uch progress. There
had been Hubert and Jan Van Eyck who had painted with minute skill
devout pictures. They had, moreover, given to the world the process of
painting in oils. This discovery, worked out with the extreme care
natural to the Netherlanders, changed the whole character of painting,
and made it possible to have such colorists as Titian, Raphael and
Rubens. We must remember that the colors used in fresco painting were
mixed with a sort of "size" and that they had none of the richness of
oil colors. There had been other artists of note besides the Van
Eycks. Hans Memling, with the spirit of a real poet, had painted his
sweet visions, and to-day it is not for the opulent merchants who
added fame and wealth to their city in their time, but for this
poet-painter, Memling, that we venerate the ancient and stately city
of Bruges. Quentin Matsys, the brawny blacksmith, who, for love of an
artist's daughter, became a painter, comes to our minds as a name of
no mean fame in the early records of Flemish painting.

[Illustration: HELEN FOURMONT, RUBENS' SECOND WIFE, AND YOUNGEST SON
_Rubens_]

The guild system, where every class of artisans was organized for
protection and for the production of good work, touched even the fine
arts. No man could set up for a good painter who had not served his
apprenticeship, and whose work was not satisfactory to experts. When
Rubens was born he came as the heir of all that had been accomplished
before him. He only carried on what his predecessors had begun, but
he carried it on in a matchless way so that he was able to leave to
succeeding painters not only all he had inherited, but a goodly legacy
besides--the legacy of a pure life, a glowing, natural, vigorous art.
It seems to me that right here is a lesson for us. May we not add our
mite, tiny though it be, to the ever-growing volume of truth? I like
this quotation in this connection, and I hope you may see its beauty
too--"The vases of truth are passed on from hand to hand, and the
golden dust must be gathered into them, grain by grain, from the
infinite shore."

Rubens' birth took place in 1577, the year following the Spanish Fury.
When he was only seven, William the Silent, the saviour and protector
of the northern provinces, was assassinated at the instance of Philip
II. When he was eleven, the Spanish _Armada_, the proudest fleet that
ever sailed the seas, sent to invade England and punish Queen
Elizabeth