great mission to fulfil,
that his work had somewhat to do with a mighty kingdom. Never for a
moment did she lose sight of these things as she "pondered them in her
heart." Her highest joy was to present him to the world for the
fulfilment of his calling.

As a subject of art, this phase of the Madonna's character requires a
mode of treatment quite unlike that of the Mater Amabilis or the Madre
Pia. The attitude and expression of the Virgin are appropriate to her
office as the Christ-bearer. Both mother and child, no longer
absorbed in each other, direct their glance towards the people to whom
he is given for a witness. (Isaiah 55:4.) These may be the spectators
looking at the picture, or the saints and votaries filling the
composition. The mother's lap is the throne for the child, from which,
standing or sitting, he gives his royal blessing.

It will be readily understood that so lofty a theme can not be common
in art. In our own day, it has, with the Madre Pia, passed almost
entirely out of the range of art subjects; modern painters do not try
such heights. Franz Defregger is alone in having made an honest and
earnest effort, not without success, to express his conception of the
theme. To his Enthroned Madonna at Doelsach, and his less well-known
Madonna in Glory, let us pay this passing word of honor.

To approach our subject in the most systematic way, we will go back to
the beginnings of Madonna art. Mrs. Jameson tells us that the group of
Virgin and Son was, in its first intention, a _theological symbol_,
and not a _representation_. It was a device set up in the orthodox
churches as a definite formalization of a creed. The first Madonnas
showed none of the aspects of ordinary motherhood in attitude,
gesture, or expression. The theological element in the picture was the
first consideration. We may take as a representative case the Virgin
Nike-peja (of Victory), supposed to be the same which Eudocia, wife of
the Emperor Theodosius II., discovered in her travels in Palestine,
and sent to Constantinople, whence it was finally brought to St.
Mark's, Venice. The Virgin--a half-length figure--holds the child in
front of her, like a doll, as if exhibiting him to the gaze of the
worshippers before the altar over which the picture hung. Both faces
look directly out at the spectator, with grave and stiff solemnity.

The progress of painting, and the growing love of beauty, at length
wrought a change. The time came when a