Even at the first rise of this Christian art, the superiority of the principle which moved the artists was visible through their defect of knowledge of art, as art. The devotional spirit is evident; a sense of purity, that spiritualised humanity with its heavenly brightness, dims the imperfections of style, casting out of observation minor and uncouth parts. Often, in the incongruous presence of things vulgar in detail of habit and manners, an angelic sentiment stands embodied, pure and untouched, as if the artist, when he came to that, felt holy ground, and took his shoes from off his feet. It was not long before the art was equal to the whole work. There are productions of even an early time that are yet unequalled, and, for power over the heart and the judgment, are much above comparison with any preceding works of boasted antiquity. Take only the full embodying of all angelic nature: what is there like to it out of Christian art? How unlike the cold personifications of "Victories" winged,--though even these were borrowed,--are the ministering and adoring angels of our art--now bringing celestial paradise down to saints on earth, and now accompanying them, and worshipping with them, in their upward way, amid the receding and glorious clouds of heaven! Look at the sepulchral monuments of Grecian art--the frigid mysteries, the abhorrent ghost, yet too corporeal, shrinking from Lethé; and the dismal boat--the unpromising, unpitying aspect of Charon: then turn to some of the sublime Christian monuments of art, that speak so differently of that death--the Coronation of the Virgin, the Ascension of Saints. The dismal and the doleful earth has vanished--choirs of angels rush to welcome and to support the beatified, the released: death is no more, but life breathing no atmosphere of earth, but all freshness, and all joy, and all music; the now changed body glowing, like an increasing light, into its spirituality of form and beauty, and thrilling with "That undisturbed song of pure consent, Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne To Him that sits thereon; With saintly shout and solemn jubilee, Where the bright seraphim, in burning row, Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow; And the cherubic host, in thousand choirs, Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, Hymns devout and holy psalms Singing everlastingly."