Our Fathers Have Told Us Part 14

between seraphim.

13, B. "Lo, this hath touched thy lips" (vi. 7).

The Angel stands before the prophet, and holds, or rather held, the coal with tongs, which have been finely undercut, but are now broken away, only a fragment remaining in his hand.

14. JEREMIAH.

14, A. The burial of the girdle (xiii. 4, 5).

The prophet is digging by the sh.o.r.e of Euphrates, represented by vertically winding furrows down the middle of the tablet. Note, the translation should be "hole in the ground," not "rock."

14, B. The breaking of the yoke (xxviii. 10).

From the prophet Jeremiah's neck; it is here represented as a doubled and redoubled chain.

15. EZEKIEL.

15, A. Wheel within wheel (i. 16).

The prophet sitting; before him two wheels of equal size, one involved in the ring of the other.

15, B. "Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem" (xxi. 2).

The prophet before the gate of Jerusalem.

16. DANIEL.

16, A. "He hath shut the lions' mouths" (vi. 22).

Daniel holding a book, the lions treated as heraldic supporters. The subject is given with more animation farther on in the series (24, B).

16, B. "In the same hour came forth fingers of a Man's hand" (v. 5).

Belshazzar's feast represented by the king alone, seated at a small oblong table. Beside him the youth Daniel, looking only fifteen or sixteen, graceful and gentle, interprets. At the side of the quatrefoil, out of a small wreath of cloud, comes a small bent hand, writing, as if with a pen upside down on a piece of Gothic wall.[64]

For modern bombast as opposed to old simplicity, compare the Belshazzar's feast of John Martin!

[Footnote 64: I fear this hand has been broken since I described it; at all events, it is indistinguishably shapeless in the photograph (No. 9 of the series).]

43. The next subject begins the series of the minor prophets.

17. HOSEA.

17, A. "So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver and an homer of barley" (iii. 2).

The prophet pouring the grain and the silver into the lap of the woman, "beloved of her friend." The carved coins are each wrought with the cross, and, I believe, legend of the French contemporary coin.

17, B. "So will I also be for thee" (iii. 3).

He puts a ring on her finger.

18. JOEL.

18, A. The sun and moon lightless (ii. 10).

The sun and moon as two small flat pellets, up in the external moulding.

18, B. The barked fig-tree and waste vine (i. 7).

Note the continual insistance on the blight of vegetation as a Divine punishment, 19 D.

19. AMOS.

_To the front._

19, A. "The Lord will cry from Zion" (i. 2).

Christ appears with crossletted nimbus.

19, B. "The habitations of the shepherds shall mourn" (i. 2).

Amos with the shepherd's hooked or knotted staff, and wicker-worked bottle, before his tent. (Architecture in right-hand foil restored.)

_Inside Porch._

19, C. The Lord with the mason's line (vii. 8).

Christ, again here, and henceforward always, with crosslet nimbus, has a large trowel in His hand, which He lays on the top of a half-built wall. There seems a line twisted round the handle.

19, D. The place where it rained not (iv. 7).

Amos is gathering the leaves of the fruitless vine, to feed the sheep, who find no gra.s.s. One of the finest of the reliefs.

20. OBADIAH.

_Inside Porch._

20, A. "I hid them in a cave" (1 Kings xviii. 13).

Three prophets at the mouth of a well, to whom Obadiah brings loaves.

20, B. "He fell on his face" (xviii. 7).

He kneels before Elijah, who wears his rough mantle.

_To the front._

20, C. The captain of fifty.