* * * * * Besides the representations of angels who make a part of the devotional and historical scenes in the lives of Christ and the Virgin, of the Evangelists, Apostles, and Fathers of the Church, there are a great number that illustrate the legends of the saints. For example, that of St. Cecilia, whose music charmed even the angelic choirs, so that the angels brought to her the roses of Paradise, is one of the most beautiful. After the death of St. Catherine of Alexandria, angels bore her body to the top of Mount Sinai, as represented in our illustration by Mücke. When St. Christina was beaten and thrown into a dungeon, angels bound up her wounds, and St. Agatha was comforted by them in her prison. These are a few examples of the numerous appearances of angels in the legends of the saints. Perhaps there are no artistic representations that appeal to a greater number of people, of all possible types, than do those of angels, in both sculpture and painting. One reason for this seems to me to be that angels represent our highest ideal of created beings,--beings that we can only realize through the power of imagination, either our own imagination or that of another. It may be that of a writer, who, in a vivid word-picture, conjures up before us a vision of beings that we have not seen, as do Dante and Milton. Or it may be a sculptor or painter who, rendering his own ideal, helps us to see with his eyes and to accept or reject his work as it appeals to, or repels us. This recalls the words of Ruskin when he says that the noblest use of imagination is to “enable us to bring sensibly to our sight the things which are recorded as belonging to our future state, or as invisibly surrounding us in this. It is given us, that we may imagine the cloud of witnesses in heaven and earth, and see, as if they were now present, the souls of the righteous waiting for us; that we may conceive the great army of the inhabitants of heaven, and discover among them those whom we most desire to be with forever; that we may be able to vision forth the ministry of angels beside us, and see the chariots of fire on the mountains that gird us round; but, above all, to call up the scenes and facts in which we are commanded to believe, and be present, as if in the body, at every recorded event of the history of the Redeemer.” With such a thought in mind, it is well worth while to study the various types of angels which are a rich portion of the legacies of the artists to the world. It is surely right to attempt to imagine the glories of a sphere beyond this,--a heaven of purity and glory. One of the most powerful aids to this imagination is the contemplation of religious pictures, especially those that were executed with such reverence and sincerity as make them appear to reproduce actual scenes, and, for the time, carry us out of ourselves and into the imaginary earth and heaven of the master whose works we study.