"And I have passed up this Via Dolorosa toward the very harvesting itselftoward those great plains stretching away on the banks of the River Aisne, where the second act of this drama of battles is at this moment being played.

The only way to attain that knowledge of the Infinite Law which will change the Via Dolorosa into the Path of Joy is to embody in ourselves a principle of knowledge commensurate with the infinitude of that which is to be known; and this is accomplished by realizing that, infinite as the law itself, is a universal Intelligence in the midst of which we float as in a living ocean.

"O Holy Mater Dolorosa!

the days grew over-full of pain, and Marina came more often to the Mater Dolorosa, for the little Zuane had not grown stronger with the coming of the spring; sleep came to him more easily, but it did not bring refreshment, and the roses on his cheeks were only signs of failing bloom.

"Filia dolorosa.

But even out of this confusion we shall find the whole Pantheon organized about two central shrines,those of the Mater Dolorosa and the Dominus Salvator,which are represented also in Christendom, though detached from natural symbols, in the connection of Christianity with the worship of the Virgin.

From this necessity of his earthly birth, the connection of the Saviour-Child with the Mater Dolorosa becomes universal,finding its counterpart in the Assyrian Venus with babe in arm, in Isis suckling the child Horus, and even in the Scandinavian Disa at Upsal accompanied by an infant.

At intervals, white shrines with tiny roofs harbored mosaics of glazed tiles depicting the Stations on the Via Dolorosa.

Among these are "Medusa," a bronze bust; and a "Mater Dolorosa," in terra-cotta.

The MATER DOLOROSA seated and standing, with the Seven Swords.

Morales and Ribera excelled in the Mater Dolorosa; and who has surpassed Murilio in the tender exultation of maternity?

When Michael Angelo was reproached with representing his Mater Dolorosa much too young, he replied that the perfect virtue and serenity of the character of Mary would have preserved her beauty and youthful appearance long beyond the usual period.

4. LA MADRE DOLOROSA.

MATER DOLOROSA.

The features are properly those of a woman in middle age; but in later times the sentiment of beauty predominated over that of the mother's agony; and I have seen the sublime Mater Dolorosa transformed into a merely beautiful and youthful maiden, with such an air of sentimental grief as might serve for the loss of a sparrow.

The usual attitude of the Mater Dolorosa by the crucifix is that of intense but resigned sorrow; the hands clasped, the head declined and shaded by a veil, the figure closely wrapped in a dark blue or violet mantle.

This is the true conception of the sublime hymn, "Stabat Mater Dolorosa Juxta crucem lachrymosa Dum pendebat filius.

2. The dead form, half emerging from the tomb, is sustained in the arms of the Mater Dolorosa.

When, with the Mater Dolorosa and St. John, Mary Magdalene is introduced with her dishevelled hair, the group ceases to be properly a Pietà, and becomes a representation rather than a symbol.

In such a position she is the idealized Mater Dolorosa, the Daughter of Jerusalem, the personified Church mourning for the great Sacrifice; and this view of the subject I have already discussed at length.

This is a form of the Mater Dolorosa which is very uncommon, and must be regarded as exceptional, and ideal, unless we are to consider it as a study and an incomplete group.

I have already spoken at length of this form of the Mater Dolorosa; the historical version of the same subject is what we have now to consider, but only so far as regards the figure of the Virgin.

In conclusion, I must notice one more form of the Mater Dolorosa, one of the dramatic conceptions of the later schools of art; as far as I knew, there exist no early examples.

When she entered on this journey she resembled the girl faces of Greuze; now she is sometimes a mater amabilis, and sometimes a mater dolorosa; for her grief has been to her as a maternity.

And to think of seein' the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, that He walked, carryin' the agony of humanity, and the pityin' compassion of divinity.