The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1905-10-27
COT. wArresson Anp rae aaesls.

COT. WATTERS0n AND TIE AaeEiS.
There it q note of tragedy in the
incident of Gutzen Borglum's destruc-
ton of the two angels he had wrought
out of stone for the adornment of the
cathedral of St. John the Divine.
The angels represented the Annuncia-
ton and the Resurrection, and the
sculptor had created them with fig
ures and faces of women. Piqued by
the criticisms the statues had evoked
from ministers and priests, who held
that whole great company of angels
are men. he seized a chisel and shat
tered the craven images. Only the
artist or those who sympathize with
the yearnings and hopes of the artist
can grasp the pangs that must have
shot through the sculptor's heart as
he wrecked those works of his hands.
He had lavished love upon those two
angels; each day brought its elatiOn
as more and more the hard slabs
grew into ikenesseS of women; zeal
and ambition entered into the labor;
he hoped to gain new fame with
the statutes and at least he ex-
pected the commentator of the
churchmen for whom he wrought.
But in an instant his days of toll and
nights of longing went for naught. A
few blows with mallet and chisel and
the statutes were no more.
Tragedy it was undoubtedly. The
statement of Borglum himself indi-
Gates plainly the wound he suffers:
81 am absolutely astounded," says
he, 'that any clergyman could stand
in the presence of thirty or forty
images of purely religious and
spiritual character and see nothing
in them but sex, and now that the
whole unpleasant matter is over I am
just as sure as ever that the feminine
side of our race must ever continue
to be our chief source of artistic in
spiration and will so remain, abso-
| lutely unaltered by all pedantic con-
troversies-'
Now the churchmen may proceed
| to have new angels-bearded angels,
| trousered angels substituted for the
outcasts whose offense lay in the cir
| cumstance that they were women.
But, backed as they may be by pas
| sages from Scripture, and victorious
as they may be in the acquision OF
| men angels, they will not have made
a better argument than the lofty and
penetrating words of the sculptor
| just quoted. To him, as to most
artists, tine figure of a young woman,
| of everything in the world, is the
| highest and best possible symbol OF
beauty, spirituality and celestial
grace. The figure of man is regard
ed as the embodyment of authority,
strength and material achievement.
Why not choose, then, the feminine
form for these images of angels?
With all the research and pedantry
asserted by the churchmen, there are
those who will consider their fastidi-
BUSINESS narrow and arbitrary There
| is much logic in thu belief that there
are women angels, Bible or no Bible,
| as there is in the belief that there are
| men angels.
1t is beyond the range of the aver
| age comprehension or reason TO sup
| pose that He that doeth all things
| we'll should bestOW the radiance and
eninence of angels only upon men,
| disdaining thus sex whose virtues
and deeds have brought comforts to
| countless millions of Gods children
and whose labors have done as much
for the glory of the heavenly king
| dom as those to whom the New York
| churchmen ascribe monopoly of
angelic dignity. Surely sex afford
ing so many angels on earth is not
without representative angels in
l heaven. ManV beniphted folk he