“And is this,” it will be asked of me, “the time, is this the worship, to which you would have us look back with reverence and regret?” Inasmuch as redemption is ascribed to the Virgin, No. Inasmuch as redemption is a thing desired, believed in, rejoiced in, Yes,--and Yes a thousand times. As far as the Virgin is worshipped in place of God, No; but as far as there is the evidence of worship itself, and of the sense of a Divine presence, Yes. For there is a wider division of men than that into Christian and Pagan: we ask what a man worships, we have to ask whether he worships at all. Observe Christ’s own words on this head: “God is a spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit, _and_ in truth.” The worshipping in spirit comes first, and does not necessarily imply the worshipping in truth. Therefore, there is first the broad division of men into Spirit worshippers and Flesh worshippers; and then, of the Spirit worshippers, the farther division into Christian and Pagan,--worshippers in Falsehood or in Truth. I therefore, for the moment, omit all inquiry how far the Mariolatry of the early church did indeed eclipse Christ, or what measure of deeper reverence for the Son of God was still felt through all the grosser forms of Madonna worship. Let that worship be taken at its worst; let the goddess of this dome of Murano be looked upon as just in the same sense an idol as the Athene of the Acropolis, or the Syrian Queen of Heaven; and then, on this darkest assumption, balance well the difference between those who worship and those who worship not;--that difference which there is in the sight of God, in all ages, between the calculating, smiling, self-sustained, self-governed man, and the believing, weeping, wondering, struggling, Heaven-governed man;--between the men who say in their hearts “there is no God,” and those who acknowledge a God at every step, “if haply they might feel after Him and find Him.” For that is indeed the difference which we shall find, in the end, between the builders of this day and the builders on that sand island long ago. They _did_ honour something out of themselves; they did believe in spiritual presence judging, animating, redeeming them; they built to its honour and for its habitation; and were content to pass away in nameless multitudes, so only that the labour of their hands might fix in the sea-wilderness a throne for their guardian angel. In this was their strength, and there was indeed a Spirit walking with them on the waters, though they could not discern the form thereof, though the Master’s voice came not to them, “It is I.” What their error cost them, we shall see here-after; for it remained when the majesty and the sincerity of their worship had departed, and remains to this day. Mariolatry is no special characteristic of the Twelfth Century; on the outside of that very tribune of San Donato, in its central recess, is an image of the Virgin