A fundamental difference between the Catholic and Puritan mind seems to be that the former seizes on every available means for producing religious emotion _through the senses_; the latter turns away from such means with intense mistrust, and limits itself to appeals _through the mind_. Dark and solemn churches like that at Assisi decorated by Giotto (which the friar who showed it told me was the “best place in the whole world for prayer”), gorgeous altars, splendid functions, pictures, music, incense,—all these are to the Catholic and High Churchman veritable “means of grace”; _i.e._, they call out in them emotions which either are religious or they think lead to religion. Long Prayers, Hymns, Bible-readings, and preachings,—these, on the other hand, are the Evangelicals’ means of grace, and they produce in them emotions distinctly religious. We must, I think, treat these differences as matters of spiritual _taste_, concerning which it is proverbially idle to dispute. Both have their advantages, and both their great perils: the Catholic method has the peril of lapping the soul in a fool’s paradise of fancied piety, which is only sensuous excitement; the Puritan method has that of creating the hysteria of a Revival. In each case it is the contagion of _the emotion of a multitude_ which creates the danger. Solitary religious emotion, either produced by the glory and majesty of Nature or by lonely prayer and communings with God, can lead to no evil; nay, is the climax of purest joy vouchsafed to man. Not misguided are those who enter into their chambers and shut the door “to pray to Him who sees in secret,” or who go up into the hills and woods “To seek That Being in whose honor shrines are weak, Upreared by human hands.” The converse of the emotions of Awe and Reverence—namely, the tendency to jest and ridicule—are supposed by some to be dangerous enemies to religion. I do not believe they are so. I think a genuine sense of humor and a keen eye for the ludicrous is a most precious protection against absurdities and excesses. Like Tenderness and Strength, the sense of the Sublime and of the Ridiculous are complementary to each other, and exist only in perfection together in the same character. It is the man who cannot laugh who never weeps.