But lest, in quoting from writers zealously devoted to the Roman Creed, we may seem to admit that such sympathies belong not to Protestant breasts, it will be well to appeal to one whose pen has, with no common success, combated the usages wherein popery most startles those whose faith is based on the Reformation. "I never looked at the pictures of one of these men that it did not instantaneously affect me, alluring me into a sort of dream or reverie, while my imagination was called into very lively activity. It is not that their drawing is good; for, on the other hand, it is often stiff, awkward, and unnatural. Nor is it that their imagination, as exhibited in grouping their figures or embodying the story to be represented, was correct or natural; for often it is most absurd and grotesque. But still there is palpably the embodiment of an idea; an idea pure, holy, exquisite, and too much so to seem capable of expression by the ordinary powers either of language or of the pencil. Yet the idea is there. And it must have had a mysterious and wondrous power on the imagination of these men, it must have thoroughly mastered and possessed them, or they never could have developed such an exquisite ideal of calm, peaceful, meek, heavenly holiness, as stands out so constantly and so pre-eminently in their paintings." In noticing the cavils of connoisseurs upon these paintings this author happily observes, that they were "looking for earthly creatures and found heavenly ones; and, expecting unholy expressions, were disappointed at finding none but the holy."[121] [Footnote 121: REV. M.H. SEYMOUR'S _Pilgrimage to Rome_, a work remarkable for accurate observation of facts, and the candid tone of its strictures.]