There can be no doubt that in modern art the great and important mysteries of Catholic truth have been in a great manner supplanted by the representations of novel devotions and dubious representations.[22] Among these latter, heart painting has a most extraordinary vogue. Without being wanting in the respect due to the authorized devotion of the sacred heart, I should be deficient in duty as a Christian artist if I did not protest most strongly and candidly against the external form in which it is usually represented. It is quite possible to embody the pure idea of the divine heart under a mystical form that should illustrate the intention without offending the sense; but when this _most spiritual idea_ is depicted by an anatomical painting of a heart copied from an original plucked from the reeking carcase of a bullock, and done with sickening accuracy of fat and veins, relieved on a chrome yellow ground, it becomes a fitting subject of fierce denunciation for every true Christian artist, as a disgusting and unworthy representation for any object of devotion. The rage that appears to exist among many modern communities for hearts, is quite astonishing. To a casual observer of some of their oratories it would really appear that their whole devotion consisted in this representation: it is depicted in every possible form and variety, sometimes _revolvant_ and smoking, sometimes _volant_, with a pair of wings growing out of the sides, sometimes _ardent_, flaming, fizzing, bursting like an exploding shell, sometimes _nayant_, floating in a pool, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in clusters. In fine, we have them in every possible variety, and they are by no means dissimilar to the illustrations of those amatory epistles so largely circulated in this country about the feast of S. Valentine. Whether there lingers any association of ideas between these latter and their more spiritual counterparts in the minds of pious ladies, I do not pretend to determine, but most certainly these vile caricatures have a wonderful hold of the fair sex, whose very book-marks generally consist of such representations. Moreover, the bad and vicious taste that prevails in the greater part of our religious communities of women, is a very serious evil;[23] many of them are houses of education, and it is most lamentable that, with the first elements of religion and piety, the pupils imbibe the poison of bad and paltry taste which, from early associations, affects them perhaps through life, and vitiates all their ideas on those subjects connected with the externals of religion. It is true that, by the blessing of God, the principles of Catholic art are by degrees penetrating these strongholds of prejudice and bad taste, but as yet I am not aware of one house of education where there is even a decent chapel; the great reforms have been effected among the active orders of ladies, and I will most fearlessly appeal to their convents,