very frequently, the deep conviction and honesty of devotion, it has, perhaps, chiselled out the most elegant figures which thus far human society has brought forth: the figures of the higher and highest Catholic clergy, especially those descended from noble races, andadorning it from the very first with inborn grace of gestures, masterly glances and beautiful hands and feet.Here the human face attains that spiritualisation, which is called forth by the constant flux and reflux of the two kinds of happiness (the sense of power and the sense of resignation) after a well thought out mode of life has subdued animality in man. Here an activity which consists in blessing, forgiving of sin and representing the Deity, constantly keeps the consciousness of a superhuman mission alive in the soul, nay, even in the body. Here is to be found that noble contempt for the perishability of the body and of fortune's favours, which is peculiar to born soldiers : they find their pride in ebullience, which distinguishes all aristocrats; they have their excuse an ideals in the utter impossibility of their task. The surpassing beauty and subtlety of the ecclesiastical princes has always proved to the people the truth of the Church; a temporary brutalisation of the clergy (as in Luther's time) always encouraged the belief in the contrary. Should this effect of human beauty and harmonious elegance of figure, intellect and task he buried at the close of allreligions? Should nothing higher be obtainable, or even conceivable?
