I think this scene is grand; worthy of a great painter,--of a painter who knows history as well as art, which so few painters do know; yet ought to know if they would produce immortal pictures. Nor do I know which to admire the more,--the penitent emperor offering public penance for his abuse of imperial authority, or the brave and conscientious prelate who dared to rebuke his sin. When has such a thing happened in modern times? Bossuet had the courage to dictate, in the royal chapel, the duties of a king, and Bourdaloue once ventured to reprove his royal hearer for an outrageous scandal. These instances of priestly boldness and fidelity are cited as remarkable. And they were remarkable, when we consider what an egotistical, haughty, exacting, voluptuous monarch Louis XIV. was,--a monarch who killed Racine by an angry glance. But what bishop presumed to insist on public penance for the persecutions of the Huguenots, or the lavish expenditures and imperious tyranny of the court mistresses, who scandalized France? I read of no churchman who, in more recent times, has dared to reprove and openly rebuke a sovereign, in the style of Ambrose, except John Knox. Ambrose not merely reproved, but he punished, and brought the greatest emperor, since Constantine, to the stool of penitence. It was by such acts, as prelate, that Ambrose won immortal fame, and set an example to future ages. His whole career is full of such deeds of intrepidity. Once he refused to offer the customary oblation of the altar until Theodosius had consented to remit an unjust fine. He battled all enemies alike,--infidels, emperors, and Pagans. It was his mission to act, rather than to talk. His greatness was in his character, like that of our Washington, who was not a man of words or genius. What a failure is a man in an exalted post without character!