away from the altar, and, with the eyes, the souls that have not a very
profound and a very firm faith turn away also."

"The doctrine of the iconoclasts, too," said Jacinto, "has, it seems,
spread widely in Germany."

"I am not an iconoclast, although I would prefer the destruction of
all the images to the exhibition of buffooneries of which I speak,"
continued the young man. "Seeing it, one may justly advocate a return of
religious worship to the august simplicity of olden times. But no; let
us not renounce the admirable aid which all the arts, beginning with
poetry and ending with music, lend to the relations between man and
God. Let the arts live; let the utmost pomp be displayed in religious
ceremonies. I am a partisan of pomp."

"An artist, an artist, and nothing more than an artist!" exclaimed
the canon, shaking his head with a sorrowful air. "Fine pictures, fine
statues, beautiful music; pleasure for the senses, and let the devil
take the soul!"

"Apropos of music," said Pepe Rey, without observing the deplorable
effect which his words produced on both mother and daughter, "imagine
how disposed my mind would be to religious contemplation on entering the
cathedral, when just at that moment, and precisely at the offertory at
high mass, the organist played a passage from 'Traviata.'"

"Senor de Rey is right in that," said the little lawyer emphatically.
"The organist played the other day the whole of the drinking song and
the waltz from the same opera, and afterward a rondeau from the 'Grande
Duchesse.'"