For girdle, she has the Franciscan’s cord; but that also is white, as if spun of silk; her whole figure, like a statue of snow, seen against the shade of her purple wings: for she is already one of the angels. A crowd of them, on each side, attend her; two, her sisters, are her bridesmaids also. Giotto has written their names above them—Spes; Karitas;—their sister’s Christian name he has written in the lilies, for those of us who have truly learned to read. Charity is crowned with white roses, which burst, as they open, into flames; and she gives the bride a marriage gift.
“An apple,” say the interpreters.
Not so. It was some one else than Charity who gave the first bride that gift. It is a heart.
Hope only points upwards; and while Charity has the golden nimbus round her head circular (infinite), like that of Christ and the eternal angels, she has her glory set within the lines that limit the cell of the bee,—hexagonal.
And the bride has hers, also, so restricted: nor, though she and her bridesmaids are sisters, are they dressed alike; but one in red; and one in green; and one, robe, flesh and spirit, a statue of Snow.
“La terza parea neve, teste mossa.”
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Do you know now, any of you, ladies mine, what Giotto’s lilies mean between the roses? or how they may also grow among the Sesame of knightly spears?
Not one of you, maid or mother, though I have besought you these four years, (except only one or two of my personal friends,) has joined St. George’s Company. You probably think St. George may advise some different arrangements in Hanover Square? It is possible; for his own knight’s cloak is white, and he may wish you to bear such celestial appearance constantly. You talk often of bearing Christ’s cross; do you never think of putting on Christ’s robes,—those that He wore on Tabor? nor know what lamps they were which the wise virgins trimmed for the marriage feast? You think, perhaps, you can go in to that feast in gowns made half of silk, and half of cotton, spun in your Lancashire cotton-mills; and that the Americans have struck oil enough—(lately, I observe also, native gas,)—to supply any number of belated virgins?
It is not by any means so, fair ladies. It is only your newly adopted Father who tells you so. Suppose, learning what it is to be generous, you recover your descent from God, and then weave your household dresses white with your own fingers? For as no fuller on earth can white them, but the light of a living faith,—so no demon under the earth can darken them like the shadow of a dead one. And your modern English ‘faith without works’ is dead; and [[216]]would to God she were buried too, for the stench of her goes up to His throne from a thousand fields of blood. Weave, I say,—you have trusted far too much lately to the washing,—your household raiment white; go out in the morning to Ruth’s field, to sow as well as to glean; sing your Te Deum, at evening, thankfully, as God’s daughters,—and there shall be no night there, for your light shall so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify—not Baal the railroad accident—but