kennel; whereas, in all churches of nunneries, the maiden
sisterhood invariably show the purity of their own hearts by the virgin
cleanliness and visible consecration of the walls and pavement.

As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at once on a
remarkable object in the centre of the nave. It was either the actual
body, or, as might rather have been supposed at first glance, the
cunningly wrought waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk.
This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it might be, lay on
a slightly elevated bier, with three tall candles burning on each side,
another tall candle at the head, and another at the foot. There was
music, too; in harmony with so funereal a spectacle. From beneath
the pavement of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain of a De
Profundis, which sounded like an utterance of the tomb itself; so
dismally did it rumble through the burial vaults, and ooze up among the
flat gravestones and sad epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy
mist.

"I must look more closely at that dead monk before we leave the church,"
remarked the sculptor. "In the study of my art, I have gained many a
hint from the dead which the living could never have given me."

"I can well imagine it," answered Miriam. "One clay image is readily
copied from another. But let us first see Guido's picture. The light is
favorable now."

Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the right hand, as you
enter the nave; and there they beheld,--not the picture, indeed,--but
a closely drawn curtain. The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of
sacrificing the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has been
created; that of opening the way; for religious sentiment through the
quick medium of sight, by bringing angels, saints, and martyrs down
visibly upon earth; of sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught
they know, the welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a
paltry fee. Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a
veil, and seldom revealed, except to Protestants, who scorn it as an
object of devotion, and value it only for its artistic merit.

The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosing
the youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of his
fallen adversary. It was an image of that greatest of future events,
which we hope for so ardently, at least, while we are young,--but find
so very long in coming, the t