After leaving the monastery we shaped our course to a little oratory…

It is very small, with one kneeling-place; and behind a screen was a ‘Pieta’ the size of life (i.e. a Virgin and dead Christ)…

I could not help thinking on the grandeur of the Romish Church, on her zeal even in error, on her earnestness and self-devotion, which we might, with nobler views and a purer end, strive to imitate. Had I been alone I could have knelt there for hours.