ould be a mistake for the spectator to imagine that anything has
been done from the spirit in which he receives it; everything is the
expression of devoted faith in the forms that the art of the time
offered.

In the monstrous marble tableau, say, of "Religion Triumphing Over
Heresy," he may be very sure that the artist was not winking an ironical
eye where he made Faith spurning Schism with her foot look very much
like a lady of imperfect breeding who has lost her temper; he was most
devoutly in earnest, or at least those were so, both cleric and laic,
for whom he wrought his prodigy. We others, pagans or Protestants, had
better understand that the children of the Church, and especially the
poor children, were serious through all the shows that seem to us
preposterous; they had not renounced something for nothing; if they
bowed that very fallible thing, Reason, to Dogma, they got faith for
their reward and could gladly accept whatever symbol of it was offered
them.

[Illustration: 26 CHURCH OP ARA COELI]

No matter how baroque any church was, it could express something of this
sincerity, and in their way the worshippers seemed always simply at home
in it. In San Lorenzo in Lucina, where I went to see the truly sublime
"Crucifixion" by Guido (there is also a bar of St. Lawrence's gridiron
to be seen, but I did not know it at the time) I liked the
unconsciousness of the girl kneeling before the high altar and
provisionally gossiping with the young sacristan before she began her
devotions. She gave her mind to them when he asked me if I wished to see
the Guido, for I could see her lips moving while she shared my
veneration of that most affecting masterpiece; the more genuinely
affecting because it expresses the rapture and not the anguish of the
Passion. I have no doubt she was grateful when the sacristan proposed my
having the electric light turned on it, and when, though that I knew it
would cost me something more, I assented.

They have the electric light now in all the holy places, and notably in
the dungeon where St. Peter was imprisoned, and where the custodian was
so proud of it, as the latest improvement, and as far more satisfactory
than candles. The shrine of the miraculous Bambino in the Church of Ara
Coeli is also lighted by electricity, which spares no detail of the
child's apparel and appearance. To other eyes than those of faith it has
the effect of a life-size but not life-like doll, piously bedizened