JUXTAPOSITION
John Addington Symonds, in his Renaissance Period in Italy, tells of an incident that befell him in a little country town of Lombardy. He was poking around in the littered shop of an old antiquarian when the proprietor disappeared into his bedroom, took from the wall a wooden crucifix, and returning, handed it to him for inspection. It was some twenty inches long, tipped with brass at the ends. The body of Christ was roughly carved in the reddish wood, with a splash of scarlet on hands and feet and side. From an oval medallion the Madonna softly smiled. “As I held it in my hands,” writes Mr. Symonds, “I reflected that, in all probability, this had been carried to the bedside of the sick and dying. Preachers had brandished it before conscience-stricken congregations. Monks had knelt before it. Criminals had kissed it on their way to the scaffold. The owner remarked gently: ‘I bought this cross from the Frate when the convent…
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