PICTURE BY RAPHAEL, 
47 
merits can be credited, attempts have been made to 
remove them clandestinely. This feeling, however, is 
neither liberal nor creditable, since every nation unites 
in the sentiment, that those emblems which have 
been honourably won, should be held sacred. In the 
present case, it only causes the good people of Santa 
Cruz to imagine we feel too keenly a loss which arose 
from precipitancy ; as it is well known they were picked 
up on the beach, where they were left in the huny and 
bustle of the re-embarkation. In the same church is a 
painting, asserted by the guide to be a work of Raphael. 
It is a gross conception of Purgatory, representing 
oiu- Saviour at the upper part of the picture, and in 
the blood which flows from the places where he was 
nailed to the cross, a woman is seen besprinkling her 
hands ; a little below, an angel is employed weighing 
souls in a balance, while a destroying angel stands, 
prepared with drawn and uplifted sword, to “ commit” 
the sinner on his sentence. 
The holy fathers occupy a conspicuous place in the 
lower part of the picture, being ranged on each side of 
the flames of Purgatory, ready, or in the act of helping 
the unfortunates out of the burning fire. One of them 
is seen tugging away at the ends of a string of beads 
and a crozier, which he had thrown on the neck of 
a little child. We also noticed that the fraternity — 
known by the shaven head — appeared to take the 
matter of passing through the ordeal, much more 
coolly than could have been expected from the nature 
of the element by which they were surrounded. 
