It was during the composition of the stories contained in _The Untilled Field_ that Mr. Moore came to realize that the Celt was but a herdsman, and that art had steadily declined in Ireland since the Irish Church was joined to Rome. But what was the reason for this decline? Was it due to the race or to Catholicism? Mr. Moore and his friends discussed this question at length and considered the history of literature in relation to the Roman Catholic Church. Their discoveries astonished him, for the case against Catholicism was even stronger than he had hoped for. About two thousand years ago the Ecclesiastic started out to crush life, and "in three centuries humility, resignation and obedience were accepted as virtues; the shrines of the gods were abandoned; the beautiful limbs of the lover and athlete were forbidden to the sculptor and the meagre thighs of dying saints were offered him instead. Literature died, for literature can but praise life. Music died, for music can but praise life, and the lugubrious _Dies Irae_ was heard in the fanes. What use had a world for art when the creed current among men was that life is a mean and miserable thing? So amid lugubrious chant and solemn procession the dusk thickened until the moment of deepest night was reached in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. In the fifteenth century the dawn began in Italy, and sculptors and painters turned their eyes toward Greece." Dante was a Catholic, although not a very orthodox one, and Catholicism can make a valid claim to the cathedrals and the choral music of Vittoria and Palestrina. But the painters of the Renaissance were as pagan as Cæsar Borgia and only chose religious subjects as a pretext for drawing and to meet a certain demand. In fact, the whole spirit of the Renaissance was pagan and progressive, and a return to the Middle Ages was averted when "that disagreeable monk, Savonarola," was burned at the stake. After this new birth came the Reformation, resulting in the Council of Trent, which forbade all speculation on the meaning and value of life and arranged "the Catholic's journey from the cradle to the grave as carefully as any tour planned by that excellent firm, Messrs. Cook and Sons." As a result there has been practically no Catholic literature since that time.