is now self-established as the only real in contrast to the former state of sinfulness, is the truly infinite content of religious love, the presence and actuality of absolute Spirit in the individual soul itself. The feeling of the stability and endurability of the personal existence, which through God, to which it addresses itself, triumphs over evil, and in so far as it is thus mediated with Him is aware of itself as one with Him, produces as its effect the fruition and blessedness of contemplating God, it is true, in the first instance as the absolute Other in His opposition to the sin inherent in finite existence, but further of knowing this Infinite Presence as identical with me as this particular person, of knowing, in short, that I carry this self-consciousness of God, as the seat of my own personality, that is to say, my own self-consciousness, as certainly as I carry the sense of my own self-identity. Such a revolution takes place no doubt entirely within the shrine of the soul, and belongs, therefore, rather to religion than art: for the reason, however, that it is the intimate movement of the soul, which pre-eminently makes itself master of this act of conversion, and also is able to throw a gleam of light through the external embodiment, a plastic art such as painting can also claim to make visible the history of such conversions. If it attempts, however, to depict the entire course of events which belong to such a transition, much that is very far from being beautiful may readily appear in the result, because in such a case both that which is sinful and repulsive requires to be depicted, as, for example, in the story of the prodigal son. Painting, therefore, achieves its greatest success when it concentrates the act of conversion into _one_ picture where that is the prevailing motive, and pays little or no attention to the previous course of events. The ordinary presentations of Mary Magdelene may be noted as an admirable example of this kind of work, and particularly in the hands of the old Italian masters has been treated in a way both excellent in itself and throughout consistently with fine Art. She is depicted here both in the characterization of her soul and her external presence as the _fair sinner_, in whom the sin no less than the sanctity is intended to exercise a sort of fascination on the spectator. But at the same time neither sin nor sanctity are treated with any great intensity. She is forgiven much because she has loved much, and her forgiveness is in a measure the portion both of her love and her beauty. And what affects us most of all in this picture is this, that she makes for herself a conscience as it were out of her love, and robed in the beauty of her sensitive soul pours forth her sorrow in a flood of tears. We are not led to feel that the fact that she has loved so much is her error, but rather that her fair and fascinating folly is this, namely, that she _believes_ herself to be a