It now only remains to make some remarks on the recent revival of Catholic art and architecture, the difficulties with which it has to contend in England, and the opposition that has been raised against it. As the enclosures of the sanctuary can be traced from the erection of the earliest Christian churches, and as they are inseparably connected with reverence and solemnity, we might have hoped, and indeed expected, that the restoration would have been hailed by all who profess the ancient religion as an evidence of returning faith. But, alas, we have a class of men to oppose the revival of ancient symbolism, on whom the examples of fifteen centuries of Catholic antiquity fail to produce the slightest recognition of respect. The past is to them a nullity, and they would fain have us believe that the present debased externals of religion are to be equally received and propagated as those which were generated during the finest ages of Christian art. Now, knowing the whole history of this debasement in religious art, its origin and progress, and the general decline of Catholic faith and Catholic principles, corresponding to its increasing influence, it is impossible for us to regard its very existence otherwise than as an intolerable evil, and we must labour incessantly for its utter expulsion from our churches. The decline of true Christian art and architecture may be dated from a most corrupt era in the history of the church; and ever since that most unnatural adoption of Pagan externals for Catholic rites, we mourn the loss of those reverend and solemn structures which so perfectly embodied the faith for which they were raised. Bad as was the Paganism of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was dressed out in much external majesty and richness; but now nothing is left but the fag end of this system; bronze and marble are replaced by calico and trimmings; the works of the sculptor and the goldsmith are succeeded by the milliner and the toyshop; and the rottenness of the Pagan movement is thinly concealed by gilt paper and ribands,—the nineteenth century apeings of the dazzling innovations of the Medician era. Cheap magnificence, meretricious show, is the order of the day; something pretty, something novel, calico hangings, sparkling lustres, paper pots, wax dolls, flounces and furbelows, glass cases, ribands, and lace, are the ornaments and materials usually employed to decorate, or rather disfigure, the altar of sacrifice and the holy place. It is impossible for church furniture and decoration to attain a lower depth of degradation, and it is one of the greatest impediments to the revival of Catholic truth. It is scarcely possible for men to realize the awful doctrines and the majestic ritual of the Church under such a form; and yet these wretched novelties are found on the altars of some of the most venerable temples, equally as in the abortions of modern erection. They