532 Word Studies In The New Testament.

The Adoration of the Lamb is the subject of the great altar piece in the church of St. Bavon at Ghent, by John and Hubert Van Eyck. The scene is laid in a landscape. The background is formed by a Flemish city, probably intended to represent Jerusalem, and by churches and monasteries in the early Netherland style. The middle ground is occupied by trees, meadows, and green slopes. In the very centre of the picture a square altar is hung with red damask and covered with a white cloth. Here stands a lamb, from whose breast a stream of blood issues into acrystal glass. Angels kneel round the altar with parti-colored wings and variegated dresses, many of them praying with joined hands, others holding aloft the emblems of the passion, two in front waving censers. From the right, be- hind the altar, issues a numerous band of female saints, all in rich and varied costumes, fair hair floating over their shoul- ders, and palms in their hands. Foremost may be noticed Sta. Barbara and Sta. Agnes. From the left advance popes, card- inals, bishops, monks, and minor clergy, with crosiers, crosses, and palms. In the centre, near the base, a small octagonal fountain of stone projects a stream into a clear rill. Two groups are in adoration on each side of the fountain,—on the right, the twelve apostles kneeling barefoot, and an array of popes, cardinals, and bishops, with a miscellaneous crowd of church-people; on the left, kings and princes in various cos- tumes. They are surrounded by a wilderness of flowering shrubs, lilies, and other plants. On the wings of the picture numerous worshippers move toward the place of worship,— crusaders, knights, kings, and princes, including the figures of the two artists on horseback. “Here, approaching from all sides, are seen that ‘great multitude of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues’—the holy warriors and the holy pil- grims, coming in solemn processions from afar—with other throngs already arrived in the celestial plain, clothed in white robes, and holding palms in their hands. Their forms are like unto ours; the landscape around them is a mere transcript of the sweet face of our outer nature; the graceful wrought-iron foun- tain in the midst is such an one as still sends forth its streams in an ancient Flemish city; yet we feel these creatures to be