Le Sueur (A.D. 1655) has represented the Four Evangelists seated at a table writing; the Holy Ghost descends upon them in the form of a dove. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, we find sets of the Evangelists in which the emblems are altogether omitted, and the personages distinguished by their situation, or by their names inscribed under or over them: but we miss those antique scriptural attributes which placed them before us as beings foreshadowed in the prophecies uttered of old; they have become mere men. * * * * * This must suffice for the Evangelists considered as a series and in their collective character; but it will be interesting to pause for a moment, and take a rapid retrospective view of the progress, from first to last, in the expression of an idea through form. First, we have the mere _fact_; the four scrolls, or the four books. Next, the _idea_; the four rivers of salvation flowing from on high, to fertilise the whole earth. Thirdly, the _prophetic_ Symbol; the winged cherub of fourfold aspect. Next, the _Christian_ Symbol; the four ‘beasts’ in the Apocalypse, with or without the angel-wings. Then the combination of the _emblematical animal_ with the _human_ form. Then the _human_ personages, each of venerable or inspired aspect, as becomes the teacher and witness; and each attended by the scriptural emblem—no longer an emblem, but an attribute—marking his individual vocation and character. And, lastly, the emblem and attribute both discarded, we have the human being only, holding his gospel, i.e. _his_ version of the doctrine of Christ. ST. MATTHEW. _Lat._ S. Mattheus. _Ital._ San Matteo. _Fr._ Saint Matthieu. _Ger._ St. Matthäus. (Sept. 21.) St. Matthew among the Apostles takes the seventh or eighth place, but as an Evangelist he always stands first, because his gospel was the earliest written. Very little is certainly known concerning him, his name occurring but once in his own gospel, and in the other gospels only incidentally with reference to two events.