eatening, and triumphing. He
is absent from one picture only, where Lazarus, lying on a dunghill at
the rich man's door, declares that the specter has no terrors for him;
probably because he has nothing to lose, and his existence is already a
life in death.

Is there comfort in this stoical thought of the half-pagan Christianity
of the Renaissance, and does it satisfy religious souls? The upstart,
the rogue, the tyrant, the rake, and all those haughty sinners who make
an ill use of life, and whose steps are dogged by Death, will be surely
punished; but can the reflection that death is no evil make amends for
the long hardships of the blind man, the beggar, the madman, and the
poor peasant? No! An inexorable sadness, an appalling fatality brood
over the artist's work. It is like a bitter curse, hurled against the
fate of humanity.

Holbein's faithful delineation of the society in which he lived is,
indeed, painful satire. His attention was engrossed by crime and
calamity; but what shall we, who are artists of a later date, portray?
Shall we look to find the reward of the human beings of to-day in
the contemplation of death, and shall we invoke it as the penalty of
unrighteousness and the compensation of suffering?

No, henceforth, our business is not with death, but with life. We
believe no longer in the nothingness of the grave, nor in safety bought
with the price of a forced renunciation; life must be enjoyed in order
to be fruitful. Lazarus must leave his dunghill, so that the poor need
no longer exult in the death of the rich. All must be made happy, that
the good fortune of a few may not be a crime and a curse. As the laborer
sows his wheat, he must know that he is helping forward the work of
life, instead of rejoicing that Death walks at his side. We may
no longer consider death as the chastisement of prosperity or the
consolation of distress, for God has decreed it neither as the
punishment nor the compensation of life. Life has been blessed by Him,
and it is no longer permissible for us to leave the grave as the only
refuge for those whom we are unwilling to make happy.

There are some artists of our own day, who, after a serious survey of
their surroundings, take pleasure in painting misery, the sordidness of
poverty, and the dunghill of Lazarus. This may belong to the domain of
art and philosophy; but by depicting poverty as so hideous, so degraded,
and sometimes so vicious and criminal, do they gain their