In so far, however, as this conversion of the soul can only manifest itself in such situations, in atrocities and awful treatment of the bodily frame the beauty of the presentation of such subjects may be very readily impaired; and, in fact, we may say that the treatment of all subjects of this kind is a perilous undertaking for art. For, on the one hand, it is obvious that individuals here, impressed as they are wholly with the hall-mark of finite existence, and its inevitable blemishes and defects, will have to be represented in an entirely different atmosphere from that we claimed for the history of Christ's Passion; and, from a further point of view, we unfortunately meet with unheard of agonies and horrors in such cases, distortion, and dislocation of limbs, bodily torments, scaffolds, decapitation, burning or roasting in oil, flaying alive, and every other sort of frightful, repugnant, and loathsome abuse of the body, such as lie much too remote from beauty for any sane art to think of selecting them for its subject-matter. The artistic dexterity of the artist may, in such cases, no doubt, so far as execution is concerned, be of the highest class; but, at best, such manual dexterity will merely possess a personal interest, we may indeed find before us the technique of an admirable painter; but it will be equally obvious that all his efforts have been unable to produce out of such material a harmonious work of art. (_β_) For these reasons it will be necessary that the artistic presentation of this negative process should emphasize another aspect of it, which stands out thereby above this agony of the body and soul, and establishes in relief the positive presence of reconciliation. This is just that essential reconcilement of Spirit which is finally won as the result sought for of the pain suffered. Under an aspect such as this the martyrs may be depicted as the guardians of the Divine in conflict with the grossness of material force and barbarism of unbelief. For the sake of their heavenly treasure they endure pain and death, and this courage, steadfastness, endurance, and consolation must consequently, with equal truth, appear upon them. And yet for all that this intimate possession of their faith and love in its spiritual beauty is no sanity of soul which brings to them a sense of the sanity of their body; rather it is a sense of inward life, which has worked its way through their pain itself, or at least is made manifest in their suffering, and which, even in the moment of their ecstasy, retains the experience of pain as an essential condition of their beatitude. The art of painting has, in particular, made this attitude of saintly humiliation the object of its efforts. What this art mainly should strive after here is to delineate the bliss of such torments in the pure and simple lines of the countenance and its expression, as contrasted with the offensive laceration of the flesh; and to present