critics are divided in their opinion about this statue.
It is, therefore, well to know that Michelangelo is not wholly
responsible for the work as we now see it. Though he designed and
began it, he left it to some unskilful apprentices to finish. The
effect of the lines is injured by the bronze drapery which was added
later. A bronze sandal has also been put on the right foot to protect
it, as it had become much worn by kisses.

In criticising a statue one must always remember that it is best seen
in the surroundings for which it is designed. It is said, even by one
who does not greatly admire Michelangelo's Christ, that in the dim
light of the church where it stands, "it diffuses a grace and
sweetness which no reproduction renders."[18]

[Footnote 18: Symonds, in _Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti_.]

VIII

THE CREATION OF MAN

Science has long been trying to solve the problem of the origin of the
human race. Great books are published by learned men to explain how
the being called man came to be what he is. But centuries before the
beginnings of science a wonderful poem was written on the same subject
of the creation. This poem is called Genesis, that is, the Birth or
Origin of things, and it forms a part of the first book of our Bible.
Ever since it was written it has been one of the sacred books of many
people.

This story of creation was once the favorite subject of artists. In
the period before the invention of printing, people depended for their
instruction upon pictures about as much as we now do upon books.
Painters sometimes covered the walls and ceiling of churches with
illustrations of the book of Genesis, transforming them into huge
picture-books, from which the worshippers could learn the Bible
stories which they were unable to read in books.

Michelangelo was one of the last Italian painters to do this, and he
profited by all the work that had been done before to make the
grandest series of Genesis illustrations ever produced. It is from
this series that our illustration is taken, representing the subject
of the Creation of Man. The painter did not try to follow the text
very literally. In the book of Genesis we read:[19]--

[Footnote 19: Genesis, chapter i verses 26-27; chapter ii verse 7.]

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and ove