MADONNA-LIKE A VIRGIN

As among the heathen Romans, faith and reverences decreased as  their gods were multiplied, so here, as objects of worship were increased, familiarity bred only sensuality, and sensuous worship drove out virtue and veneration, until, in the language of Mrs. Jameson's "Legends of the Madonna," xxxi: One of the frecoes in the Vatican represents Giulia Farnese a noted impure woman and mistress of the pope! In the character of the Madonna, and Pope Alexander VI. The drunken, uncahste, beastly! kneeling at her feet in the character of a votary! Under the influence of the Medici. the churches of Florence were filled with pictures of the Virgin in which the only thing aimed at was a meretricious beauty. Savonarola thundered from his pulpit in the garden of S. Marco against these impieties!