spirit oppressed with the heaviest load of sin might creep nearest to
forgiveness, hiding the anguish of its repentance in the temple's dim
cavernous recesses, faintly starred with mosaic, and twilighted by
twinkling altar-lamps. Though the temple is enriched with incalculable
value of stone and sculpture, I cannot remember at any time to have been
struck by its mere opulence Preciousness of material has been sanctified
to the highest uses, and there is such unity and justness in the solemn
splendor, that wonder is scarcely appealed to. Even the priceless and
rarely seen treasures of the church--such as the famous golden altar-
piece, whose costly blaze of gems and gold was lighted in Constantinople
six hundred years ago--failed to impress me with their pecuniary worth,
though I

"Value the giddy pleasure of the eyes,"

and like to marvel at precious things. The jewels of other churches are
conspicuous and silly heaps of treasure; but St. Mark's, where every line
of space shows delicate labor in rich material, subdues the jewels to
their place of subordinate adornment. So, too, the magnificence of the
Romish service seems less vainly ostentatious there. In other churches the
ceremonies may sometimes impress you with a sense of their grandeur, and
even spirituality, but they all need the effect of twilight upon them. You
want a foreground of kneeling figures, and faces half visible through
heavy bars of shadow; little lamps must tremble before the shrines; and in
the background must rise the high altar, all ablaze with candles from
vault to pavement, while a hidden choir pours music from behind, and the
organ shakes the heart with its heavy tones. But with the daylight on its
splendors even the grand function of the _Te Deum_ fails to awe, and
wearies by its length, except in St. Mark's alone, which is given grace to
spiritualize what elsewhere would be mere theatric pomp. [Footnote: The