"I was thinking of what you have just remarked about the cathedral,"said he, looking up into the mighty hollow of the dome. "It is indeed a magnificent structure, and an adequate expression of the Faith which built it. When I behold it in a proper mood,--that is to say, when Ibring my mind into a fair relation with the minds and purposes of its spiritual and material architects,--I see but one or two criticisms to make. One is, that it needs painted windows.""O, no!" said Hilda. "They would be quite inconsistent with so much richness of color in the interior of the church. Besides, it is a Gothic ornament, and only suited to that style of architecture, which requires a gorgeous dimness.""Nevertheless," continued the sculptor, "yonder square apertures, filled with ordinary panes of glass, are quite out of keeping with the superabundant splendor of everything about them. They remind me of that portion of Aladdin's palace which he left unfinished, in order that his royal father-in-law might put the finishing touch. Daylight, in its natural state, ought not to be admitted here. It should stream through a brilliant illusion of saints and hierarchies, and old ural images, and symbolized dogmas, purple, blue, golden, and a broad flame of scarlet. Then, it would be just such an illumination as the Catholic faith allows to its believers. But, give me--to live and die in--the pure, white light of heaven!""Why do you look so sorrowfully at me?" asked Hilda, quietly meeting his disturbed gaze. "What would you say to me? I love the white light too!""I fancied so," answered Kenyon. "Forgive me, Hilda; but I must needs speak. You seemed to me a rare mixture of impressibility, sympathy, sensitiveness to many influences, with a certain quality of common sense;--no, not that, but a higher and finer attribute, for which Ifind no better word. However tremulously you might vibrate, this quality, I supposed, would always bring you back to the equipoise.
You were a creature of imagination, and yet as truly a New England girl as any with whom you grew up in your native village. If there were one person in the world whose native rectitude of thought, and something deeper, more reliable, than thought, I would have trusted against all the arts of a priesthood,--whose taste alone, so exquisite and sincere that it rose to be a moral virtue, I would have rested upon as a sufficient safeguard,--it was yourself!""I am conscious of no such high and delicate qualities as you allow me,"answered Hilda. "But what have I done that a girl of New England birth and culture, with the right sense that her mother taught her, and the conscience that she developed in her, should not do?""Hilda, I saw you at the confessional!" said Kenyon.
"Ah well, my dear friend," replied Hilda, casting down her eyes, and looking somewhat confused, yet not ashamed, "you must try to forgive me for that, ~ if you deem it wrong, because it has saved my reason, and made me very happy. Had you been here yesterday, I would have confessed to you.""Would to Heaven I had!" ejaculated Kenyon.
"I think," Hilda resumed," I shall never go to the confessional again;for there can scarcely come such a sore trial twice in my life. If Ihad been a wiser girl, a stronger, and a more sensible, very likely Imight not have gone to the confessional at all. It was the sin of others that drove me thither; not my own, though it almost seemed so.
Being what I am, I must either have done what you saw me doing, or have gone mad. Would that have been better?""Then you are not a Catholic?" asked the sculptor earnestly.
"Really, I do not quite know what I am," replied Hilda, encountering his eyes with a frank and simple gaze. "I have a great deal of faith, and Catholicism seems to have a great deal of good. Why should not Ibe a Catholic, if I find there what I need, and what I cannot find elsewhere? The more I see of this worship, the more I wonder at the exuberance with which it adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. If its ministers were but a little more than human, above all error, pure from all iniquity, what a religion would it be!""I need not fear your conversion to the Catholic faith," remarked Kenyon, "if you are at all aware of the bitter sarcasm implied in your last observation. It is very just. Only the exceeding ingenuity of the system stamps it as the contrivance of man, or some worse author;not an emanation of the broad and simple wisdom from on high.""It may be so," said Hilda; "but I meant no sarcasm."Thus conversing, the two friends went together down the grand extent of the nave. Before leaving the church, they turned to admire again its mighty breadth, the remoteness of the glory behind the altar, and the effect of visionary splendor and magnificence imparted by the long bars of smoky sunshine, which travelled so far before arriving at a place of rest.
"Thank Heaven for having brought me hither!" said Hilda fervently.
Kenyon's mind was deeply disturbed by his idea of her Catholic propensities; and now what he deemed her disproportionate and misapplied veneration for the sublime edifice stung him into irreverence.
