Italy when they reach a certain age to haunt the churches as it is for their hair to turn gray. They do it quite as mechanically as they do their housework. I often doubt that there is any spiritual or emotional feeling accompanying it whatsoever. I am certain that the recitation of prayers which were learned in infancy, and which have been repeated thousands of times without the smallest attention to the significance of the words, as children recite them, is not associated with any spiritual alteration, neither humility nor exaltation. It is part of the meagre, barren daily life of these old women, and they get from it something which for them constitutes pleasure and satisfaction. As I sat in contemplation of the frescoes surrounding the high altar, and which set forth the coronation of the Virgin, the Nativity, the Flight into Egypt, a middle-aged monk or priest came forward and volunteered to draw the curtain that more light might fall upon them. He was incredibly dirty and dishevelled, and he had lost an eye, but he was gentle and simple and friendly. He told me what he knew about the frescoes; he bemoaned the evil days upon which the world had fallen, and he expressed the hope that peace and tranquillity would soon again be ours; but when I attempted to talk to him about the significance of the war and the universal awakement to man's rights that would flow from it, I found that his comments were ejaculatory and that his reflections had no root in thought or reason. It is incredible that a person so naïve and so lacking in every display of intelligence, culture, and perspicacity can be a spiritual teacher or guide. Perhaps it is that faith alone is necessary that one shall satisfactorily fulfil his duties as priest.