e Catholic
communion, which has, in this respect, great advantages. In the
Protestant establishment, all are on a free equality; and the
religion is an element fused into the life. With the Catholics, the
overwhelming authority of the Church invests the priests with godlike
attributes; while celibacy detaches their hearts from the home and
family, leaving them ready for other calls. The laity are placed in a
passive attitude, except as to faith and affection, which are more
active for the restrictions applied elsewhere; and religion is
pursued and practised as an art by itself. The church ritual, by its
dramatic contents and movement, peerless in its pathetic, imaginative
power, intensifies and cleanses the passions of those who
appreciatively celebrate or witness it, and who are naturally
attracted together, as, in blended devotional emotions and aims, they
cultivate that supernatural art whose infinite interests make all
earthly concerns appear dwarfed and pale.

The instances already cited of the friendships thus originating
suffice to indicate the wealth in this kind of experience which must
remain for ever unknown to the public. But one example which has just
been brought to light, and is worthy to rank with the best of earlier
times, should be mentioned here. It is the relation of Madame
Swetchine and the most renowned preacher of our century, Lacordaire.
This friendship has been beautifully portrayed by Montalembert. A
full account of it will be found farther on in these pages. The
friendship that joined the souls, and still links the names, of
Vittoria Colonna and Michael Angelo, is one of the most celebrated in
history. Her married life with the chivalrous and magnificent Marquis
of Pescara, in his palace on the bewitching isle of Ischia, was one
of the most romantically happy unions ever known; and nothing could
be more noble than her impassioned fidelity to his memory. It was in
the twelfth year of her widowhood that she first met with Michael
Angelo, then sixty-three years old. Such were their respective
attributes of personal worth and majesty, rank and fame, exaltation
of character and genius, stainless purity, dignity, earnestness, and
devotion, that they could not fail to regard each other with ardent
esteem. For ten years, till death separated them, this esteem, with a
consequent sympathy and happiness, steadily grew. To her he dedicated
many works of his chisel and his pencil, and addressed several
e