However lame and ridiculous an artist's utterance may be, yet there is a certain reverence sometimes due to what he is endeavouring to say, and even to his desire to say it. We do not think it very witty or tasteful or charitable to laugh at a man because he stammers; still less do we overwhelm him with the coarsest abuse. One may well shudder at most presentments of the Sacred Heart, but even apart from all consideration for the artist, a certain reverence for the idea there travestied and unintentionally dishonoured, should forbid our insulting what after all is so nearly related to that idea, and in the eyes of the untaught very closely identified with it. But an occasional trespass of this kind, however offensive, is not enough to detract materially from the value of so much that is meritorious; nor again will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics (less observable in _The Cathedral_ than in _En Route_), which makes the book undesirable for many classes of readers, prevent its due appreciation on the part of others--unless we are going to put the Sacred Scriptures on the Index. In this vexed question, M. Huysman takes what seems the more robust and healthy view, but he appears to be quite unaware how many difficulties it involves; and consequently lashes out with his usual intemperance against the contrary tradition, which is undeniably well represented. It is not as though the advocates of the "flight" policy in regard to temptations against this particular virtue were ignorant of the general principle which undoubtedly holds as regards all other temptations, and bids us turn and face the dog that barks at our heels. This counsel is as old as the world. But from the earliest time a special exception has been made to it in the one case of impurity by those who have professedly spoken in the light of experience rather than of _à priori_ inference. Both views are encompassed with difficulty, nor does any compromise suggest itself. What seems to us one of the most interesting points raised by the story of Durtal's spiritual re-birth and development is the precise relation between the Catholic religion and fine art. God has not chosen to save men by logic; so neither has He chosen to save them by fine art. If the "election" of the Apostolic Church counted but few scribes or philosophers among its members--and those few admitted almost on sufferance--we may also be sure that the followers of the Galilean fishermen were not as a body distinguished by a fastidious criticism in matters of fine art. In after ages, when the Church asserted herself and moulded a civilization more or less in accordance with her own exigencies and ideals, it is notorious how she made philosophy and art her own, and subjected them to her service; but whether in so doing she in any way departed from the principles of Apostolic times is what interests us to understand.