th possible to all the intelligences of the universe. But the
distinctively Human sins, anger and lust, seeds in our race of their
perpetual sorrow--Christ in His own humanity, conquered; and conquers
in His disciples. Therefore His foot is on the heads of these; and the
prophecy, "Inculcabis super Leonem et Aspidem," is recognized always
as fulfilled in Him, and in all His true servants, according to the
height of their authority, and the truth of their power.

35. In this mystic sense, Alexander III. used the words, in restoring
peace to Italy, and giving forgiveness to her deadliest enemy, under
the porch of St. Mark's.[56] But the meaning of every act, as of every
art, of the Christian ages, lost now for three hundred years, cannot
but be in our own times read reversed, if at all, through the
counter-spirit which we now have reached; glorifying Pride and Avarice
as the virtues by which all things move and have their being--walking
after our own lusts as our sole guides to salvation, and foaming out
our own shame for the sole earthly product of our hands and lips.

[Footnote 56: See my abstract of the history of Barbarossa and
Alexander, in 'Fiction, Fair and Foul,' '_Nineteenth Century_,'
November, 1880, pp. 752 _seq._]

36. Of the statue of Christ, itself, I will not speak here at any
length, as no sculpture would satisfy, or ought to satisfy, the hope of
any loving soul that has learned to trust in Him; but at the time, it
was beyond what till then had been reached in sculptured tenderness; and
was known far and near as the "Beau Dieu d'Amiens."[57] Yet understood,
observe, just as clearly to be no more than a symbol of the Heavenly
Presence, as the poor coiling worms below were no more than symbols of
the demoniac ones. No _idol_, in our sense of the word--only a letter,
or sign of the Living Spirit,--which, however, was indeed conceived by
every worshipper as here meeting him at the temple gate: the Word of
Life, the King of Glory, and the Lord of Hosts.

[Footnote 57: See account, and careful drawing of it, in Viollet le
Duc--article "Christ," Dict. of Architecture, iii. 245.]

"Dominus Virtutum," "Lord of Virtues,"[58] is the best single rendering
of the idea conveyed to a well-taught disciple in the thirteenth
century by the words of the twenty-fourth Psalm.

[Footnote 58: See the circle of the Powers of the Heavens in the
Byzantine rendering. I. Wisdom; II. Thrones; III. Dominations; IV.
Angels; V. Arc