Our Fathers Have Told Us Part 16

26, C. The Lord's temple desolate (i. 4).

The falling of the temple, "not one stone left on another," grandly loose. Square stones again. Examine the text (i. 6).

26, D. "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts" (i. 7).

Christ pointing up to His ruined temple.

27. ZECHARIAH.

27, A. The lifting up of Iniquity (v. 6 to 9).

Wickedness in the Ephah.

27, B. "The angel that spake to me" (iv. 1).

The prophet almost reclining, a glorious winged angel hovering out of cloud.

28. MALACHI.

28, A. "Ye have wounded the Lord" (ii. 17).

The priests are thrusting Christ through with a barbed lance, whose point comes out at His back.

28, B. "This commandment is to _you_" (ii. 1).

In these panels, the undermost is often introductory to the one above, an ill.u.s.tration of it. It is perhaps chapter i. verse 6, that is meant to be spoken here by the sitting figure of Christ, to the indignant priests.

44. With this bas-relief terminates the series of sculpture in ill.u.s.tration of Apostolic and Prophetic teaching, which const.i.tutes what I mean by the "Bible" of Amiens. But the two lateral porches contain supplementary subjects necessary for completion of the pastoral and traditional teaching addressed to her people in that day.

The Northern Porch, dedicated to her first missionary St. Firmin, has on its central pier his statue; above, on the flat field of the back of the arch, the story of the finding of his body; on the sides of the porch, companion saints and angels in the following order:--

CENTRAL STATUE.

ST. FIRMIN.

_Southern (left) side._

41. St. Firmin the Confessor.

42. St. Domice.

43. St. Honore.

44. St. Salve.

45. St. Quentin.

46. St. Gentian.

_Northern (right) side._

47. St. Geoffroy.

48. An angel.

49. St. Fuscien, martyr.

50. St. Victoric, martyr.

51. An angel.

52. St. Ulpha.

45. Of these saints, excepting St. Firmin and St. Honore, of whom I have already spoken,[67] St. Geoffroy is more real for us than the rest; he was born in the year of the battle of Hastings, at Molincourt in the Soissonais, and was Bishop of Amiens from 1104 to 1150. A man of entirely simple, pure, and right life: one of the severest of ascetics, but without gloom--always gentle and merciful. Many miracles are recorded of him, but all indicating a tenour of life which was chiefly miraculous by its justice and peace. Consecrated at Rheims, and attended by a train of other bishops and n.o.bles to his diocese, he dismounts from his horse at St. Acheul, the place of St. Firmin's first tomb, and walks barefoot to his cathedral, along the causeway now so defaced: at another time he walks barefoot from Amiens to Picquigny to ask from the Vidame of Amiens the freedom of the Chatelain Adam. He maintained the privileges of the citizens, with the help of Louis le Gros, against the Count of Amiens, defeated him, and razed his castle; nevertheless, the people not enough obeying him in the order of their life, he blames his own weakness, rather than theirs, and retires to the Grande Chartreuse, holding himself unfit to be their bishop. The Carthusian superior questioning him on his reasons for retirement, and asking if he had ever sold the offices of the Church, the Bishop answered, "My father, my hands are pure of simony, but I have a thousand times allowed myself to be seduced by praise."

[Footnote 67: See ante Chap. I., pp. 5-6, for the history of St.

Firmin, and for St. Honore p. 95, -- 8 of this chapter, with the reference there given.]

46. St. Firmin the Confessor was the son of the Roman senator who received St. Firmin himself. He preserved the tomb of the martyr in his father's garden, and at last built a church over it, dedicated to our Lady of martyrs, which was the first episcopal seat of Amiens, at St. Acheul, spoken of above. St. Ulpha was an Amienoise girl, who lived in a chalk cave above the marshes of the Somme;--if ever Mr.

Murray provides you with a comic guide to Amiens, no doubt the enlightened composer of it will count much on your enjoyment of the story of her being greatly disturbed at her devotions by the frogs, and praying them silent. You are now, of course, wholly superior to such follies, and are sure that G.o.d cannot, or will not, so much as shut a frog's mouth for you. Remember, therefore, that as He also now leaves open the mouth of the liar, blasphemer, and betrayer, you must shut your own ears against _their_ voices as you can.

Of her name, St. Wolf--or Guelph--see again Miss Yonge's Christian names. Our tower of Wolf's stone, Ulverstone, and Kirk of Ulpha, are, I believe, unconscious of Picard relatives.

47. The other saints in this porch are all in like manner provincial, and, as it were, personal friends of the Amienois; and under them, the quatrefoils represent the pleasant order of the guarded and hallowed year--the zodiacal signs above, and labours of the months below; little differing from the constant representations of them--except in the May: see below. The Libra also is a little unusual in the female figure holding the scales; the lion especially good-tempered--and the 'reaping'

one of the most beautiful figures in the whole series of sculptures; several of the others peculiarly refined and far-wrought. In Mr.

Kaltenbacher's photographs, as I have arranged them, the bas-reliefs may be studied nearly as well as in the porch itself. Their order is as follows, beginning with December, in the left-hand inner corner of the porch:--

41. DECEMBER.--Killing and scalding swine. Above, Capricorn with quickly diminishing tail; I cannot make out the accessories.

42. JANUARY.--Twin-headed, obsequiously served. Aquarius feebler than most of the series.

43. FEBRUARY.--Very fine; warming his feet and putting coals on fire. Fish above, elaborate but uninteresting.

44. MARCH.--At work in vine-furrows. Aries careful, but rather stupid.

45. APRIL.--Feeding his hawk--very pretty. Taurus above with charming leaves to eat.

46. MAY.--Very singularly, a middle-aged man sitting under the trees to hear the birds sing; and Gemini above, a bridegroom and bride. This quatrefoil joins the interior angle ones of Zephaniah.

52. JUNE.--Opposite, joining the interior angle ones of Haggai.

Mowing. Note the lovely flowers sculptured all through the gra.s.s. Cancer above, with his sh.e.l.l superbly modelled.

51. JULY.--Reaping. Extremely beautiful. The smiling lion completes the evidence that all the seasons and signs are regarded as alike blessing and providentially kind.

50. AUGUST.--Threshing. Virgo above, holding a flower, her drapery very modern and confused for thirteenth-century work.

49. SEPTEMBER.--I am not sure of his action, whether pruning, or in some way gathering fruit from the full-leaved tree. Libra above; charming.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MARY.]

48. OCTOBER.--Treading grapes. Scorpio, a very traditional and gentle form--forked in the tail indeed, but stingless.

47. NOVEMBER.--Sowing, with Sagittarius, half concealed when this photograph was taken by the beautiful arrangements always now going on for some job or other in French cathedrals:--they never can let them alone for ten minutes.

48. And now, last of all, if you care to see it, we will go into the Madonna's porch--only, if you come at all, good Protestant feminine reader--come civilly: and be pleased to recollect, if you have, in known history, material for recollection, this (or if you cannot recollect--be you very solemnly a.s.sured of this): that neither Madonna-worship, nor Lady-worship of any sort, whether of dead ladies or living ones, ever did any human creature any harm,--but that Money worship, Wig worship, c.o.c.ked-Hat-and-Feather worship, Plate worship, Pot worship and Pipe worship, have done, and are doing, a great deal,--and that any of these, and all, are quite million-fold more offensive to the G.o.d of Heaven and Earth and the Stars, than all the absurdest and lovingest mistakes made by any generations of His simple children, about what the Virgin-mother could, or would, or might do, or feel for them.

49. And next, please observe this broad historical fact about the three sorts of Madonnas.