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Alabaster Blue Sectory 10
Page 05
The fifth chapel represents the birth of the Virgin. Having obtained permission to go inside it, I found the date 1715 cut large and deep on the back of one figure before baking, and I imagine that this date covers the whole. There is a Queen Anne feeling throughout the composition, and if we were told that the sculptor and Francis Bird, sculptor of the statue in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, had studied under the same master, we could very well believe it. The apartment in which the Virgin was born is spacious, and in striking contrast to the one in which she herself gave birth to the Redeemer. St. Anne occupies the centre of the composition, in an enormous bed; on her right there is a lady of the George Cruikshank style of beauty, and on the left an older person. Both are gesticulating and impressing upon St. Anne the enormous obligation she has just conferred upon mankind; they seem also to be imploring her not to overtax her strength, but, strange to say, they are giving her neither flowers nor anything to eat and drink. I know no other birth of the Virgin in which St. Anne wants so little keeping up.
Care must be taken, however, not to over-emphasize this extremist tendency. In some respects, I am convinced that it is more apparent than real. The appearance is due to the silent passivity even of those who are really opposed to the new departure. It is natural that the advocates of some new policy should be enthusiastic and noisy. To give the impression to an outsider that the new enthusiasm is universal, those who do not share it have simply to keep quiet. This takes place to some degree in every land, but particularly so in Japan. The silence of their dissent is one of the striking characteristics of the Japanese. It seems to be connected with an abdication of personal responsibility. How often in the experience of the missionary it has happened that his first knowledge of friction in a church, wholly independent and self-supporting and having its own native pastor, is the silent withdrawal of certain members from their customary places of worship. On inquiry it is learned that certain things are being done or said which do not suit them and, instead of seeking to have these matters righted, they simply wash their hands of the whole affair by silent withdrawal.
Dr. B. Dernburg says that the one-sidedness of the Belgian inclination is indicated by the placing of all Belgian fortresses on the eastern frontier. The distinguished statesman (apparently confused by the ardor of discussion) has already in another article, published in The Independent of Dec. 7, 1914, placed Antwerp at the mouth of the Rhine; today he places Namur on the German frontier, whereas that fortress is situated near the frontier of France. There are three fortresses in Belgium--Antwerp, Liege, and Namur. Antwerp is in the north, Liege in the east, and Namur in the south. Namur, being near the French frontier, could menace Germany only in case the Germans should have penetrated about one-third of Belgium. It is, in fact, a fortress against France.
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