Yes, it is mainly to these causes that the reproaches of debasement, that are so frequently urged against us by Protestants, are to be traced, nor can we scarcely wonder that those who judge by externals and do not penetrate beneath the surface, should come to such conclusions, judging by what is presented before them even under the most glorious vaults of Christendom. But when we turn to true Catholic art, what do we behold? the works of men profoundly versed in symbolism and the holy scriptures: indeed, the great portals of the foreign cathedrals are _Bibles in stone_. There we trace the sacred history from the first moving of the spirit of God on the waters to the creation of all matter and man himself; there we are led down through the Mosaic history to the prophets foretelling the redemption of man, each with his phylactery and appropriate emblem; beside those, all the types of the old law, those mystical foreshadowings of our blessed Lord and his passion, till we come to the realities, and every scene and every mystery connected with the redemption of man, from the angelical salutation to the ascension into heaven, are so severely, yet so piously treated, that they at once address themselves to the inquiring mind of childhood, and draw tears of devout admiration from mature and reflective age. O, spirit of ancient Catholic art, how is it that you no longer abide among its people? What curse, what blight, has deprived us of your aid? Is it not that the sons of the church have forsaken the old traditions of faith, and have gone straying after strange forms and gods, and substituted debased novelties for ancient excellence, and to these profane and irreverent representations they have given the name of Christian saints, using the mysteries of religion as a mere peg whereon to hang their abominable productions. This system prevailed to such an extent that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the people, and even the historians themselves, lost all knowledge of what some of the sculptures of their very cathedrals represented, and explained the prophecies of scripture and the histories of the Old Testament by modern legends,[21] with which they were not in the least connected, as may be seen in the histories of Amiens, Rouen, &c.