of external nature flowing _into_ it; the comprehensive power of fancy
using more and more the apprehensive power of imitation, and both
working together till their "blended might" achieved its full fruition
in the works of Raphael.

* * * * *

Early in the fifteenth century, the Council of Constance (A.D. 1414),
and the condemnation of Huss, gave a new impulse to the worship of the
Virgin. The Hussite wars, and the sacrilegious indignity with which
her sacred images had been treated in the north, filled her orthodox
votaries of the south, of Europe with a consternation and horror
like that excited by the Iconoclasts of the eighth century, and were
followed by a similar reaction. The Church was called upon to assert
more strongly than ever its orthodox veneration for her, and, as a
natural consequence, votive pictures multiplied, the works of the
excelling artists of the fifteenth century testify to the zeal of the
votaries, and the kindred spirit in which the painters worked.

Gerson, a celebrated French priest, and chancellor of the university
of Paris, distinguished himself in the Council of Constance by the
eloquence with which he pleaded for the Immaculate Conception, and the
enthusiasm with which he preached in favour of instituting a festival
in honour of this mystery, as well as another in honour of Joseph,
the husband of the Virgin. In both he was unsuccessful during his
lifetime; but for both eventually his writings prepared the way.
He also composed a Latin poem of three thousand lines in praise of
Joseph, which was among the first works published after the invention
of printing. Together with St. Joseph, the parents of the Virgin, St.
Anna more particularly, became objects, of popular veneration, and