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Updated: May 11, 2025
The Madonna was a fit instrument for sweeping away the particularist tendencies of the past; she attacked relic-worship and other outworn superstitions; like a benignant whirlwind she careered over the land, and these now enigmatical shapes and customs fell faster than leaves of Vallombrosa.
"Almost everything that is distinctive in the Roman form of Christianity is to be found in Buddhism: images, pictures, lights, altars, incense, vestments, masses, beads, wayside shrines, monasteries, nunneries, celibacy, fastings, vigils, retreats, pilgrimages, mendicant vows, shorn heads, orders, habits, uniforms, nuns, convents, purgatory, saintly and priestly intercession, indulgences, works of supererogation, pope, archbishops, abbots, abbesses, monks, neophytes, relics and relic-worship, exclusive burial-ground, etc., etc., etc."
Religious sentiment, consecrating the natural affections and rights of the human heart, above all that pitiful care and awe for the perishing human clay of which relic-worship is but the corruption, has always had much to do with localities, with the thoughts which attach themselves to definite scenes and places.
And yet that lavish display of jewellers' work on the altars, in the chapels, the sacristies, of Our Lady's Church, was but a framing for little else than dead people's bones. To Gaston, a piteous soul, with a touch also of that grim humour which, as we know, holds of pity, relic-worship came naturally.
But if, on making a thorough search, no skull be found, I shall believe that it has been stolen: for, apart from the fact of its non-discovery, I should almost be disposed to say, that no superstition, or fear of Shakespeare's curse, nor any official precaution and vigilance, could have been a match for that combination of curiosity, cupidity, and relic-worship, which has so often prompted and carried out the exhumation of a great man's bones.
For her gratification there were discovered, in a cavern at Jerusalem, wherein they had lain buried for more than three centuries, the Savior's cross, and those of the two thieves, the inscription, and the nails that had been used. They were identified by miracle. A true relic-worship set in.
Religious sentiment, consecrating the affections and natural regrets of the human heart, above all, that pitiful awe and care for the perishing human clay, of which relic-worship is but the corruption, has always had much to do with localities, with the thoughts which attach themselves to actual scenes and places.
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