ing the
singular and curious scenes that every where met his eye.

The reason why there are so many paintings and sculptures in Italy is
this: in the middle ages, it was the fashion, in all the central parts
of Europe, for the people to spend almost all their surplus money in
building and decorating churches. Indeed, there was then very little
else that they could do. At the present time, people invest their funds,
as fast as they accumulate them, in building ships and railroads, docks
for the storage of merchandise, houses and stores in cities, to let for
the sake of the rent, and country seats, or pretty private residences of
various kinds, for themselves. But in the middle ages very little could
be done in the way of investments like these. There were no railroads,
and there was very little use for ships. There was no profit to be
gained by building houses and stores, for there were so many wars and
commotions among the people of the different towns and kingdoms, that
nothing was stable or safe. For the same reason it was useless for men
to spend their money in building and ornamenting their own houses, for
at the first approach of an enemy, the town in which they lived was
likely to be sacked, and their houses, and all the fine furniture which
they might contain, would be burned or destroyed.

But the churches were safe. The people of the different countries had so
much veneration for sacred places, and for every thing connected with
religion, that they were afraid to touch or injure any thing that had
been consecrated to a religious use. To plunder a church, or a convent,
or an abbey, or to do any thing to injure or destroy the property that
they contained, was regarded as _sacrilege_; and sacrilege they deemed a
dreadful crime, abhorred by God and man. Thus, while they would burn and
destroy hundreds of dwellings without any remorse, and turn the wretched
inmates out at midnight into the streets to die of exposure, terror, and
despair, they would stop at once when they came to the church, afraid to
harm it in any way, or to touch the least thing that it contained.
Accordingly, while every thing else in a conquered town was doomed to
the most reckless destruction, all that was in the church,--the most
delicate paintings, and the most costly gold and silver images and
utensils--were as safe as if they were surrounded by impregnable castle
walls.

Of course these notions were very mistaken ones. According to the
t