PAPAL CELEBRATION.

On February 20, Pope Leo XIII. entered upon the twenty-fifth year of his pontificate. He is reckoned as the 259th successor of St. Peter and is one of the oldest men who ever wore the triple tiara -emblematic of spiritual, temporal, and purgatorial authority. History records one centenarian, five nonogenarians, and twenty octogenarians among the Roman pontiffs, while about fifty died between the ages of sixty-five and seventy-nine. Vincenzo Pecci was born March 2, 1810. Popes reckon their pontificates from the date of their coronation, rather than of their election, and therefore the chief

scenes of the jubilee celebration occurred on March 2 throughout the Catholic world. In Rome the " chapel" was held in the basilica of St. Peter for the first time since 1870, such ceremonies having heretofore occurred in the Sistine chapel of the Vatican. Thirty cardinals, numerous archbishops and bishops, the members of the pontifical court, the special foreign missions sent by most countries (including Germany and England, but not the United States), the members of the diplomatic corps, and the Roman nobility, all in magnificent vestments or uniforms, participated in the ceremony, and formed a striking spectacle. The total assemblage is thought

to have numbered not far from fifty thousand persons. During this his jubilee year, Leo XIII. will also commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his becoming a cardinal, and the sixtieth anniversary of his consecration as an archbishop. In all the list of popes there has been but one other, Pius IX., who has lived to celebrate the silver jubilee of his coronation as" Bishop of Rome." It has not been thought that Leo XIII. would live to complete his twenty-fifth year as Pope, but it is now reported that persons living near him say that he is as well now as he was ten years ago and that they would not be surprised if he lived to be a hundred years old.

Pope Leo has been, on the whole, a wonderfully tactful and progressive pontiff. As cardinal he voted for papal infallibility, and as Pope he has condemned religious freedom, education by the state, and most of our modern doctrines. But, on the other hand, one may point to his interest in both science and philosophy; to his repression of churchly opposition to the government in both France and Germany, and his condemnation of the Irish politicians and their methods; to his recognition of the democratic spirit also, and his insight into the fact that any form of government is good which secures the welfare of the people; and to his sympathy with some form of Christian socialism, while denouncing socialism of the destructive type. His three ambitions during his pontificate have been stated as follows: To solidify Christian education, to perfect the organization of his church, and to pave the way for the reunion of Christian churches on a Roman Catholic basis. In an era of liberalizing tendencies he has directed the policy of the Catholic Church with a steady hand. His pontificate will long be memorable, as will his remarkable personality.

BIBLICAL DISCUSSION.

There is no doubt that the Higher Critic has arrived as the French say. The discussion as to whether the Bible is

a Divinely inspired and an inerrant book or collection of books, grows more prevalent and productive of results of various kinds. Professor C. W. Pearson, who has recently found it advisable to retire from his chair in the Northwestern University (Methodist), in consequence of his avowed belief in the mythical or legendary character of much of the Bible, cites the miracles of the fiery furnace in the book of Daniel, the feeding of Elijah by the ravens, the feeding of the multitude by Jesus, and the increase of the widow's barrel of meal by Elijah and the cruse of oil by Elisha, as impossible of literal belief, and concludes that "the legendary element is as obvious and as indisputable in the New Testament as in the Old. The great spiritual teachings of the Bible rest upon absolute and eternal truth, but its history and science are always imperfect and often erroneous. Not the stars in their courses' only, not merely astronomy, but geology and biology, have shown that the story of creation in Genesis is poetic."

As expressing the conservative view the New York Observer says editorially: "We must believe that God had power to work miracles, and that through His appointed agents, for if we did not believe that much, we could not believe in His power, and we would not really be believing in Him as God at all. But at every turn of Holy Scripture we see human history evolving itself in the most natural way, just as it does in these latter days in which we boast so much of higher civilization and development. The harmony of teaching in so many different books, penned by so many dif ferent writers, covering such immense stretches of time, is the highest possible indication of the persistence of the Divine plan toward its perfect work in the evolution of the Christian dispensation. It may be that weak minds have been wrecked in the study of the Scripture; but it was assuredly not the fault of the Scripture, but the fault of the weak mind." The same paper declares that "the critical study of the Scriptures has not undermined the popular faith in their inerrancy."

VASSILI VERESTCHAGIN.

An Interpreter of Life. One of our American amateurs lately thought to encourage the taste for art among his countrymen by inviting a painter friend to his country-seat and turning the place, both house and grounds, over to the artist and his models. Here a life of bacchanalian freedom from conventionality and costume- was led for some months, many brilliant open-air effects of sunlight and shadow and variously tinted reflections upon nude flesh were obtained and the results were given to the public in a series of paintings exhibited at the Pan-American Exposition.

From the point of view of popular interest they were among the most notable failures of that exhibition. The

public gazed in idle curiosity, or looked askance, and then passed on to gather around a group of J. G. Brown's bootblacks. Artists have railed unceasingly at this preference of Americans for "story-telling" pictures and this aversion to the nude, but the preference and the aversion are deep-seated traits of the American character, and the artists who disregard them do so at their own risk.

The Russian painter, Verestchagin, (See portrait Vol. 11, p. 755) judged his public much better when, for the second time, he brought his collection of war paintings to the Art Institute at Chicago. The crowds, numbering 63,ooo, which attended the exhibition, gave proof of this, and the interest displayed by those who attended made the event notable in the annals of American art exhibitions.

It was not the technical excellence of these paintings, if the critics are to be believed, which excited so much interest. In composition, in color scheme, in drawing, and in brush work, they were all surpassed by many modern masterpieces which the public passes by with little heed. Some months after the time when the American artist referred to was going into retreat with his models at his friend's country place, this "globe trotting" Russian visited the camps and hospitals and battlegrounds of the American volunteer army in the Philippines, and gathered there impressions of life in field and camp which he has interpreted for us on the canvases exhibited at Chicago. With carelessness of surface truths, but with a heart for the soul of things, he painted a boy in Khaki, alone on the picket line, standing, rifle in hand, with abstracted gaze thinking of friends at home. Every mother who saw the painting understood it at a glance, and thought with yearning in her heart of the thousands of homeless boys over yonder, whose deepest feelings the artist had fathomed by his more than painter's instinct, and had here interpreted in this solitary figure.

There are battle-scenes in the collection, scenes which have been but names to us heretofore-Zapote Bridge, Santa Ana, Caloocan, with portraits of General McArthur and his staff, General Anderson and others. We are grateful to this Russian for putting on canvas a faithful and lasting record of these historic scenes and of the actors in them. We wonder, indeed, that he should have been before all American artists in appreciating their significance. But we see presently that this, the spectacular side of war, is not that in which he is most interested. It is the grim side of camp and field life which most impresses Verestchagin, the friend and disciple of Tolstoy, and this grewsome side he interprets for us with a ruthlessness of truth-telling that preaches in its own way the gospel of peace.

In the "Philippine Spy," led bound. and guarded by a corporal and private to the American officer of the day, there

is a dire suggestion of the fate which men in authority mete out to their fellows under the iron traditions of military usage. Of similar suggestiveness is the painting of a deserter captured and led before an officer at night for examination. The effect of candle-light upon the scared and earnest face of the deserter is grewsome, and the penalty he is sure to suffer seems over-severe for a crime. committed perhaps in thoughtlessness or pique.

The series called "The Unfinished Letter, a Short Poem in Pictures," is the most characteristic group of paintings in this room. First we have the solitary figure of a cavalry sergeant mounted and saluting his officer, to whose question "Are you hit, sergeant?" he replies with a simple, "Yes, sir!". but the gravity of his blood-stained face supplies the missing details. The story of his entry at the hospital, borne on a litter by two sorrowful comrades, of his attempt to dictate to the nurse a letter for his "beloved mother," and of the interruption of the letter by the summons of the grim messenger, is graphically told in this series, and though we may regret for Art's sake the artificial "fourthly and "fifthly" of his sermon we carry away its lesson in our hearts. The gospel of peace will bear repetition even under set chapter headings. It is noteworthy that although the material for the Philippine paintings was gathered in a brief visit of a few days at Manila the series is not complete. It is moreover to be supplemented by a series illustrating the Santiago campaign in the Spanish war. As we write, Verestchagin is already in Cuba collecting those hasty impressions from which, with the aid of camera and descriptions, his studio work is done. The new series will be looked forward to with interest.

The Philippine paintings are not the most important in the collection, although they are the most recent. The campaign against Moscow, and Napoleon's disas trous retreat under stress of a Russian winter and of repeated reverses, are forcibly depicted. Here again the grim and terrible side of war inspires the