other doors all centres: the
Glorification of Our Lord, as Saint John beheld it at Patmos; the
Apocalypse, the last book of the Bible, spread open on the forefront of
the basilica, above the grand entrance to the church.

"Jesus is seated, on His head the cruciform nimbus, robed in the linen
talaris and draped in a mantle which hangs in a fall of close pleats;
His bare feet rest on a stool, emblematical of the earth, according to
Isaiah. With one hand He blesses the world; in the other He holds the
Book with the seven Seals. About him, in the oval glory or _Vesica_, we
see the Tetramorph--the four evangelical emblems with closely fretted
wings: the winged cherub, the lion, the eagle, and the ox, figuring St.
Matthew, St. Mark, St. John, and St. Luke. Above are the twelve Apostles
holding scrolls and books.

"And to complete the Apocalyptic vision, in the hollow mouldings of the
arch are the twelve Angels and four and twenty Elders described by St.
John, in white raiment and crowned with gold, playing on musical
instruments, and singing in the perpetual adoration which some few
souls, dwelling isolated in the midst of the indifference of this age,
still carry on. They magnify the glory of the Most High, throwing
themselves on their faces when the Evangelical Beasts, responding to the
fervent and solemn prayers that go up from the earth, utter, in a voice
that resounds above the roar of thunder, the word which in its four
letters, its two syllables, sums up every duty of man to God--the
humble, loving, obedient _Amen_.

"The text has been very closely followed by the image-maker, excepting
with regard to the Beasts, for one detail is omitted; they are not
represented with the eyes of which the prophet tells us they were 'full
within.'

"Thus, regarding this whole front as a triptych, we find that in the
left doorway we have the Ascension framed in the signs of the zodiac; in
the middle, the triumph of Jesus as described by the Seer; on the right,
the triumph of Mary, surrounded by certain of Her attributes. The whole
constitutes the scheme to be carried out by the architect: the
Glorification of the Incarnate Word.

"In fact, as the Abbe Clerval says in his important work on the
cathedral of Chartres, 'we have the scenes of His life which prepared
the way for His glory; we have this actual entrance into glory; and then
His eternal glorification by the Angels, the Saints, and the Blessed
Virgin.'

"From the point o