they fix the rinds of scooped oranges . . . ; particularly while
dangling the censers they keep shaking them in derision, and
letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces, one against the
other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns nor psalms nor
masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking as a
herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant
are singularly barbarous:-


Haec est clara dies, clararum clara dierum,
Haec est festa dies festarum festa dierum.'" {8}


Faith was far more assured in the times when the spiritual
saturnalia were allowed than now. The irreverence which was not
dangerous then, is now intolerable. It is a bad sign for a man's
peace in his own convictions when he cannot stand turning the
canvas of his life occasionally upside down, or reversing it in a
mirror, as painters do with their pictures that they may judge the
better concerning them. I would persuade all Jews, Mohammedans,
Comtists, and freethinkers to turn high Anglicans, or better still,
downright Catholics for a week in every year, and I would send
people like Mr. Gladstone to attend Mr. Bradlaugh's lectures in the
forenoon, and the Grecian pantomime in the evening, two or three
times every winter. I should perhaps tell them that the Grecian
pantomime has nothing to do with Greek plays. They little know how
much more keenly they would relish their normal opinions during the
rest of the year for the little spiritual outing which I would
prescribe for them, which, after all, is but another phase of the
wise saying--Surtout point de zele. St. Paul attempted an