The Christian Remembrancer (Volume 15)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: a consecrated building. We do not gain from representations of even the noblest actions of the lives of saints an equally high sense of the change which has taken place in those who have gone before us as examples, with that which results from their mysterious influence when drawn up, as it were, in inactive, passionless rows, watching ceaselessly and unwearied the devotions of those who are ever less ready to pray than God to hear. These latter teach us more truly the relation between the departed and ourselves. ' The Saints are there, the Living Dead, The Mourners glad and strong; The sacred floor their quiet bed, Their beams from every window shed Their voice in every song.' Lyra Innocentium (Church Windows). The terrible details of a martyrdom, for instance, call our thoughts indeed to the sufferer, and awaken a due admiration of his fortitude, a due abhorrence of his persecutors' malice. But the still effigy, divested of all action connected with the events and conduct of life on earth, and shadowing, so far as is lawful, the condition of life in heaven?the face cleared from all emotion and all sense of self?the attitude of benediction or warning concerning those who remain behind?all these point with peculiar precision and impressiveness to the preparation we must enter upon for the things to come. When we have made our determination respecting the adoption of groups or single figures, when we have resolved on the degree of historical action which our figures shall display, there yet remain several questions to be considered either in borrowing from ancient examples or in original design. There is the great question, what the subject of the design shall be, what must be excluded on principles of faith or taste, and what will best serve the highest purposes of...