As soon as the first flush of interest, curiosity, and amazement had subsided, my attention was carried towards the altar; and then I thought as I watched the impressive avocation of Father John, that had I been the Prince, I would have been the _Caiphas_ too. What a religion is this! How finely does it harmonize with the weakness of our nature, how seducingly it speaks to the senses; how forcibly it works on the passions; how strongly it seizes on the imagination; how interesting its forms; how graceful its ceremonies; how awful its rites. What a captivating, what a _picturesque_ faith! Who would not become its proselyte, were it not for the stern opposition of reason, the cold suggestions of philosophy! The last strain of the vesper hymn died on the air as the sun’s last beam faded on the casements of the chapel; and the Prince and his daughter., to avoid the intrusion of the crowd, withdrew through a private door, which communicated by a ruinous arcade with the castle. I was the first to leave the chapel, and followed them at a distance as they moved slowly along, their fine figures, sometimes concealed behind a pillar, and again emerging from the transient shade, flushed with the deep suffusion of the crimsoned firmament. Once they paused, as if to admire the beautiful effect of the retreating light, as it faded on the ocean’s swelling bosom; and once the Princess raised her hand and pointed to the evening star, which rose brilliantly on the deep cerulean blue of a cloudless atmosphere, and shed its fairy beam on the mossy summit of a mouldering turret. Such were the sublime objects which seemed to engage their attention, and added their _sensible_ inspiration to the fervour of those more abstracted devotions in which they were so recently engaged. At last they reached the portals of the castle, and I lost sight of them. Yet still spellbound, I stood transfixed to the spot from whence I had caught a last view of their receding figures.