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it as modern.¹ But this merit of the statue is here of little consequence,-the power of it being wholly in its meaning.

St. Theodore represents the power of the Spirit of God in all noble and useful animal life, conquering what is venomous, useless, or in decay: he differs from St. George in contending with material evil, instead of with sinful passion: the crocodile on which he stands is the Dragon of Egypt; slime-begotten of old, worshipped in its malignant power, for a God. St. Theodore’s martyrdom was for breaking such idols;² and with beautiful instinct Venice took him in her earliest days for her protector and standard-bearer, representing the heavenly life of Christ in men, prevailing over chaos and the deep.

With far more than instinct,-with solemn recognition, and prayerful vow, she took him in the pride of her chivalry, in mid-thirteenth century, for the master of that chivalry in their gentleness of home ministries. The “Mariegola” (Mother-Law) of the school of St. Theodore, by kind fate yet preserved to us,³ contains the legend they believed, in its completeness, and their vow of service and companionship in all its terms.

24. Either of which, if you care to understand,-several other matters and writings must be understood first; and, among others, a pretty piece of our own much boasted,-how little obeyed,-Mother-Law, sung still by statute⁴ in our churches at least once in the month; the eighty-sixth

¹ [When the Theodore statue was also taken down, it was found to consist of “many different pieces. The only true antique is the thorax with its carved cuirass, which must have belonged to some late Roman portrait statue” (see In and Around Venice, p. 87).]

² [For the Venetian legend of St. Theodore, see Fors Clavigera, Letter 75.]

³ [The original MS. is in the Correr Museum (see p. 233, No. 111, of the catalogue). It was first described by Ruskin’s friend, Edward Cheney, in his privately printed (see above, p. 187) Remarks on the Illuminated Manuscripts of the Venetian Republic, 1868, p. 13.]

⁴ [Ruskin refers, in Two Paths also (Vol. XVI. p. 398), to the Act of Uniformity of 1662, which enacts “that all and singular ministers in any cathedral, collegiate, or parish church or chapel, or other place of public worship ... shall be bound to say and use the Morning prayer, Evening prayer, celebration and administration of both the Sacraments, and all others the public and common prayer in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book annexed and joined to this present Act, and instituted The Book of Common Prayer,” etc.]

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