MICHAEL ANGELO. 607 



broad, which he named in honor of the King of the Belgians, Leopold II. Stan- 

 ley says the Belgian stations, 5 in number, which he established, are commercial 

 in a sense that they are expected to be self supporting and that the King is inter- 

 ested in Africa in a spirit of a philanthropical geographer, simply as a man who 

 lives the dear old continent for which he has always felt a sort of respectful mel- 

 ancholy. Stanley says the French have had a colony at Gaboon since 1857, and 

 never heard of the Congo until they read of it in the Herald and London Tele- 

 graph. He argues nothing from DeBrazza's occupation of the north bank at the 

 Pool, even should the French Government ratify his treaty and persuade the na- 

 tives to respect it. He wants a series of international posts maintained, with the 

 river free to the traders of all nations. — American Inventor. 



MICHAEL ANGELO. 



W. W. STORY. 



The overthrow of the pagan rehgion was the deathblow to pagan art. The 

 temples shook to their foundation and art withered in her crumbling shrine. 

 When through the ancient world was heard the mournful cry, first echoed by the 

 sunlit waves of the ^gean sea, " Great Pan is dead ! " then the nymphs fled 

 from the hallowed groves of Arcadia, and were seen no more. The hamadryad 

 deserted her oak and the naiad her fountain. Of all the great tribes to which the 

 poetic ajid religious instincts of Greece and Rome bowed, only Orpheus remaii:- 

 ed, and he was transformed into a monkish saint. Christianity struck a death- 

 blow not only to pagan art, but to all art, which atrophied and shrunk for cen- 

 turies, until, driven out of the rest of the world, its sickened and diseased body 

 found refuge in some monastery. The statues of the gods were overthrown and 

 buried under the earth — those wonderful creations of beauty which voice the 

 highest demands of humanity. Only bloodless saints remained. Humanity 

 trembled in the grasp of an iron-cased bigotry. Youth and beauty and joy were 

 suppliants, where once they were free and prince-like. Religion and art, which 

 cannot live apart, were divorced. The long, dark night of the middle ages came 

 on — a night without a star, and the blackness of a sordid ignorance blotted out 

 all fair sights or scenes. Only arms remained. For music and poetry, and 

 sculpture and science there were only the butcheries of the battlefield. But the 

 seasons of the soul are like those of nature. After the long, cold winter of the 

 dark ages came the springtime of the renaissance — the new birth of humanity. 

 The church awoke. Guelf and Ghibeliine began their memorable contest. Com- 

 merce flourished, and art, literature, science, religion itself, burst into new and 

 vigorous life. Then flashing from the firmament of mind the brilliant stars of art 

 and literature shone out in lambent glory — Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Filo- 

 mena, Machievelli, and all that bright galaxy of lights that cast a morning radi- 

 ance far back even into the hideous night that had preceded it. Music took 



