And with the Architects. There is but one emotion common to a whole people--catholic, so to speak--namely, religion. A town hall, a palace, a secular building would be provincial; a church only is catholic. In palaces only princes live, in municipal buildings only officials, in markets only the people, but in churches all are gathered together, and not only occasionally but frequently. Therefore, given a great architect, what could he design that would give him scope, and freedom, and fame like a cathedral? His feelings were immaterial, it was a professional necessity that drove artists then to religious matters. What was Raphael, the free-liver, thinking of when he drew his Madonnas? Was it the Jewess of Galilee over a thousand years before or the ripe warm beauty of the Florentine girls he knew? The Roman Catholic Church desired to attract to itself all that appealed to the emotions, and included art of all kinds in its scope. And all artists, painters, architects, even writers, found in the Church their greatest opportunities and greatest fame. Deep and real feelings in art of all kinds sought the companionship of the other great feelings that are in religion. Shallower art often shrinks from being put beside the greater emotions, and so some of the shams of the Renaissance. But the deepest religious feeling is always averse to art. No age full of great religious emotion has produced any art at all in any people. The early Christians, the monks of the Thebaid, hated art, as did the Puritans. They felt, I think, a competition. When an emotion is raised to such a height as theirs was, none other can live beside it. Such emotion becomes a flame that burns up all round. It cannot bear any rivalry. It puts aside not only art but love, reverence, fear, every other emotion. Religion is before everything, religion _is_ everything. There are Christ's words refusing to recognise his mother and brethren. It has been common to all forms of exalted religious fervour. No emotion can live with it. Only when it has somewhat died away does art get a chance. Then only if an artistic wave arises can it be allied with religion. But deep religious feeling is not always followed by an artistic wave. There has been no such sequence in most countries. This sequence in Italy was an exception. It was perchance. There has never been an art wave connected with Protestantism, and only very slightly with Buddhism. I have shown in "The Soul of a People," that art in Burma is only connected professionally with Buddhism. That is to say that wood-carving, one of Burma's two arts, is not religious in sentiment, and is applied to monasteries because they are the only large buildings needed. There is no other demand. To depict the Buddha in any artistic way except that handed down by tradition would be considered profane. Would not the early Christians have considered Raphael's Madonna profane, considering who he was, and what probably his models were? I think so.