Jacob and the Angel.

"All this is exceedingly fine," he murmured at last, "but why has the
artist only represented wrathful angels on these walls? Look where I
will in this chapel, I see but heralds of celestial anger, ministers of
divine vengeance. God wishes to be feared; He wishes also to be loved. I
would fain perceive on these walls messengers of peace and of clemency.
I should like to see the Seraphim who purified the lips of the prophet,
St. Raphael who gave back his sight to old Tobias, Gabriel who announced
the Mystery of the Incarnation to Mary, the Angel who delivered St.
Peter from his chains, the Cherubim who bore the dead St. Catherine to
the top of Sinai. Above all, I should like to be able to contemplate
those heavenly guardians which God gives to every man baptized in His
name. We each have one who follows all our steps, who comforts us and
upholds us. It would be pleasant indeed to admire these enchanting
spirits, these beautiful faces."

"Ah, Abbe! it depends on the point of view," answered Gaetan. "Delacroix
was no sentimentalist. Old Ingres was not very far wrong in saying that
this great man's work reeks of fire and brimstone. Look at the sombre,
splendid beauty of those angels, look at those androgynes so proud and
fierce, at those pitiless youths who lift avenging rods against
Heliodorus, note this mysterious wrestler touching the patriarch on the
hip...."

"Hush," said Abbe Patouille. "According to the Bible he is no angel like
the others; if he be an angel, he is the Angel of Creation, the Eternal
Son of God. I am surprised that the Venerable Cure of St. Sulpice, who
entrusted the decoration of this chapel to Monsieur Eugene Delacroix,
did not tell him that the patriarch's symbolic struggle with Him who was
nameless took place in profound darkness, and that the subject is quite
out of place here, since it prefigures the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
The best artists go astray when they fail to obtain their ideas of
Christian iconography from a qualified ecclesiastic. The institutions of
Christian art form the subject of numerous works with which you are
doubtless acquainted, Monsieur Sariette."

Monsieur Sariette was gazing vacantly about him. It was the third
morning after his adventurous night in the library. Being, however, thus
called upon by the venerable ecclesiastic, he pulled himself together
and replied:

"On this subject we may with advantage consult Molanus, _De Historia
Sacrar