. Legends of the monastic orders : as represented in the fine arts. saultson the Mendicant Friars, that we usually forget that, till thedays of Martin Luther, the Church had never seen so greatand effectual a reform as theirs. . Nothing in the historiesof Wesley or of Whitfield can be compared with the enthu-siasm which everywhere welcomed them, or with the immediateand visible result of their labours. In an age of oligarchialtyranny, they were the protectors of the weak; in an age ofignorance, the instructors of mankind ; and in an age of pro-fligacy, the stern vindicators of the holiness of
. Legends of the monastic orders : as represented in the fine arts. saultson the Mendicant Friars, that we usually forget that, till thedays of Martin Luther, the Church had never seen so greatand effectual a reform as theirs. . Nothing in the historiesof Wesley or of Whitfield can be compared with the enthu-siasm which everywhere welcomed them, or with the immediateand visible result of their labours. In an age of oligarchialtyranny, they were the protectors of the weak; in an age ofignorance, the instructors of mankind ; and in an age of pro-fligacy, the stern vindicators of the holiness of the sacerdotalcharacter and the virtues of domestic life. If an earnest English Protestant could thus write of themin the nineteenth century, we may be permitted to look withsome sympathy and respect on the effigies which commemor-ated what they were—what they acted and suffered, duringthe thirteenth and fourteenth; and this in spite of theirdingy draperies, and what Southey pleasantly calls their4 bread and water expression. LEGENDS OF THE MONASTIC • 45 A Franciscan. (Zurbaran.) The Franciscans. In pictures painted for the Franciscans, we expect of courseto find, conspicuous in their grey or brown habits, and girdedwith the knotted cord, the worthies of their own in entering a church or convent belonging to anyof the Franciscan communities, whether under the nameof Minorites, Capuchins, Minims, Observants, Recollects,the first glance round the walls and altars will probablyexhibit to us, singly or grouped, or attending on theMadonna, their eight principal saints, called in Italian ICardini deW Ordine Serqfico;— The Chiefs of the SeraphicOrder. In the first and highest place St. Francis, as the PadreSerqfico, patriarch and founder. THE FRANCISCANS. St. Clara, as the Madre Serafica, first Franciscan nun andfoundress of the Povere Donne (Poor Clares). St. Bonaventura, il Dottore Serqfico, the great prelateof the Order, sometimes as a simple Franciscan fri
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