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.

I have been persuaded for many years that Mary worship and ‘Jesus’-worship have very much in common in their causes and their results.