St. John's mode of writing history may profitably be contrasted with that of one who in his own line was a great master, as it has been ably criticised by a distinguished statesman. Voltaire's historical masterpiece is a portion of the life of Maria Theresa, which is unquestionably written from a partly ideological point of view. For, those who have patience to go back to the "sources," and to compare Voltaire's narrative with them, will see the process by which a literary master has produced his effect. The writer works as if he were composing a classical tragedy restricted to the unities of time and place. The three days of the coronation and of the successive votes are brought into one effect, of which we are made to feel that it is due to a magic inspiration of Maria Theresa. Yet, as the great historical critic to whom we refer proceeds to demonstrate, a different charm, very much more real because it comes from truth, may be found in literal historical accuracy without this academic rouge. Writers more conscientious than Voltaire would not have assumed that Maria Theresa was degraded by a husband who was inferior to her. They would not have substituted some pretty and pretentious phrases for the genuine emotion not quite veiled under the official Latin of the Queen. "However high a thing art may be, reality, truth, which is the work of God, is higher!"[151] It is this conviction, this entire intense adhesion to truth, this childlike ingenuousness which has made St. John as an historian attain the higher region which is usually reached by genius alone--which has given us narratives and passages whose ideal beauty or awe is so transcendent or solemn, whose pictorial grandeur or pathos is so inexhaustible, whose philosophical depth is so unfathomable.[152] He stands with spell-bound delight before his work without the disappointment which ever attends upon men of genius; because that work is not drawn from himself, because he can say three words--which we have _heard_, which we have _seen_ with our eyes, which we have _gazed_ upon. NOTES. Ch. i. 2, 4. Ver. 2. _Us_, _we_.] "The nominative plural first person is not always of _majesty_ but often of _modesty_, when we share our privilege and dignity with others" (_Grotius_). The context must decide what shade of meaning is to be read into the text, _e.g._, here it is the we of modesty, as also (very tenderly and beautifully) in ii. 1, 2, v. 5. It rises into _majesty_ with the majestic, "we announce." Ver. 4. "_These things._"] Not even the _fellowship_ with the Church and with the Father and with the Son is so much in the Apostle's intention here as the record in the _Gospel_.