No More Learning

Coming from the
hurrahing mob and the rattling carriages, we pushed aside the listed
door of this church, and found ourselves instantly in an atmosphere
which might be sacred to thought and religion, if one had any. There
sat one or two women who had stolen a moment from the concerns of the
day, as they were passing; but, if there had been fifty people there,
it would still have been the most solitary place imaginable. They did
not look up at us, nor did one regard another. We walked softly down
the broad aisle with our hats in our hands. Presently came in a troop
of Canadians, in their homespun, who had come to the city in the boat
with us, and one and all kneeled down in the aisle before the high
altar to their devotions, somewhat awkwardly, as cattle prepare to lie
down, and there we left them. As if you were to catch some farmer's
sons from Marlborough, come to cattle-show, silently kneeling in
Concord meeting-house some Wednesday! Would there not soon be a mob
peeping in at the windows? It is true, these Roman Catholics, priests
and all, impress me as a people who have fallen far behind the
significance of their symbols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a
church and were trying to bethink himself. Nevertheless, they are
capable of reverence; but we Yankees are a people in whom this
sentiment has nearly died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink
ourselves even as oxen. I did not mind the pictures nor the candles,
whether tallow or tin. Those of the former which I looked at appeared
tawdry. It matters little to me whether the pictures are by a neophyte
of the Algonquin or the Italian tribe. But I was impressed by the
quiet, religious atmosphere of the place. It was a great cave in the
midst of a city; and what were the altars and the tinsel but the
sparkling stalactites, into which you entered in a moment, and where
the still atmosphere and the sombre light disposed to serious and
profitable thought?
Such a cave at hand, which you can enter any day,
is worth a thousand of our churches which are open only Sundays,
hardly long enough for an airing, and then filled with a bustling
congregation,--a church where the priest is the least part, where you
do your own preaching, where the universe preaches to you and can be
heard. I am not sure but this Catholic religion would be an admirable
one if the priest were quite omitted. I think that I might go to
church myself some Monday, if I lived in a city where there was such a
one to go to. In Concord, to be sure, we do not need such. Our forests
are such a church, far grander and more sacred. We dare not leave
_our_ meeting-houses open for fear they would be profaned. Such a
cave, such a shrine, in one of our groves, for instance, how long
would it be respected? for what purposes would it be entered, by such
baboons as we are? I think of its value not only to religion, but to
philosophy and to poetry; besides a reading-room, to have a
thinking-room in every city! Perchance the time will come when every
house even will have not only its sleeping-rooms, and dining-room, and
talking-room or parlor, but its thinking-room also, and the architects
will put it into their plans. Let it be furnished and ornamented with
whatever conduces to serious and creative thought. I should not object
to the holy water, or any other simple symbol, if it were consecrated
by the imagination of the worshipers.

I heard that some Yankees bet that the candles were not wax, but tin.
A European assured them that they were wax; but, inquiring of the
sexton, he was surprised to learn that they were tin filled with oil.
The church was too poor to afford wax. As for the Protestant churches,
here or elsewhere, they did not interest me, for it is only as caves
that churches interest me at all, and in that respect they were
inferior.