Slain for me, of sinners vilest,
Loving Lord, on me Thou smilest:
Shine, bright face, and strengthen me!



[4] I am aware that many of my readers will demur that I am confounding
Christianity with ascetic or monastic Christianity; yet I cannot read the
New Testament, the _Imitatio Christi_, the _Confessions_ of S. Augustine,
and the _Pilgrim's Progress_ without feeling that Christianity in its
origin, and as understood by its chief champions, was and is ascetic. Of
this Christianity I therefore speak, not of the philosophised
Christianity, which is reasonably regarded with suspicion by the orthodox
and the uncompromising. It was, moreover, with Christianity of this
primitive type that the arts came first into collision.

[5] Titian's "Assumption of the Virgin" at Venice, Correggio's
"Coronation of the Virgin" at Parma.

[6] Domenichino, Guido, Ribera, Salvator Rosa.

[7] Not to quote again the _Imitatio Christi,_ it is enough to allude to
S. Francis as shown in the _Fioretti_.

[8] The difficulty of combining the true spirit of piety with the ideal
of natural beauty in art was strongly felt by Savonarola. Rio (_L'Art
chrétien_, vol. ii. pp. 422-426) has written eloquently on this subject,
but without making it plain how Savonarola's condemnation of life studies
from the nude could possibly have been other than an obstacle to the
liberal and scientific prosecution of the art of painting.