and temper.

In old times people gave their spiritual and intellectual sop to
Nemesis. Even when most positive, they admitted a percentage of
doubt. Mr. Tennyson has said well, "There lives more doubt"--I
quote from memory--"in honest faith, believe me, than in half the"
systems of philosophy, or words to that effect. The victor had a
slave at his ear during his triumph; the slaves during the Roman
Saturnalia dressed in their masters' clothes, sat at meat with
them, told them of their faults, and blacked their faces for them.
They made their masters wait upon them. In the ages of faith, an
ass dressed in sacerdotal robes was gravely conducted to the
cathedral choir at a certain season, and mass was said before him,
and hymns chanted discordantly. The elder D'Israeli, from whom I
am quoting, writes: "On other occasions, they put burnt old shoes
to fume in the censers; ran about the church leaping, singing,
dancing, and playing at dice upon the altar, while a BOY BISHOP or
POPE OF FOOLS burlesqued the divine service;" and later on he says:
"So late as 1645, a pupil of Gassendi, writing to his master what
he himself witnessed at Aix on the feast of Innocents, says--'I
have seen in some monasteries in this province extravagances
solemnised, which pagans would not have practised. Neither the
clergy nor the guardians indeed go to the choir on this day, but
all is given up to the lay brethren, the cabbage cutters, errand
boys, cooks, scullions, and gardeners; in a word, all the menials
fill their places in the church, and insist that they perform the
offices proper for the day. They dress themselves with all the
sacerdotal ornaments, but torn to rags, or wear them inside out;
they hold in their hands the books reversed or sideways, which they
pretend to read with large spectacles without glasses, and to which