with the 

 greatest pleasure, and the fascination of ideal, 

 sexless beauty, of curved, sweeping wings, 

 tempted to an amplification of the subject, and 

 though the Book of Tobit mentions one arch- 

 angel only — 



' . . . The affable archangel 



Raphael; the sociable spirit that deign'd 



To travel with Tobias, and secured 



His marriage with the seven-times wedded maid — ' ' 



there suddenly sprang up in Florence a short- 



1 Milton. 



