the _world to
come_--that fairy-land made real--"the new heavens and the new earth,"
which God has prepared for the pure and the loving, the just and the
brave, who have conquered in this sore fight of life!

These thoughts may seem all too far-fetched to spring up in a man's head
from merely looking at pictures; but it is not so in practice. See, now,
such thoughts have sprung up in _my_ head; how else did I write them down
here? And why should not they, and better ones, too, spring up in your
heads, friends? It is delightful to watch in a picture-gallery some
street-boy enjoying himself; how first wonder creeps over his rough face,
and then a sweeter, more earnest, awestruck look, till his countenance
seems to grow handsomer and nobler on the spot, and drink in and reflect
unknowingly, the beauty of the picture he is studying. See how some
soldier's face will light up before the painting which tells him a noble
story of bye-gone days. And why? Because he feels as if he himself had
a share in the story at which he looks. They may be noble and glorious
men who are painted there; but they are still _men_ of like passions with
himself, and his man's heart understands them and glories in them; and he
begins, and rightly, to respect himself the more when he finds that he,
too, has a fellow-feeling with noble men and noble deeds.

I say, pictures raise blessed thoughts in me--why not in you, my
brothers? Your hearts are fresh, thoughtful, kindly; you only want to
have these pictures explained to you, that you may know _why_ and _how_
they are beautiful, and what feelings they ought to stir in your minds.
Look at the portraits on the walls, and let me explain one or two. Often
the portraits are simpler than large pictures, and they speak of real men
and women who once lived on this earth of ours--generally of remarkable
and noble men--and man should be always interesting to man.

IV. A PORTRAIT IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY.

"Any one who goes to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, may see
two large and beautiful pictures--the nearer of the two labelled
'Titian,' representing Bacchus leaping from a car drawn by leopards. The
other, labelled 'Francia,' representing the Holy Family seated on a sort
of throne, with several figures arranged below--one of them a man pierced
with arrows. Between these two, low down, hangs a small picture, about
two feet square, containing only the portrait of an old man, in a wh