The congregation was assembled for vespers when we entered the Church of the Augustines to see Rubens’ picture of “The Marriage of St. Catherine.” It is quite opposed to all our protestant feelings of the decorum and reverence due to the solemnity of public worship, to see the indifference and almost rudeness with which the valets-de-place conduct their parties of sightseers around a church, regardless of its most impressive ceremonies, brushing past the altar in the full blaze of its panoply, and disturbing the devotions of all who may intercept their view of a picture. It was almost painful to listen to the “cant of criticism,” amidst the chanting of anthems, clouds of incense, and the solemn pealings of the organ, but it appeared to excite no such feeling in those around us. With us, however, in England, the outward solemnity of public worship is increased by the impression that it is the fervent and simultaneous out-pouring of the hearts of a whole united multitude; whilst in the Catholic churches, except in the few minutes occupied by the repetition of the mass, the act of worship is individual and apart, and performed almost by rote, at any hour of the day, from sunrise to evening. The parties, whom I shrunk from interrupting, as we slipped past their little _prie dieu_ chairs, seemed to feel nothing whatever at the intrusion, but raised their eyes for a moment from their missals, to take a view of the strangers and then returned to the point where they had left off. This apparent indifference, gives a bad impression of the reality of their devotions; but still it was not universal, and I have seen in the Roman Catholic churches, numbers whose whole soul seemed to be abstracted from all that was passing around them in the deep sincerity of their adorations. In Antwerp, and, indeed, elsewhere, but here we remarked it particularly, the vast majority of the congregation were females, who invariably seem to be the most devout. I was particularly struck with a young mother, apparently a lady of rank, and of most interesting appearance, who walked up the aisle of the Augustines, holding two beautiful children by the hand, and kneeling between them before the high altar, repeated the vesper prayer along with them. The innocent fervour of the children, as with their little hands clasped and timid eyes, they looked upwards at the splendour of the altar, now lighted up for the evening ceremony, and the modest devotion of their gentle mother as she taught them to pray, was a more exquisite picture than all the gorgeous imaginings of Rubens, with which we had been enchanted in the morning.