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At the exhibition of the Royal Academy, in London, the great canvas by Sigismund Goetze, entitled “Despised and Rejected of Men,” has created an artistic sensation. It is declared to be a “powerful and terribly realistic presentment of Christ.” in a modern setting, and is described by a writer in The Christian Commonwealth (London), as follows:
In the center of the canvas is the Christ, standing on a pedestal, bound with ropes, while on either side passes the heedless crowd. A prominent figure is a richly vested priest, proudly conscious of the perfection of the ritual with which he is starving his higher life. Over the shoulder of the priest looks a stern-faced divine of a very different type. Bible in hand, he turns to look at the gospel has missed its spirit,and is as far astray as the priest whose ceremonial is to him anathema. The startled look on the face of the hospital nurse in the foreground is very realistic; so is the absorption of the man of science, so intent on the contents of his test-tube that he had not a glance for the Christ at his side. One of the most striking figures is that of the thoughtless beauty hurring from one scene of pleasure to another; and spurning the sweet-faced little ragged child who is offering a bunch of violets. In rejecting the plea of the child who knows that the proud woman is rejecting the Christ who has identified himself forever with the least of these little ones. The only person in the whole picture who has found time to pause is the mother seated on the steps of the pedestal with her baby in her arms, and we can not but feel that when she has ministered to the wants of her child she will spare a moment for the lover of little children who is so close to her. In the background stands an angel with bowed head, holding the cup which the world He loved to the death is still compelling the Christ to drink, while a cloud of angel faces look down upon the scene with wonder. As the visitor turns away he is haunted with the music of Stainer’s “Crucifixion,” “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?”
"The Lord over all, must sacrifice the most." by Kathy Grimm
by J. G. Wittier
With silence only as their benediction,
God’s angels come,
Where in the shadow of a great affliction,
The soul sits dumb.
Yet would we say, what every heart approveth,
Our Father’s will,
Calling to him the dear ones whom he loveth,
Is mercy still.
Not upon us or ours the solemn angel
Hath evil wrought;
The funeral anthem is a glad evangel,
The good die not!
God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly
What he has given;
They live on earth in thought and deed as truly
As in his heaven.
ASH-WEDNESDAY; the first of Lent. It is so called from the custom observed in the ancient church, of penitents expressing their humiliation at this time by appearing in sackcloth and ashes. But it is not certain that this was always done precisely on Ash-Wednesday, there being a perfect silence in the most ancient writers about it. The discipline used towards penitents in Lent, as described by Gratian, differed from their treatment at other times; for on Ash-Wednesday they were presented to the bishop, clothed in sackcloth, and barefooted: then the seven pentential psalms were sung; after which the bishop laid his hands on them, sprinkled them with holy water, and poured ashes upon their heads; declaring to them that as Adam was cast out of paradise, so they, for their sins, were cast out of the church. Then the inferior ministries expelled them out of the doors of the church. In the end of Lent, on the Thursday before Easter, they were again presented for reconciliation by the deacons and presbyters at the gates of the church. But this method of treating penitents in Lent carries with it the marks of more modern practice; for there was no use of holy water in the ancient discipline; nor seven penitential psalms in their service, but only one, viz. the fifty-first. Neither was Ash -Wednesday anciently the first day of Lent, till Gregory the Great first added it to Lent, to make the number of fasting days completely forty, which before were but thirty-six. Nor does it appear that anciently the time of imposing penance was confined to the beginning of Lent, but was granted at all times, whenever the bishop thought the penitent qualified for it. In Rome, the spectacle on this occasion is most ridiculous (1836 this author’s observation) After giving themselves up to all kinds of gaiety and licentiousness, during the carnival, till twelve o’clock on the Tuesday night, the people go on Ash-Wednesday morning into the churches, when the officiating priests put ashes on their heads, repeating the words, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” (Note. Christians who observe Ash Wednesday in the states do not celebrate carnival; it is not a well known holiday in the states. 2008)
The want of this discipline in the English church is at present supplied by reading publicly, on Ash-Wednesday, the curses denounced in the holy Scripture against several sorts of sins, the people repeating after each curse, Amen. –Henderson’s Buck.
The violet version of “Ash Wednesday Churchyard,” by Kathy Grimm
A Crucifixion Painting by Kathy Grimm
The Veiled Cross
The cross of Jesus Christ was to the Greeks foolishness and a stumbling-block of the Jews. They could not see its meaning; just as I have walked out on the porch of a north Georgia home two hours before day, and in the dim starlight I could see only the faint outline of mountain and hill. I could not tell what they were. It was an indistinct picture that had in it no meaning to me. I have gone back to my room and after a while have walked out on the porch again. The sun had risen on the scene and bathed hill and mountain and valley in a flood of light, and then I looked and saw hills and mountains and valleys and streams that mine eyes had never seen before.– “Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”
