High altar

“ The high altar, or retablo, alone might pass for a church; it is an enormous accumulation of small columns, niches, statues, foliage, and arabesques, of which the most minute description would give but a faint idea; all this sculpture, which extends up to the vaulted roof and all around the sanctuary, is painted and gilded with unimaginable wealth. ”

“ The perspective on first entering the church is very striking: the eye ranges without interruption, through a vista of lofty pillars and pointed arches, to the splendid altar in the Lady-Chapel, which forms at once an admirable termination to the building and the prospect. The high altar in the choir is plain and insulated. ”

“ In its sort, the high altar, a gigantic triune, with massive twisted columns and swagger statues of saints and heroes in painted wood, is a prodigy of inventive piety, and compositely has a noble exaltation in its powerful lift to the roof. ”

“ In the daytime a rich shadowy light is thrown into the church by the excellent disposition of its windows; at eventide the sheen of the setting sun, caught by the western window, falls like a bright flood down the nave, and makes the scene beautiful. The high altar is a fine piece of workmanship; is of Gothic design, is richly carved, is ornamented with marbles, has a canopy of most elaborate construction, and is in good harmony with the general architecture. ”

“ Just here, for we were coming toward the high altar, 21Antanazio dropped upon his knees, on the marble floor. A little bell had been rung, and all the Catholics in the cathedral bent to the ground as the host was elevated for their adoration in the celebration of the mass. We stood before the high altar, resplendent above and about it with wrought silver and gold and rich carving and sculpture, in which the life and death of the blessed Saviour are inscribed in mute yet expressive symbols. ”

“ And when you spoke to me, I did not know
That to my life's high altar came its priest. ”

“ In one corner of the nave clung a few swallows' nests, the occupants of which had remained for the service, and in their own way were joining in the Sanctus. It was evident that the floor of the choir above, the confessional, chancel, and praying-benches, had been made by common home carpenters. The baptismal font had never seen a stone-cutter, nor the high altar a sculptor. But there were taste and design in everything. The altar was a high, dignified table, reached by three broad steps. ”

“ On the left of the high altar stands a magnificent one of our Lady of Lourdes. The side walls all around are grandly frescoed, and the ceiling is painted a beautiful sky blue, with white clouds here and there, out of which peep lovely bright angels. The oil paintings on the side walls of this church must have cost thousands of dollars each, they are so large, richly mounted and life-like in their execution. The grand altar, like the church, is Corinthian in shape, and literally glittered with lights on the morning I saw it. ”

“ The great height of the nave, with the light and graceful form of the columns and arches, produce an admirable effect, to which the high altar, the carved stone pulpit, and the large organ do no violence. It is one of those buildings you could linger in for hours, contemplating now its fair proportions, now the old tombs and monuments, and quaint devices of the sculptor's art. Below the floor at the eastern end is an underground chapel, a century older than the church itself, hewn out of the solid rock. Preaching is held in it once a year. ”

“ Now of these arrangements I confess that I myself prefer the apse to all others. No other plan gives such dignity to the high altar, or makes it so evidently the central and crowning point of the whole church. There is undoubtedly great [Pg 131] stateliness in such an arrangement as that of York and Lincoln; but its good effect is almost wholly confined to the outside. The high altar seems to have come where it is by accident; its position is marked by a mere screen, not by anything in the arrangement of the building itself. ”

“ Under the high altar is an ample grot inlaid with pietra-commessa, wherein half of the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul are preserved; before hang divers great lamps of the richest plate, burning continually. About this and contiguous to the altar, runs a balustrade, in form of a theater, of black marble. Toward the left, as you go out of the church by the portico, a little beneath the high altar, is an old brass statue of St. Peter sitting, under the soles of whose feet many devout persons rub their heads, and touch their chaplets. ”

“ The effect of the clear morning light, as imparted to the interior through this great surface of delicately-tinted glass, is remarkably beautiful. The high altar, a marvel of splendid workmanship and minute detail, is yet a little confusing, from the myriads of statues, groups, emblems, columns, gilding, and ornaments generally; but it seems to be the purpose of most of these Roman Catholic churches to turn the altars into a species of museum. Guides are always plentifully supplied with marvelous legends for travelers ”

“ In some instances the object must have been to see the celebrant at a chantry altar only, without reference to the high altar at all, and some are so small that one person only could look through the opening at the same time. ”

“ Its altar, for example, is one of the most lofty in Christendom, the choir rising from the nave by a long flight of steps, and the altar being elevated, in like manner, very high above the level of the choir. The several ascents and various levels of the Church, instead of too much breaking its whole, seem to add an air of vastness and sublimity to the general design. But when one surveys, now the nave, and looks upwards into the tower, and along the far-sweeping vaultings, and now the choir and its intersecting arches and vistas ”

“ It is not very easy to fix the positions of the seven altars, described in the record of their consecration. The high Altar, dedicated in honour of the Blessed Virgin, St. Michael the archangel, St. John the Evangelist, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Benedict, occupied the position wherein now is placed the altar-table. The two altars which are described as in the choir, were, probably, one at the eastern extremity of the north aisle thereof, dedicated in honour of St. ”

“ The service being ended, the said two monks carried the cross to the sepulchre with great reverence, which sepulchre was set up in the morning on the north side of the quire, nigh the high altar, before the service time, and they did lay it within the said sepulchre with great devotion, with another picture of our Saviour Christ, in whose Breast they did enclose, with great reverence, the most holy and blessed Sacrament of the Altar, censing and praying unto it upon their knees, a great space ”

“ It was connected with the altar by means of a predella, or altar-step, similar to the predella of modern altars, for candelabra, on which the Apostles or other saints were depicted. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the influence of the Renaissance effected another change in the form of the altar. Porticoes, modelled after the triumphal arches of antiquity, with statues in high and low relief, took the place of the reredos, and more costly materials, such as rare marbles, were employed in their construction. ”

“ At last the god cometh!
The air runs over with splendor;
The fire leaps high on the altar;
Melodious thunders shake the ground.
Hark to the Delphic responses!
Hark! it is the god! ”

“ When I stand at Thine Altar, grant that I may have the profoundest sense of Thy Presence; take me, as it were, out of the world; shut the gate of my heart against it; lift up my spirit; let the house of prayer be unto me as a heavenly place; let the very rails of the altar remind me of my especial separation from the world; may I feel myself to be on holy ground; I cannot draw nearer unto Thee on the earth, may I feel Thy nearness. Till me with a sense of my own sins and Thy great love, of my own unworthiness and Thy mercy; for who can tell the love wherewith Thou hast loved us ”

“ The dark wood background of the stalls and canopies, elaborately carved and polished and enriched with mosaics, each surmounted with its benediction of a gilded winged cherub's head, framed a splendid figure in sacerdotal robes. Through the small, octagonal panes of the little windows encircling the choir—row upon row, like an antique necklace of opals set in frosted stonework—the sunlight slanted in a rainbow mist, broken by splashes of yellow flame from great wax candles in immense golden candlesticks, rising from the floor and steps of the altar, as from the altar itself. ”

“ He drives his spear-beam through him for wasted
day.
Little men hurrying, running here and there,
Within the dark and stifling walls, dissent
From every sound, and shoulder empty hods:
"The God's great altar should stand in the crypt
Among our earth's foundations "—"The God's great altar
Must be the last far coping of our work"—
"It should inaugurate the broad main stair"—
"Or end it"—"It must stand toward the East!"
[Pg 58] But here a grave contemptuous youth cries out
"Womanish babblers, how can we build God's altar
Ere we divine its foreordained true shape?" ”

“ Advancing to the central altar you look upon as beautiful a sight as the imagination of man can conceive. You are in the middle of the holy place, and above you the great white marble dome (for the inner skin, like the outer, is of polished marble throughout) arches away in graceful curves something like that of St Paul’s in London, only at a slighter angle, and from the funnel-like opening at the exact apex a bright beam of light pours down upon the golden altar. At the east and the west are other altars, and other beams of light stab the sacred twilight to the heart. ”

“ Easily imagined is the hallowed aspect of the lofty fane when the last rays of the sun shot redly within, suffused the altar in a crimson haze, and glowed upon the burnished ornaments and the carvings of veined marble and whitest stone ”

“ We offer on the earthly Altar the same Sacrifice that is being perpetually offered on the Heavenly Altar. There is only one Altar, only one Sacrifice, one Eucharist—"one offering, single and complete". All the combined earthly Altars are but one Altar—the earthly or visible part of the Heavenly Altar on which He, both Priest and Victim, offers Himself as the Lamb "as it had been slain". The Heavenly Altar is, as it were, the centre, and all the earthly Altars the circumference. We gaze at the Heavenly Altar through the Earthly Altars. ”

“ The roof is lofty, and is made of teak. The room is of the usual oblong shape, but at the further end a magnificent altar-like shrine stretches from side to side. The sides of this valuable altar are covered with gold-leaf and gilded glass, which lose a little of their dazzling brilliancy, though they gain in depth of colour, in the subdued light of the interior. Small prachadees in clusters stand at the same end of the temple, all heavily gilt. ”

“ It is a fine study of color and effect, and the groupings are admirable; but the whole affair is nearly lost to the mass of spectators. It must be a sublime feeling to one in the procession to walk about in such monstrous fine clothes; but what would his emotions be if more people could see him! The grand altar stuck up under the dome not only breaks the effect of what would be the fine sweep of the nave back to the apse, but it cuts off all view of the celebration of the mass behind it, and, in effect, reduces what should be the great point of display in the church to a mere chapel. ”

“ It is in fact no more than a simple adaptation of the old notion, that the ark stood upon that stone and that the stone took the place of the altar. To identify the altar in the church and the sacrament with the fundamental events in the life and the teachings of Jesus is in perfect accord with the allegorical and mystical interpretations indulged in since ancient times. The mass in the oriental church has throughout only a symbolical meaning, and the Grail partakes thus of a double interpretation. ”

“ That glows on holier altars; what we sought
With thought, heart, mind, seems dust, and we aspire
To win some sure good, some guerdon holier, higher.
Thou art an altar, where the human soul
Pays God the tribute of its prayer and praise ”

“ To such secret places is the body of Hippolytus conveyed, near to the spot where now stands the altar dedicated to God. That same altar-slab (mensa) gives the sacrament, and is the faithful guardian of its martyrs' bones, which it keeps laid up there in expectation of the Eternal Judge, while it feeds the dwellers by the Tiber with holy food. Wondrous is the sanctity of the place! The altar is at hand for those who pray, and it assists the hopes of men by mercifully granting what they need. ”

“ The church, a spacious edifice, crowns the height above the market-place. After walking twice round it, I discovered a small door in an angle, which being unfastened gave me admittance. The interior, with its worn and uneven brick floor, has somewhat of a neglected look, not unusual in Protestant churches; but there are a few good paintings, and the altar-piece, representing the Crucifixion, shows the hand of a master. I was quite alone, and could explore as I pleased. The altar rises to a great height, adorned with statues, and crowned by figures of angels. ”