Essays on Life 



may the abolition of the Church of England, 

 as knowing that a blatant bastard science 

 would instantly step into her shoes ; but if 

 some such deplorable consummation is to be 

 avoided in England, it can only be through 

 more evident leaning on the part of our 

 clergy to such an interpretation of the Sacred 

 History as the presence of a black and white 

 Madonna almost side by side at Oropa appears 

 to suggest. 



I fear that in these last paragraphs I may 

 have trenched on dangerous ground, but it is 

 not possible to go to such places as Oropa 

 without asking oneself what they mean and 

 involve. As for the average Italian pilgrims, 

 they do not appear to give the matter so 

 much as a thought. They love Oropa, and 

 flock to it in thousands during the summer ; 

 the President of the Administration assured 

 me that they lodged, after a fashion, as many 

 as ten thousand pilgrims on the 15th of last 

 August. It is astonishing how living the 

 statues are to these people, and how the 

 wicked are upbraided and the good applauded. 



At Varallo, since I took the photographs I 



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