in a rainbow mist, broken by splashes of
yellow flame from great wax candles in immense golden candlesticks,
rising from the floor and steps of the altar, as from the altar itself.
From great brass censers, swinging low by exquisite Venetian chainwork,
fragrant smoke curled upward, crossing with slender rays of blue the
gold webwork of the sunlight; and on either side golden lanterns rose
high on scarlet poles, above the heads of the friars who crowded the
church.

On the bishop's throne, surrounded by the bishops of the dioceses of
Venice, sat the Patriarch, who had been graciously permitted to honor
this occasion, as it had no political significance; and opposite him Fra
Marco Germano, the head of the order of the Frari, presided in a state
scarcely less regal.

His splendid gift, the masterpiece of Titian, had been fitted into the
polished marble framework over the great altar, and never had the master
so excelled himself as in this glorious "Assumption." The beauty, the
power, the persuasive sense of motion in the figure of the Madonna,
which seemed divinely upborne,--the loveliness of the infant cherubs,
the group of the Apostles solemnly attesting the mysterious event,--were
singularly and inimitably impressive, full of aspiration and faith,
compelling the serious recognition of the sacredness and greatness of
the Christian mystery.

The choir-screen terminated in pulpits at either side, and here again
the Apostles stood in solemn guardianship on its broad parapet--but
emblems, rather; of the stony rigidity of doctrines which have been
shaped by the minds of men from some little phase of truth, than of that
glowing, spiritualized, human sympathy which, as the soul of man grows
upward into comprehension, is the apostle of an ever widening truth. And
over the richly sculptured central arch which forms the entrance to the
choir, against the incongruous glitter of gold and jewels and
magnificent garments and lights and sumptuous, overwrought details--the
very extravagance of the Renaissance--a great black marble crucifix bore
aloft the most solemn Symbol of the Christian Faith.

The religious ceremonial with which the festival had opened was over,
and down the aisles on either side, past the family altars, with their
innumerable candles and lanterns and censers,--ceaselessly smoking in
memorial of the honored dead,--the brothers of the Frari and the Servi
marched in solemn procession to the chant of the acolytes,