a particular scene. It shall be from Luke. This evangelist has been
fabled a painter, and in the apotheosis of the old Church he was made
the tutelar patron of that class of artists. If the individuality of his
conceptions, the skill of his groupings, and the graphicness gave rise
to such an idea, it would seem to have its foundation as well in Nature
as in superstition. Matthew has more detail, more thought; Luke is more
picturesque, more descriptive. John has more deep feeling; Luke more
action, more life. The Annunciation, the Widow of Nain, the Prodigal Son,
the Good Samaritan, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the incident to which
we shall presently advert, are found in Luke alone.

The incident in question is the dining of Christ at the house of Simon
the Pharisee, and, while they were reclining at meat, the entrance of a
woman which was a sinner, who bathes the feet of Jesus with tears, and
wipes them with the hair of her head. The place is the city of Nain; the
hour noon. The _dramatis personae_ are three,--Jesus, Simon, and the
Woman,--and, if we choose to add them, the other guests, who are silent
spectators of what transpires.

Let, us consider, first, the Woman. She "was a sinner." This is all, in
fact, that we know of her; but this is enough. The term "sinner," in
this instance, as in many others, does not refer to the general apostasy
in Adam; it is distinctive of race and habit. She was probably of
heathen extraction, as she was certainly of a dissolute life. The poetry
of sin and shame calls her the Magdalen, and there may be a convenience
in permitting this name to stand. The depth of her depravity Christ
clearly intimates in his allusion to the debtor who owed five hundred
pence, and the language of Simon teaches that the infamy of her life was
well understood among the inhabitants of the city. If a foreigner, she
had probably been brought into the country by the Roman soldiers and