92 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Jan. 1, ISSfi. 



heavenly body, an appearance in the heavens, a celestial 

 apparition — and so would apply r.s well to a comet as to 

 what we (not knowing much perhaps of the real signifi- 

 cance of the old Hebrew word) translate as "an angel " 

 and picture as a being clothed in stuffs of apparently 

 human manufacture. Nor assuredly if a Hebrew writer 

 I'cgarded a star, planet, or comet, as a messenger fi'om 

 God, would lie hesitate, when calling it an angel, to 

 characterise it as an Angel of the Lord, for so certainly 

 it would .':,ppear to him. 



Now there r.re several passages where an angel or 

 celestijl messenger is described in terms which would 

 apply verj- well to a comet; but there is one jiassige 

 which, as I think, cf^n be interpreted in no other w; y, 

 without understanding n series of miracles, for which, so 

 far as one ca,n judge, the occasion was bv no means 

 worthy. 



In the history of D.".vid we are told that having num- 

 bered the people he was informed by an ecclesir^stic called 

 Gad (who appears to have clratned to express the very 

 thoughts and feelings of Deity — a pi'actice not perhaps 

 unusual with the priests attached to royal persons) that 

 he had angered God exceedingly — though wherein the 

 ofBence consisted is not clear. Be this as it may, David 

 was left to choose between tliree punishments, of which 

 he selected the one least likely to aifect himself. So 

 pestilence came "and there' fell of Jerusilem seventy 

 thousand people." So far .all is perfectlv natural, and 

 doubtless historically accurate. But now suddenly an 

 angel appears as "sent unto Jerusalem to destroy it," 

 but bidden presently to stay his hand, and waiting, — 

 "the angel of the Lord stood by the floor of Oman" 

 (elsewhere cr.lled Araunah) ''the Jebnsite.' Gad 

 appears to have b?en powerless in this emergency. 

 Something there was which he and David and all men 

 saw. There is no particular reason for supposing 

 that just at that pnrticul;r time in the history cf that 

 particular oriental race and of that particular (or in some 

 respects not c. j-.y particular) ruler, a miiT.culous appari- 

 tion remained hovering (for how mr.ny days the account i 

 does not say, but it must have been qiiite a considerable 

 time) in mid-air over Jerusalem. Yet something there 

 was up there which terrified the people and D.",vid him- 

 self, and po.:sib!y Gad too, clearly though he claimed to 

 see the meaning of the portent. D.:vid indeed wanted to 

 go up to Gibeon to sacrifice before " thet."bernacle of the 

 Lord"'; but he was afraid to go up that w.ay because ( f the 

 angel of the Lord, standing " between the earth and the 

 heaven having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out 

 over Jerusalem.'' (If this was not a comet, by the 

 description, it was the personage referred to in the fir.^t 

 verse of the self-same chapter — I. Chronicles, xsi.), David 

 r,nd the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their face.s, 

 as was perfectly natural — for a comet, not understood in 

 its scientific aspect, as something to be timed, calculated, 

 analysed with a spectroscope, and so forth, is a very 

 terrible object indeed to look upon. Then Gad said 

 that the celestial messenger had explained to him that 

 David was to buy the threshing-floor of Oman — one 

 account says for fifty shekels of silver, but the other for 

 six hundred shekels of gold — there to set up an altar, for 

 sacrifice, burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and other 

 sicrifices such as in our days we scarcely think of 

 fffering "to the Infinite Power from whom all things 

 proceed." 'Whereupon, we are told, that "the Lord com- 

 manded the angel, and he put up his sword again into the 

 sheath thereof."' 



We need not smile at the simplicity of David and the 

 elders, — po.ssibly (let us hope) of G.».d also, though the 



purchase of the altar has a doubtful look. For at the 

 time of the plague and fire of London, people were equally 

 I'eady to interpret the comets preceding those events as 

 God's messengers. Defoe tells us that they saw those 

 comets manifestly hovering over the city, nay heard the 

 crackling of the flames proceeding from the one which 

 forewarned the coming of the great fire. ^Medals were 

 struck, and are still in existence, iu which these comets 

 are pictured with words implj-ing that they were in 

 truth the messengers of God's wr .th. Again only a few 

 centuries before. Pope Calixtus sent an army of Franciscan 

 Friars " to pray against the Turks, and the comet, and 

 other enemies of Christendom " — naj' an old historian 

 even relates that iu response to their j:r.iyers the comet 

 retrer^ted (as it doubtless did) "the sword of Gods 

 vengeance being returned into its sheath." This was 

 many many centuries after the time of David aud Gad, 

 whose ider.s about the celestial apparition hovering 

 between heaven and earth over Jerusalem werj perfectly 

 natural for pre-Newtonian times. 



But singulr.rly enough this attempt to give a scientific 

 interpretation — historically and archa;ologicalIy inte- 

 resting as I think — to the very striking narrative in 

 II. Samuel, xxiv., and I. Chronicles, xxi , has been 

 received in exceedingly bad part by the same class of 

 persons to whom the endeavour to give a scientific inter- 

 pretation to the precisely par."llpl account of the Str.r of 

 Bethlehem in Matthew ii.. seems altoo-cther laridible I 



PICTURES, 

 By B-iROSEss Von GuT'iuai'. 



" l)ie Kunst ist ein Spiegel in welchem sicli Jie Zeil unJ die Welt 

 abspiegeln." 



X my article in the la.st number of K.vowLEJior, 

 I remarked that the similarity between the 

 arts of music and painting would bs in- 

 terestingly apparent ; and, indeed, as wo 

 have the expre.ssions of mnny ideas and 

 feelings given to us through the combina- 

 tion and modulation of tone.s, so have we the 

 same in jiictures through the wonderful combination and 

 modulation of colours. And I also remr.r'.ced thr,t in a 

 picture the artist could actually put before us but one 

 certain moment of an act, or one degree of an idea or 

 feeling : yet it will not be understood by that th.it I mean 

 the art of painting is inferior to that of music. 



All the polite arts are great. One artist may be much 

 greater than another ; but as art means the fair execu- 

 tion of noble thoughts and conceptions, it will not be said 

 here whether it be greater to execute these thoughts and 

 conceptions in poetry, painting, music, or in sculpture. 



One artist may have a more profound or more beau- 

 tiful conception r f a subject thnn another ; but, at the 

 same time, this artist may not be able to execute his idea 

 perfectly. For instance, he mr.y not be able to draw 

 well, to make a correct perspective, or, perhaps, to paint 

 flesh with a natural hite. But all these details should be 

 perfectly executed in order to make the tiisemhle grand 

 and eff'ective : for to break the laws of perspective, or 

 correctness of colour, would be r.s grating upon our 

 feelings as to hear the breaking of a rule of harmony iii 

 music. 



If in a picture the artist is suppcsed to suggest more 

 to our minds than he has actually put before us, this 

 then is at any rate far more diflScult than in music, where 



