At the exposition of the relics, for instance, you see in a very lofty gallery two small figures, holding up something--what, you cannot tell--set up in a rich framework of gold and jewels; it may be a piece of the cross, or a martyr's finger-bone, or a horse's tooth--what it is neither you nor any one else can guess at that distance.

If the whole congregation knelt down in adoration, the artistic effect would unquestionably be fine, but then not one person in seven does kneel, and therefore the effect is lost.

So it is with the washing of the high altar.

If one priest alone went up and poured the wine and oil over the sacred stone, and then cleansed the shrine from any spot or stain, the grandeur of the idea would not be marred by the monotony of the performance; but when some four hundred priests and choristers defile past, each armed with a chip besom, like those of the buy-a-broom girls of our childhood, and each gives a dab to the altar as he passes, the whole scene becomes tiresome, if not absurd.

The same fatal objection applies to the famous washing of the feet at the Trinita dei Pellegrini.