In An Obscure Corner Was A Coarse Wooden Shrine,
Painted Red, In Which Was A Doll Dressed Up In Spangles
And tinsel, to
represent the Virgin, and hung round with little waxen effigies of
arms, hands, feet, and legs, to
Represent, I suppose, some favor which
had been accorded to these members of her several votaries through her
intercessions. Before this shrine several poor people were kneeling,
with clasped hands and bowed heads, praying with an earnestness which
was sorrowful to see. "They have taken away their Lord, and they know
not where they have laid him." Such is the end of this superb idolatry
in the illiterate and the poor.
Yet if we _could_, would we efface from the world such cathedrals
as Strasbourg and Cologne? I discussed the question of outward pomp
and ritual with myself while I was walking deliberately round a stone
balustrade on the roof of the church, and looking out through the
flying buttresses, upon the broad sweep of the Rhine, and the queer,
old-times houses and spires of the city. I thought of the splendors of
the Hebrew ritual and temple, instituted by God himself. I questioned
where was the text in the gospel that forbade such a ritual, provided
it were felt to be desirable; and then I thought of the ignorance and
stupid idolatry of those countries where this ritual is found in
greatest splendor, and asked whether these are the necessary
concomitants of such churches and such forms, or whether they do not
result from other causes.
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