Again, the very position of our blessed Saviour on the Cross as represented in the great rood and in stained glass, is not without a meaning. In modern paintings, the arms are high above the head, the whole weight of the body seeming to rest upon them. And this, besides its literal truth, gives occasion to that miserable display of anatomical knowledge in which such pictures so much abound. The Catholic representation pictures the arms as extended horizontally: thereby signifying how the Saviour, when extended on the Cross, embraced the {lxxxvii} whole world. [Footnote 56] Thus, as it ever ought to be, is physical sacrificed to moral truth. Perhaps for a similar reason S. Longinus is represented as piercing the Right Side, instead of the Left: and in a representation of the Five Wounds, it is the right side of the breast that is pierced (as in a brass at Southfleet, Kent); that being the side of the greatest strength, and thereby typifying the strength of that love wherewith our Redeemer loved us. [But this may be doubted. For it appears pretty clear that the ancient Church considered the Right Side to have been that which was really pierced. According to modern ideas, the effusion of the water was not a miracle. S. John undoubtedly considered it not only a miracle, but one of the most extraordinary which he had to relate, seeming to stop the mouth of the objector by insisting on the fact, that he himself was an eye-witness.] In some old roods, a still further departure was made from literal truth: the Saviour was represented on the Cross, as a crowned king, arrayed in royal apparel. [Footnote 57] And his figure was constantly represented as larger than that of His attendants, His Blessed Mother, and S. John, thereby signifying his immeasurable superiority over the highest of human beings. [Footnote 56: However, in late stained glass, the modern position is sometimes found as in a Crucifixion represented in the east window of the north aisle, in Wiscombe church, Somersetshire. ] [Footnote 57: To this we may add the conventional representation of Royal Saints, such as S. Edmund, wearing their kingly crowns during their passion. That such conventional symbolism is _natural_ to us may be shown by alluding (without irreverence in this connection) to the way in which kings are always figured with crown and orb in popular prints: and even, as in a sign-post at Leighterton, Gloucestershire, King Charles II, hiding himself in the Royal Oak, is arrayed in all the insignia of majesty.]