is silence was to Pilate. We have known too many instances of
deep-seated and entire conviction, based on seemingly as little or less,
to wish for one moment to indulge in any foolish rationalizing or to
question the possibility or probability of God's drawing souls to
Himself by such methods.

We must, however, remember that it is not merely by the Church's
mediaeval art that Durtal is attracted, but still more by that mysticism
which created it, and by which it was served and fostered in return.
Mysticism must necessarily excite the sympathy of one who is in devout
pursuit of the highest and most spiritual forms of aesthetic beauty.
Whatever be the long-sought and never-to-be-forgotten definition of the
Beautiful, of this much at least a mere process of induction will assure
us, that men count things beautiful in the measure that they are
released from the grossness, formlessness, and heaviness of matter, and
by their delicacy, shapeliness, and unearthliness, betray the influence
of that principle which is everywhere in conflict with matter and is
called spirit. Man at his best is most at home, where at his worst he is
least at home, namely, in the world of those super-realities which are
touched and felt by the soul, but refuse to be pictured or spoken in the
language of the five senses. A hard, "common-sense," labour-and-wages
religion, such as is consonant with the utilitarianism of a commercial
civilization, could never appeal to a temperament like Durtal's.

Doubtless Catholic Christianity admits of being apprehended under the
narrower and grosser aspect, which however inadequate and unworthy, is
not absolutely false. The Jews were suffered to believe not merely that
God rewards the just and punishes the wicked--which is eternally
true--but that He does so in this life, which is true only with
qualification; and that He rewards them with temporal prosperity and
adversity--which is hardly true at all. Catholic truth, in itself the
same, can only be received according to the recipient's capacity and
sensitiveness. What one age or country is alive to, another may be dead
to; nor can we pretend that here all is progress and no regress, unless
we are prepared to say that in no respect have we anything to learn from
the past. The Ignatian meditation on the "Kingdom of Christ" evoked
heroic response in an age impregnated with the sentiments of chivalry,
but to-day it needs to be adapted to a great extent, and some have