The Altar: Or Meditations in Verse on the Great Christian Sacrifice (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Altar: Or Meditations in Verse on the Great Christian Sacrifice

The poetry which has been 1ntroduced has for the most part no other connexion with the general design, than that it takes the various subjects of our Lord's Passion for the objects 'of devout con templation, as they successively arise in the pictures. In the illustrations of the Communion Service the cope has been substituted for the dress usually worn. It being the ecclesiastical garb required by our canon in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, and still in use at our coronations, maybe a su icient sanction for its introduction; but it has not been used merely for these reasons, norm order to recommend the adoption of it, whether advisable or not; but it mav be remarked of such pictures, as of forms of speech, that the more antiquated and foreign (to use Aristotle's expression) are often most suitable to poetry, especially on subjects of the affections. With regard to the Opposite side of these pictures, it may be taken to represent the Communion of Saints, knit together in one Body, as partaking of that one Bread; and holding the Head as signified by the Prayers which are successively inserted between the two figures. The introduction of so many of these names into our own calendar is a sufficient indication that we may be allowed in some measure to consider as our' own such Saints of the Universal Church.

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