There Are Other-Costumes Running In Color From Violet, And Blue
With Orange Sashes, To Unrelieved Black And Black Trimmed With Red; But
I Cannot Remember Which Nationality Wears Which.
I am not sure but one sees as many priests in Rome now as in the times
when they
Ruled it; and I am no such Protestant that I will pretend I do
not like a monsignore when I meet him, either in the street or at
afternoon tea, as one sometimes may. I have no grudge against priests of
any rank; but I did not seek to see them at the functions, as I used in
the old days to do. Shall I say that I now rather tolerated than
welcomed myself there through the hospitality which so freely opens the
churches of the Church to all comers of whatever creed? What right had
I, a heretic and recusant, to come staring and standing round where the
faithful were kneeling and praying? If we could conceive of our
fast-locked conventicles being thrown as freely open, could we conceive
of Catholics wandering up and down their naves and aisles while the
hymning or preaching went on? After being so high-minded in the matter,
shall I confess that I was a good deal kept out of the churches by the
cold in them? It was a sort of stored cold, much greater than that
outside, though there was something warming to the fancy, at least, in
the smoke and smell of the incense.
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