The canons were chanting the Office when we entered, and looked like bishops in their flowing purple robes. The service ended with a procession around the church, the clergy in magnificent copes, heavy with ancient embroidery in gold. The people were all devout. No careless ways, as in many places where religion sits lightly on the people, but an earnestness and devotion that were impressive. The attitudes of the clergy were fine, without being studied; the grouping of the people picturesque. The ladies all wore the Spanish mantilla, and, when not kneeling, sat, in true Oriental style, on the matting that covered portions of the marble pavement. Lights were burning on nearly all the altars like constellations of stars all along the dim aisles. The grandeur of the edifice, the numerous works of Christian art, the august rites of the Catholic Church, and the devotion of the people all seemed in harmony. Few churches leave such an impression on the mind. In the first chapel at the left, where stands the baptismal font, is Murillo’s celebrated “Vision of St. Anthony,” a portion of which was cut out by an adroit thief a few years ago, and carried to the United States, but is now replaced. It is so large that, with a “Baptism of our Saviour” above it by the same master, it fills the whole side of the chapel up to the very arch. It seemed to be the object of general attraction. Group after group came to look at it before leaving the church, and it is worthy of its popularity and fame, though Mr. Ford says it has always been overrated. Théophile Gautier is more enthusiastic. He says: “Never was the magic of painting carried so far. The rapt saint is kneeling in the middle of his cell, all the poor details of which are rendered with the vigorous realism characteristic of the Spanish school. Through the half-open door is seen one of those long, spacious cloisters so favorable to reverie. The upper part of the picture, bathed in a soft, transparent, vaporous light, is filled with a circle of angels of truly ideal beauty, playing on musical instruments. Amid them, drawn by the power of prayer, the Infant Jesus descends from cloud to cloud to place himself in the arms of the saintly man, whose head is bathed in the streaming radiance, and who seems ready to fall into an ecstasy of holy rapture. We place this divine picture above the St. Elizabeth of Hungary cleansing the _teigneux_, to be seen at the Royal Academy of Madrid; above the ‘Moses’; above all the Virgins and all the paintings of the Infant Jesus by this master, however beautiful, however pure they be. He who has not seen the ‘St. Anthony of Padua’ does not know the highest excellence of the painter of Seville. It is like those who imagine they know Rubens and have never seen the ‘Magdalen’ at Antwerp.”