rise higher than man. The worship of Rome is manifestly
man-contrived. It may be expected, therefore, to rise to the level of
his tastes, but not a hairbreadth higher. It may stimulate and delight
his faculties, such as they are, but it cannot regenerate them. At the
best, it is only the aesthetic faculties which the worship of Rome calls
into exercise. It presents no truth to the mind, and cannot therefore
act upon the moral powers. God is unseen: He is hidden in the dark
shadow of the priest. How, then, can He be regarded with confidence or
love? The doctrine of the atonement,--the central glory of the Christian
system,--is unknown. It is eclipsed by the mass. If you want to be
religious,--to obtain salvation,--you buy masses. You need not cultivate
any moral quality. You need not even be grateful. You have paid the
market-price of the salvation you carry home, and are debtor to no one.

Those who speak of the worship of the Church of Rome as well fitted to
make men devout, only betray their complete ignorance of all that
constitutes worship. Men must be devout before they can worship. There
is no error in the world more common than that of putting worship for
religion. Worship is not the cause, but the effect. Worship is simply
the expression of an inward feeling, that feeling being religion; and
nothing is more obvious, than that till this feeling be implanted, there
can be no worship. The man may bow, or chant, or mutter; he cannot
worship. He may be dazzled by fine pictures, but not melted into love or
raised to hope by glorious truths. Moral feelings can be produced not
otherwise than by the apprehension of moral truths; but in the Church of
Rome all the great verities of revelation lie out of sight, being
covered with the dense shadow of symbol and error. A single verse of
Scripture would do more to awaken mind and produce devotion than all the
statues and fine pictures of all the cathedrals in Italy.

I got weary at last of these shadowy aisles and the priests' monotonous
chant; and so, paying a small fee, I had a low door in the south
transept opened to me; and, groping my way up a stair of an hundred and
fifty steps, or rather more, I came out upon the top of the Cathedral. I
had left a noble temple, but only to be ushered into a far nobler,--its
roof the blue vault, its floor the great Lombardy plain, and its walls
the Alps and Apennines. The glory of the temple beneath was forgotten by
reason of the greater