. Legends of the monastic orders : as represented in the fine arts. nculcated by precept, by example,by all pressure from without, leaving us unsustained fromwithin ?—without guide as to the relative value of our duties,until we are made to believe that Gods earth and Godsheaven are necessarily open to each other ? A woman thus ST. CLARA. 275 timid in conscience, thus unstable in faith, untaught toreason, with feelings suppressed, rather than controlled and regulated,—whither shall she carry her perplexed life? where lay down the burden of her responsibility ? May shenot be forgiven, if, like
. Legends of the monastic orders : as represented in the fine arts. nculcated by precept, by example,by all pressure from without, leaving us unsustained fromwithin ?—without guide as to the relative value of our duties,until we are made to believe that Gods earth and Godsheaven are necessarily open to each other ? A woman thus ST. CLARA. 275 timid in conscience, thus unstable in faith, untaught toreason, with feelings suppressed, rather than controlled and regulated,—whither shall she carry her perplexed life? where lay down the burden of her responsibility ? May shenot be forgiven, if, like Clara, she yield up her responsibilityto her Maker into other hands, and lay down her life inorder that she may find it ? But we must return from this moral digression to theeffigies of St. Clara. From early times she has been considered as a type of reli-gious feeling, a personification of female piety; and I haveseen figures which, no doubt, were intended to represent in her personal character, as saint, mistaken forallegorical figures of When she bears the palm (as in this effigy, after the fineintarsiatura in the choir of San Francesco di Assisi), it is not 276 LEGENDS OF THE MONASTIC ORDERS. Rome. Gal. as martyr. It is the palm of victory over suffering, perse-cution, and temptation. Or it may represent here the palmbranch which was taken from the altar and placed in herhand. In the very ancient portrait in herchurch at Assisi, which bears the dateof 1281, and the name of Martin IV.,pope, she carries a cross.—I give asketch made on the spot. She also bears the lily; and is dis-tinguished from the numerous femalesaints who bear the same emblem byher grey habit, and the cord of , which stamp her identity atonce. In devotional pictures she is gene-rally young, beautiful, and with apeculiar expression of soft resigna-tion. She wears the habit of herOrder, the grey tunic, the knottedgirdle, and the black veil. Her properattrib
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