The stream is portrayed as ever rolling onward and breaking――where it might if real water be dissipated in vapour――into magnified globes which image the thoughts rife in that age in the minds of pious Jews, particularly of those in great tribulation, of the millennium which was to be the mature outcome of the advent of the Messiah. The promises to the Patriarchs are progressive as is all the teaching of Revelation. The dream at Bethel first clearly speaks of the union of Earth and Heaven. This was the dawn of the exaltation of the Jewish faith, and accordingly the large orb reflects dimly the Patriarch asleep with a twofold ladder or pathway up and down, which is traversed by the servants of God. The intention is to combine with the first beautiful dream of the Patriarch other ideas of Messiah’s reign which harmonise with this, and which were developed later. Heaven is indicated by the adoration by the elders of the spotless Lamb, and the brokenheartedness of those who turn towards Heaven is illustrated by the fallen penitent, by the burden-bearing of the faithful pilgrim, and the leading of the lion by the young child, while the tree of life in the midst bears the fruit for the healing of the nations. So far it has been recognised that for the guidance of spectators who have no unlimited time to work out for themselves the intention of the picture, an explanation of my purpose was necessary. I however remember with gratification that when the picture was yet incomplete, the main intention of the design was apprehended by some of the few visitors to my studio, and that Professor Ruskin on seeing it, while the principal group was then only crudely expressed, in the impulse of generous appreciation, alluded to the purpose of the children in the picture in words of such correctness as well as exquisite expression and measure that, had they described the complete design, the painter might well have dreaded to provide any other. Shortly afterwards I had to abandon the first painting from defects in the canvas on which it was painted, after excessive loss of time and repeated disappointments which then nearly disposed me to give up the subject and turn to some other. Without the spontaneous appreciation of our great writer on art, to whose championship in the early days of preraphaelitism I owe so much, I should scarcely have persevered to save the work of so many alternating feelings of joy and pain. The Art Professor now kindly permits me to quote from his _Lectures on the Art of England_: “For all human loss and pain, there is no comfort, no interpretation worth a thought, except only in the doctrine of the Resurrection; of which doctrine, remember, it is an immutable historical fact that all the beautiful work, and all the happy existence of mankind, hitherto, has depended on, or consisted in, the hope of it.