He creates Adam: nothing more grand is there in the whole realm of art
than this magnificent figure, perfect in everything save the reception
of the breath of eternal life; his eyes are waiting for the Divine spark
that will leap into them when God's finger shall touch his own. He
creates Eve. In Paradise they sin, and are driven out by angels with
flaming swords. Then, a sad sequence to the parents' weakness, Cain
murders his brother Abel. The flood comes and destroys all their
descendants save Noah. He who has withstood evil is saved with his
family in the ark, and becomes the father of a new race."

"And do the pictures at the corners, and the single figures, have
anything to do with this subject?" asked Malcom, after a pause, during
which all were busy following the thoughts awakened by Mr. Sumner's
words.

[Illustration: MICHAEL ANGELO. SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME.

THE DELPHIAN SIBYL.]

"Yes, indeed; nothing here is foreign to the one great thought of the
painter. The four irregular spaces at the corners are filled with
representations of important deliverances of the Jewish people from
evil,--David slaying Goliath, the hanging of Haman, the serpent raised
in the wilderness, and Judith with the head of Holofernes. The
connection in Michael Angelo's mind evidently was that God, who had
always provided a help for His people, would also in His own time give
a Saviour from their sins.

"Ranged along the sides you see seven prophets and five sibyls: the
prophets foretold Christ's coming to the Jewish world, and the sibyls