an and our difference of opinion out of my head. What, I asked
myself, are the differences that unhappily divide Christendom, and what
are those that divide Christendom from modern schools of thought, but a
seeing of Joachims as the Virgin's grandmothers on a larger scale? True,
we cannot call figures Joachim when we know perfectly well that they are
nothing of the kind; but I registered a vow that henceforward when I
called Joachims the Virgin's grandmothers I would bear more in mind than
I have perhaps always hitherto done, how hard it is for those who have
been taught to see them as Joachims to think of them as something
different. I trust that I have not been unfaithful to this vow in the
preceding article. If the reader differs from me, let me ask him to
remember how hard it is for one who has got a figure well into his head
as the Virgin's grandmother to see it as Joachim.

A MEDIEVAL GIRL SCHOOL {8}

This last summer I revisited Oropa, near Biella, to see what connection I
could find between the Oropa chapels and those at Varallo. I will take
this opportunity of describing the chapels at Oropa, and more especially
the remarkable fossil, or petrified girl school, commonly known as the
_Dimora_, or Sojourn of the Virgin Mary in the Temple.

If I do not take these works so seriously as the reader may expect, let
me beg him, before he blames me, to go to Oropa and see the originals for
himself. Have the good people of Oropa themselves taken them very
seriously? Are we in an atmosphere where we need be at much pains to
speak with bated breath? We, as is well known, love to take even our
pleasures sadly; the Italians take even their sadness _allegramente_, and
combine devotion with amusement in a manner that we shall do well to
study if not imitate. For this best agrees with what we gather to have
been the custom of Christ himself, who, indeed, never speaks of austerity
but to condemn it. If Christianity is to be a living faith, it must
penetrate a man's whole life, so that he can no more rid himself of it
than he can of his flesh and bones or of his breathing. The Christianity
that can be taken up and laid down as if it were a watch or a book is
Christianity in name only. The true Christian can no more part from
Christ in mirth than in sorrow. And, after all, what is the essence of
Christianity? What is the kernel of the nut? Surely common sense and
cheerfulness, with unflinching opposition to