ery impossible.
The idol of French scepticism had died in the house just opposite,
the disciple of Gay-Lussac and Arago, who had held the charlatanism of
intellect in contempt. And yet the stranger submitted himself to the
influence of an imaginative spell, as all of us do at times, when we
wish to escape from an inevitable certainty, or to tempt the power of
Providence. So some mysterious apprehension of a strange force made him
tremble before the old man with the lamp. All of us have been stirred in
the same way by the sight of Napoleon, or of some other great man, made
illustrious by his genius or by fame.

"You wish to see Raphael's portrait of Jesus Christ, monsieur?" the old
man asked politely. There was something metallic in the clear, sharp
ring of his voice.

He set the lamp upon a broken column, so that all its light might fall
on the brown case.

At the sacred names of Christ and Raphael the young man showed some
curiosity. The merchant, who no doubt looked for this, pressed a spring,
and suddenly the mahogany panel slid noiselessly back in its groove, and
discovered the canvas to the stranger's admiring gaze. At sight of this
deathless creation, he forgot his fancies in the show-rooms and the
freaks of his dreams, and became himself again. The old man became a
being of flesh and blood, very much alive, with nothing chimerical about
him, and took up his existence at once upon solid earth.

The sympathy and love, and the gentle serenity in the divine face,
exerted an instant sway over the younger spectator. Some influence
falling from heaven bade cease the burning torment that consumed the
marrow of his bones. The head of the Saviour of mankind seemed to issue
from among the shadows represented by a dark background; an aureole of
light shone out brightly from his hair; an impassioned belief seemed to
glow through him, and to thrill every feature. The word of life had just
been uttered by those red lips, the sacred sounds seemed to linger still
in the air; the spectator besought the silence for those captivating
parables, hearkened for them in the future, and had to turn to the
teachings of the past. The untroubled peace of the divine eyes, the
comfort of sorrowing souls, seemed an interpretation of the Evangel.
The sweet triumphant smile revealed the secret of the Catholic religion,
which sums up all things in the precept, "Love one another." This
picture breathed the spirit of prayer, enjoined forgiveness