beth had succeeded in depicting on their
faces, for such who had eyes to see it, the peace of those who knew that
God was with them in their journey through the wilderness. They were
worn and weary and toil-worn, as they dwelt in the midst of the
furnaces; but, through it all, they looked up to the overshadowing cloud
and were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed. In the far
distance there was a glimpse of the sun setting behind a range of hills;
and one felt, as one gazed at the picture and strove to understand its
meaning, that the pillar of cloud was gradually leading the people
nearer and nearer to the far-off hills and the land beyond the sunset;
and that there they would find an abundant compensation for the
suffering and poverty that had blighted their lives as they toiled here
for their daily bread.

Even those who could not understand the underlying meaning of
Elisabeth's picture, marvelled at the power and technical skill whereby
she had brought the weird mystery of the Black Country into the heart of
London, until one almost felt the breath of the furnaces as one gazed
entranced at her canvas; and those who did understand the underlying
meaning, marvelled still more that so young a woman should have learned
so much of life's hidden mysteries--forgetting that art is no
intellectual endowment, but a revelation from God Himself, and that the
true artist does not learn but knows, because God has whispered to him.

There was another picture that made a sensation in that year's Academy;
it was the work of an unknown artist, Cecil Farquhar by name, and was
noted in the catalogue as The Daughters of Philip. It represented the
"four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy" of Philip of Caesarea; but
it did not set them forth in the dress and attitude of inspired sibyls.
Instead of this it showed them as they were in their own home, when the
Spirit of the Lord was not upon them, but when they were ordinary girls,
with ordinary girls' interests and joys and sorrows. One of them was
braiding her magnificent black hair in front of a mirror; and another
was eagerly perusing a letter with the love-light in her eyes; a third
was weeping bitterly over a dead dove; and a fourth--the youngest--was
playing merrily with a monkey. It was a dazzling picture, brilliant with
rich Eastern draperies and warm lights; and shallow spectators wondered
what the artist meant by painting the prophetesses in such frivolous and
worldly g