At the heart of even the boldest of such instances of picture-work, there lies a true and universal principle. And we may be sure that we are more likely to err on the side of stiffness and conventionality (which is often sheer laziness and ignorance), than on the side of reality and life. The unaided imagination--the power of the eyes to "see pictures while they're shut"--will, however, often serve us more safely, and not less surely. That was a vivid and memorable action-picture, drawn for us by Bishop Vincent, at a vesper service at the close of a Chautauqua Sabbath, in the "Hall in the Grove." "What if the Master himself were again on the earth at this hour, here at Chautauqua, and should come up the hill, through the trees yonder, and should stand between these pillars and speak to us now...." The picture was complete and irresistible. We all saw and realized all that we needed to see and feel, in order to receive the lesson that followed. But the imagination must be strengthened and fed by plenty of sense material. It can be trusted to respond with its pictures, provided it has been given material enough and provided these materials are skilfully brought to mind. In the following extract from the wonderful "Story of Jesus,"[2] which should be in the hands of every parent and teacher, we find a type of picture-work which illustrates this point, for it quickens and makes many calls upon the imagination: "Imagine traveling through a state no larger than Vermont, and finding not only apples and pears, quinces and plums, waving corn-fields, maples and cedars, but orange-trees fragrant with snowy blossoms, and heavy with golden fruit in January; figs and dates, pomegranates and bananas--all within a day's journey! The fields over which you pass glow like gorgeous Persian carpets...." This is a part of the author's picture of Palestine. [2] See Chapter VIII. And here is a bit of Archdeacon Farrar's graphic word-picture of Nazareth, where Jesus spent nearly thirty years of his life on the earth: "Gradually the valley opens into a little, natural-looking amphitheater of hills, supposed by some to be the crater of an extinct volcano; and then, clinging to hollows of a hill, which rises to the height of some five hundred feet above it, lie, like 'a handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald,' the flat roofs and narrow streets of a little eastern town. There is ... a clear, abundant fountain, houses built of white stone, and gardens scattered among them, umbrageous with figs and olives, and rich with the white and scarlet blossoms of orange and pomegranates. In spring, at least, everything about the place looks indescribably bright and soft; doves murmur in the trees; the hoopoe flits about in ceaseless activity; the bright blue roller-bird, the commonest and loveliest bird in Palestine, flashes like a living sapphire over fields which are enameled with innumerable flowers."