Now, how far in this latter point of view the ceremonies are successful or not, I think from some small experience I am pretty well qualified to judge; and if I am asked whether, as ceremonies, the services of the Church of Rome are imposing and effective, I answer most unhesitatingly, No.

I know that this assertion upsets a received article of faith in Protestant England as to the seductive character of the Papal ceremonies.

I remember well the time when I too believed that the shrines of the old faith were the haunts of sense-enthralling grandeur, of wild enchantment and bewitching beauty; when I too dreamt how amidst crowds of rapt worshippers, while unearthly music pealed around you and the fragrant incense floated heavenwards, your soul became lost to everything, save to a feeling of unreasoning ecstasy.

In fact, I believed in the enchantments of Papal pageantry, as firmly as I believed that a Lord Mayor's feast was a repast in which Apicius would have revelled, or that an opera ball was a scene of oriental and voluptuous delight.

Alas! I have seen all, and known all, and have found all three to be but vanity.
Now the question as to the real aspect of the Papal pageantry, and the effects produced by it upon the minds, not of controversialists, but of ordinary spectators, is by no means an unimportant one with reference to the future prospects of Italy and the Papacy.