Ah, may our understanding ever read This glorious volume which God's wisdom made, And in that charter humbly recognize Our title to a treasure in the skies!
The Bible is not only a text-book which leads us to the acquisition of the highest of arts--that of fulfilling the true purpose of life--but it is itself, as has already been suggested, a work of fairest art inasmuch as it contains a perfect delineation of the divine Beauty drawn by the sovereign Artist Himself.
Now true art needs, as a rule, an interpretation; for the outward form which appeals to the senses may have its deeper and real meaning disguised beneath the figure, so as to be understood only by the finer perceptions of the intellect and heart. Take, for example, a canvas such as Millet's popular picture entitled "The Angelus." It is a small, unpretentious-looking work, representing a youth and a maid in a fallow field, a village church in the distance, all wrapt in the gloom of eventide. Ask a child looking at the picture what is the meaning of it, and it will probably answer: "Two poor people tired of work." Ask a countryman, without much education, and he will say: "Two poor lovers thinking of home." But to the poet who has perchance dwelt in some village of fair Southern France, and knows the simple habits of devotion among the peasant folk, the picture will awaken memories of the sound of the Angelus:
"Ave Maria," blessed be the hour, The time, the clime, the spot where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth, so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air.
And the reflecting, devout Catholic will see in that picture even more than the thoughts it suggests to the poet. It will speak to him of the angelic salute to a Virgin fair at Nazareth; it will touch a chord of tender confidence and hope in the Madonna's help and sympathy; it will arouse a feeling of gratitude for the mystery of the Redemption. And all this difference of judgment arises from the varying degrees of intelligence and knowledge with which we approach the image.
Now the Sacred Scriptures present just such a picture, only larger, more comprehensive, truer, deeper, containing all the fair delineation of God's own image, the pattern according to which we are to correct the same divine likeness in our souls, spoiled somewhat and blurred by sin.