Excerpt from A Dominican Artist: A Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Père Besson of the Order of St. Dominic

God saw every thing that He had made, and behold it was very good 3 and from that time the wondrous gift of a creative power has been bestowed upon men, a power so exquisite, so precious, so mighty for good to him who possesses it, and to all who come under its spell, that it may indeed be called akin to grace. That among men too often noblest things find vilest using, is a sorrowful truth, and heavy is his guilt who turns the heaven-sent gifts of genius to aught save God's glory, and the good of men. But art, true creative power, as it is part of that noble heritage bestowed on man when the ever-blessed Trinity vouchsafed to make him in Our Image, after Our Likeness, - so it is one of the noblest offerings of praise and adoration which the creature can offer to his Creator, - a lavish outpouring of all the gold, myrrh, and frankincense of his mind's treasures, every line, every tint, every beautiful outward expres sion of the inward conception of loveliness, offered up as a mighty hymn of thanksgiving, a great Sursum corda, -in heathen art, it may be to a great unknown God, - in Christian art to Him Who is the fount and source of all beauty, and to Whose worship all in beauty turns again, as waters ¿ow onwards to the sea.

Akin to grace, art seems most certainly to have been in the case of the young artist whose short career and early death (he was called to his happy rest when only forty-five) are lovingly narrated by the artist-friend who was as a brother to him, and a son to his mother - M. E. Cartier, -whose writings have done so much to set Christian art in its highest form before the nineteenth century.

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