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have redeemed Israel,”¹ their sorrow became suddenly hopeless; a gulf of horror opened, almost at unawares, under their feet; and in the poignancy of her astonied despair, it was no marvel that the agony of the Madonna in the “Pieta” became subordinately associated in the mind of the early Church with that of their Lord Himself;-a type of consummate human suffering.²

¹ [Luke xxiv. 21.]

² [Lord Lindsay’s identification (Christian Art, vol. ii. p. 192) of the different figures in this design is as follows: “The body rests on the knees of the Virgin, who clasps the neck with her arms and bends forward to give it the last caress, her face disfigured by intense sorrow; Mary Magdalen supports the feet, Mary, sister of Lazarus, on the further side, clasps the hands,-Martha and the women from Galilee stand in bitter grief to the left: two figures in green and yellow drapery, their faces muffled up and invisible, sit with their backs towards the spectators, most impressive in their silent immobility; while St. John, who seems to have just returned to the mourning group, leans forward as if addressing the Virgin, pointing upwards with his right hand, and with his left to Nicodemus and Nathaniel, standing at the right extremity of the compartment, as if saying, ‘All is now ready’-for the interment.”-ED. 1899.]

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