with woful groups of aged men and women, wasted and feverstruck, fixed in paralytic supplication, half-kneeling, halfcouched upon the pavement; bowed down, partly in feeble ness, partly in a fearful devotion, with their grey clothes cast far over their faces, ghastly and settled into a gloomy animal misery, all but the glittering eyes and muttering lips. Fit inhabitants, these, for what was once the Garden of Venice, "a terrestrial paradise,-a place of nymphs and demigods !" * § XXXIX. We return, yet once again, on the following day. Worshippers and objects of worship, the sickly crowd and gilded angels, all are gone; and there, far in the apse, is seen the sad Madonna standing in her folded robe, lifting her hands in vanity of blessing. There is little else to draw away our thoughts from the solitary image. An old wooden tablet, carved into a rude effigy of San Donato, which occupies the central niche in the lower part of the tribune, has an interest of its own, but is unconnected with the history of the older church. The faded frescoes of saints, which cover the upper tier of the wall of the apse, are also of comparatively recent date, much more the piece of Renaissance workmanship, shaft and entablature, above the altar, which has been thrust into the midst of all, and has cut away part of the feet of the Madonna. Nothing remains of the original structure but the semidome itself, the cornice whence it springs, which is the same as that used on the exterior of the church, and the border and face-arch which surround it. The ground of the dome is of gold, unbroken except by the upright Madonna, and usual inscription, MR OV. The figure wears a robe of blue, deeply fringed with gold, which seems to be gathered on the head and thrown back on the shoulders, crossing the * "Luogo de' ninfe e de' semidei."-M. Andrea Calmo, quoted by Muti. nelli, Annali Urbani di Venezia (Venice, 1841), p. 362. breast, and falling in many folds to the ground. The under robe, shown beneath it where it opens at the breast, is of the same color; the whole, except the deep gold fringe, being simply the dress of the women of the time. "Le donne, anco elle del 1100, vestivano di turchino con manti in spalla, che le coprivano dinanzi e di dietro."* Round the dome there is a colored mosaic border; and on the edge of its arch, legible by the whole congregation, this inscription: 66 QUOS EVA CONTRIVIT, PIA VIRGO MARIA REDEMIT; HANC CUNCTI LAUDENT, QUI CRISTI MUNERE GAUDENT."† The whole edifice is, therefore, simply a temple to the Virgin to her is ascribed the fact of Redemption, and to her its praise. § XL. "And is this," it will be asked of me, "the time, is this the worship, to which you would have us look back with reverence and regret ?" Inasmuch as redemption is ascribed to the Virgin, No. Inasmuch as redemption is a thing desired, believed, rejoiced in, Yes,-and Yes a thousand times. As far as the Virgin is worshipped in place of God, No; but as far as there is the evidence of worship itself, and of the sense of a Divine presence, Yes. For there is a wider division of men than that into Christian and Pagan: before we ask what a man worships, we have to ask whether he worships at all. Observe Christ's own words on this head: *"The women, even as far back as 1100, wore dresses of blue, with mantles on the shoulder, which clothed them before and behind."—Sansovino. It would be difficult to imagine a dress more modest and beautiful. See Appendix 7. t "Whom Eve destroyed, the pious Virgin Mary redeemed; Vide Appendix 8. "God is a spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit, and in truth." The worshipping in spirit comes first, and it does not necessarily imply the worshipping in truth. Therefore, there is first the broad division of men into Spirit worshippers and Flesh worshippers; and then, of the Spirit worshippers, the farther division into Christian and Pagan,-worshippers in Falsehood or in Truth. I therefore, for the moment, omit all inquiry how far the Mariolatry of the early church did indeed eclipse Christ, or what measure of deeper reverence for the Son of God was still felt through all the grosser forms of Madonna worship. Let that worship be taken at its worst; let the goddess of this dome of Murano be looked upon as just in the same sense an idol as the Athene of the Acropolis, or the Syrian Queen of Heaven; and then, on this darkest assumption, balance well the difference between those who worship and those who worship not; -that difference which there is in the sight of God, in all ages, between the calculating, smiling, self-sustained, selfgoverned man, and the believing, weeping, wondering, struggling, Heaven-governed man;-between the men who say in their hearts "there is no God," and those who acknowledge a God at every step, "if haply they might feel after Him and find Him." For that is indeed the difference which we shall find, in the end, between the builders of this day and the builders on that sand island long ago. They did honor something out of themselves; they did believe in spiritual presence judging, animating, redeeming them; they built to its honor and for its habitation; and were content to pass away in nameless multitudes, so only that the labor of their hands might fix in the sea-wilderness a throne for their guardian angel. In this was their strength, and there was indeed a Spirit walking with them on the waters, though they could not discern the form thereof, though the Master's voice came not to them, "It is I." What their error cost them, we shall see hereafter; for it remained when the majesty and the sincerity of their worship had departed, and remains to this day. Mariolatry is no special characteristic of the twelfth century; on the outside of that very tribune of San Donato, in its central recess, is an image of the Virgin which receives the reverence once paid to the blue vision upon the inner dome. With rouged cheeks and painted brows, the frightful doll stands in wretchedness of rags, blackened with the smoke of the votive lamps at its feet; and if we would know what has been lost or gained by Italy in the six hundred years that have worn the marbles of Murano, let us consider how far the priests who set up this to worship, the populace who have this to adore, may be nobler than the men who conceived that lonely figure standing on the golden field, or than those to whom it seemed to receive their prayer at evening, far away, where they only saw the blue clouds rising out of the burning sea. CHAPTER IV. ST. MARK'S. § I. 1. "AND S Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus." If as the shores of Asia lessened upon his sight, the spirit of prophecy had entered into the heart of the weak disciple who had turned back when his hand was on the plough, and who had been judged, by the chiefest of Christ's captains, unworthy thenceforward to go forth with him to the work,* how wonderful would he have thought it, that by the lion symbol in future ages he was to be represented among men ! how woful, that the war-cry of his name should so often reanimate the rage of the soldier, on those very plains where he himself had failed in the courage of the Christian, and so often dye with fruitless blood that very Cypriot Sea, over whose waves, in repentance and shame, he was following the Son of Consolation! II. That the Venetians possessed themselves of his body in the ninth century, there appears no sufficient reason to doubt, nor that it was principally in consequence of their having done so, that they chose him for their patron saint. There exists, however, a tradition that before he went into Egypt he had founded the Church at Aquileia, and was thus, in some sort, the first bishop of the Venetian isles and people. I believe that this tradition stands on nearly as good grounds * Acts, xiii. 13.; xv. 38, 39. |