Heretofore Matt Morgan has been known only as a painter of admirable theatre scenery; but now he comes before the world with a big Scriptural picture, thirty or forty feet wide, and as high as two or three men. In it are hundreds of people.
In the rear, on the right, we see the Mount of Olives, over which Jesus has journeyed hither. He has dismounted, and stands by the side of the ass upon which he has been riding. The beast's nose disturbs the face of a woman, who is helping a mother who presents her dead child to Jesus to be raised to life. This gives the keynote of the picture, for which Morgan is partly indebted to the highly colored descriptions, not wholly accurate, in Wallace's story of Ben Hur, in which the biography of Jesus is retold, with many details and additions. The Master touches the child with his right hand, while his left is raised towards Heaven in invocation. He is clad in white, as are many others. Indeed, white is a common hue in Oriental crowds, both for robe and turban. Near Jesus, or coming towards him, are old and young invalids, demoniacs, cripples, epileptics, lepers, paralytics, the deformed, the blind, the deaf, the dumb. In fact many, if not all, of the recorded miracles are here pictured or suggested.
Fronded palm-branches lie on the ground, and the distant crowd are bringing others from the wooded hills, whence they were later uprooted by the Roman conquerors, when Jerusalem was destroyed. The populace are shouting their friendliness, and some are beckoning their friends to come nearer. In the midst are negroes, who seek a blessing from him who knew no distinction of race or creed.
Jesus' enemies are there also. The haughty priest looks on in scorn, which his companions and coworkers reflect in their own faces; but they make no attempt to interrupt Jesus, or restrain his healing work. There is a Roman ruler, detailed perhaps for police duty, as there was to be such a noisy crowd; and beside him is a Greek girl, with the same twist of the hair, and loose garment, which fashion is again making popular.
The beholder feels in this picture a lack of the depth and color which are so noticeable in Munkacsy's grand works, Christ on Calvary and Christ before Pilate; but it is a noble painting nevertheless, and one which every Christian Scientist should see; for it is the very epitome of their faith, that Jesus and his religion save men in body as well as thought, by removing them from the belief of sickness as well as sin, and that, too, without lotion or lancet.
Do not fail, as you enter Horticultural Hall, Boston, to note the reflection of the picture, especially of its central figure, in the mirrors on the sides of the room. The arm of Jesus seems to move, owing to a flaw in the glass plate. When you are in front of the picture itself, observe the reclining figure in the foreground. You can scarcely believe the sick man to be only a part of the picture, and flat on the canvas. Surely he must be in relief! Such is the power of mind as we gaze at pictures, even when we know them to be pictures. A painted devil is very devilish to the disordered mind of man. Observe the clay-hued leper, also. How ghastly his face! How the whole picture "is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," — of mortal mind, which ever engenders sin and misery, — not of the Divine Mind, in which there is Life forever-more, as in the Christ.
