The Catholic Church makes men. By which I do not mean boasters and
swaggerers, nor bullies nor ignorant fools, who, finding themselves
comfortable, think that their comfort will be a boon to others, and
attempt (with singular unsuccess) to force it on the world; but men,
human beings, different from the beasts, capable of firmness and
discipline and recognition; accepting death; tenacious. Of her effects
the most gracious is the character of the Irish and of these Italians.
Of such also some day she may make soldiers.
Have you ever noticed that all the Catholic Church does is thought
beautiful and lovable until she comes out into the open, and then
suddenly she is found by her enemies (which are the seven capital
sins, and the four sins calling to heaven for vengeance) to be hateful
and grinding? So it is; and it is the fine irony of her present
renovation that those who were for ever belauding her pictures, and
her saints, and her architecture, as we praise things dead, they are
the most angered by her appearance on this modern field all armed,
just as she was, with works and art and songs, sometimes superlative,
often vulgar. Note you, she is still careless of art or songs, as she
has always been. She lays her foundations in something other, which
something other our moderns hate. Yet out of that something other came
the art and song of the Middle Ages. And what art or songs have you?
She is Europe and all our past. She is returning. _Andiamo._
LECTOR. But Mr _(deleted by the Censor)_ does not think so?
AUCTOR. I last saw him supping at the Savoy. _Andiamo._
We went up the hill together over a burnt land, but shaded with trees.
It was very hot. I could scarcely continue, so fast did my companion
go, and so much did the heat oppress me.
We passed a fountain at which oxen drank, and there I supped up cool
water from the spout, but he wagged his finger before his face to tell
me that this was an error under a hot sun.
We went on and met two men driving cattle up the path between the
trees. These I soon found to be talking of prices and markets with my
guide. For it was market-day. As we came up at last on to the little
town - a little, little town like a nest, and all surrounded with
walls, and a castle in it and a church - we found a thousand beasts all
lowing and answering each other along the highroad, and on into the
market square through the gate. There my guide led me into a large
room, where a great many peasants were eating soup with macaroni in
it, and some few, meat.
