Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/606

588 and as in the Hunter and Dog; indulged, as scarcely before seen in the same intensity in the whole range of sculpture, as in the meeting of Ilero and Leander, a drawing executed before he left England. Gibson’s power of drawing may be pronounced to have been unsurpassed by any modern. He had an iron hand, and used the pen in rapid action with as much certainty as if it had been the graver. Nowhere is the ﬁre of his genius so unmistakably seen as in these ﬁrst-hand productions. Nor can we wonder that marble, however highly wrought, could never entirely compensate for what was necessarily lost in the translation. Gibson was the ﬁrst to introduce colour on his statues,—-ﬁrst, as a mere border to the drapery of a portrait statue of the Queen, and by degrees extended to the entire ﬂesh, as in his Venus, and in the Cupid tormenting the Soul, belonging to Mr Holford. In both of these it amounts to no more than the slightest tint. libson’s individuality was too strongly marked to be affected by any outward circumstances. In all worldly affairs and business of daily life he was simple and guileless in the extreme 3 but he was resolute in matters of principle, determined to walk straight at any cost of personal advantage. Unlike most artists, he was neither nervous nor irritable in temperament. It was said of him that he made the heathen mythology his religion 3 and indeed in serenity of nature, feeling for the beautiful, and a certain philosophy of mind, he may be accepted as a type of what a pure-minded Greek pagan, in the zenith of Greek art, may have been. Gibson was elected ILA. in 1836, and bequeathed all his property and the contents of his studio to the Iloyal Academy, where his marbles and casts are open to the public. He died at Rome in January 1866.

1em  GICHTEL, (1638–1710), founder of the mystic sect of Gichtelians or Angelic Brethren, was born at Ratisbon, where his father was a member of senate, on the 11th of March 1638. Having acquired at school, besides an ordinary elementary education, a considerable acquaintance with Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and even Arabic, he proceeded to Strasburg to study divinity 3 but ﬁnding that the theological prelections of Schmidt and Spener there were not conducive to the growth of his piety, he removed to Spires, where he entered the faculty of law. In 1664 he was admitted an advocate at Batisbon 3 but having become acquainted with the Baron von Weltz, an Hungarian noble- man who cherished enthusiastic if not extravagant schemes for the reunion of Christendom and the conversion of the world, he abandoned all interest in his profession, and became an energetic promoter of the “ Christerbauliche J esusgesellschaft,” or Christian Edification Society of Jesus, in the interests of which he visited many parts of Germany and Holland. The movement in its beginnings provoked at least no active hostility; but when Gichtel began to attack the teaching of the Lutheran clergy and church, especially upon the fundamental doctrine of justiﬁcation by faith, he exposed himself to a prOSecntion which ulti- mately resulted in sentence of banishment and confiscation (1665). After many months of wandering and occasionally romantic adventure, he in January 1667 reached Holland, and settled at Zwoll, where he co-operated with Breckling, a man who shared his views and aspirations. become involved in the troubles of this friend, Gichtel, after a period of imprisonment, was banished for a term of years from Zwoll, but ﬁnally in 1668 found a home in Amster- dam, where in a state of poverty (which, however, never became. destitution), he lived out his strange life of visions and day-dreams, of prophecy and prayer. He became a:‘. ardent student and disciple of Jacob Boehme, whose works he published in 1682 (Amsterdam, 2 vols.) 3 but before the time of his death, which occurred January 21, 1710, he had attracted to himself a. small band of followers known as Gichtelians or Angelic Brethren, who propagated certain views at which he had arrived independently of Boelnue. Seeking ever to hear the authoritative voice of God within them, and endeavouring to attain to a life. altogether free from carnal desires, like that of “the angels in heaven, who neither marry nor are given in marriage,” they claimed to exercise a priesthood “after the order of Melchizedek,” appeasing the wrath of God, and ransoming the souls of the lost by sufferings endured vicariously after the example of Christ. The sect, never a numerous one, is said still to subsist in some districts of Holland and North (lei-many. Gichtel’s correspondence was published without his know- ledge by Gottfried Arnold, a disciple, in 1701 (2 vols), and again in 1708 (3 vols). It has been frequently reprinted under the title I'lzcosoplzia Practice. The seventh volume of the Berlin edition (1768) contains a notice of Gichtcl’s life.  GIDEON, liberator, reformer, and “judge” of Israel, was the youngest son of J cash, of the “house ” of Abiczer, and tribe of Manasseh, and had his home at Ophrah, the site of which is probably to be sought westward of Jordan. somewhat to the south of the plain of J ezreel. Gideon lived at a time when Israel, grown idolatrous, had been brought very low by periodic incursions of the “Midianites” and “ Amalekites,” nomad tribes from the east of Jordan, who in great numbers were wont to overrun the country, destroy— ing all that they could not carry away. In the beginning of the narrative of his public life he is represented as an unambitious man, quietly engaged in agricultural pursuits, who yet had already distinguished himself as a “mighty man of valour,” probably in guerilla warfare against the common foe. According to that narrative, his first exploit worthy of special commemoration was the destruction, by divine command, of the altar of Baal belonging to his father, and of the Ashera beside it, and the substitution of an altar to Jehovah. But immediately before this he had also been summoned by “the angel of the Lord" to undertake, in dependence on supernatural direction and help, the work of liberating his country from its long opln'ession, and, in token that he accepted the mission, had already erected in Ophrah an altar which he called “ J ahveh-Shalom ” (Jehovah is prosperity). The great gathering of the Midianites and their allies on the north side of the plain of J ezreel “stretch- ing from the hill of March”; the general muster ﬁrst of Abiezer, then of all Manasseh, and lastly of the neighbour- ing tribes of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali 3 the signs by which the wavering faith of Gideon was steadied 3 the methods by which an unwieldy mob was reduced to a small but trusty band of energetic and determined men 3 and the stratagem by which the vast army of Midian was surprised and routed by the handful of Israelites descending from “above Endor,” are indicated with sufﬁcient clearucss in the Scripture narrative, and need not be detailed minutely here. There is some difﬁculty in following the account of the subsequent ﬂight of the Midianites, which seems to have taken place in two directions,——Oreb and Zeeb making for the lower fords of Jordan towards the south-east, while Zebah and Zalmunna took the upper passage, a little below ' the place where the river ﬂows out of the Sea of Galilee. Leaving the Ephraimites (who had now risen in force) to deal with the former, Gideon with his 300 appears to have kept up the pursuit of the latter to Nobah and J ogbehah, points beyond Succoth and Penuel, where a bloody contest resulted in the destruction of that portion of the Midianitc army, and in the ultimate capture and execution of Zebah and