"
"Many motives combine to draw men into the church," L'Isle
answered. "Devotion may be the chief; but, in this climate and
country, the love of ease, and the want of hopeful prospects in
secular life, exercise great influence. Moreover, one monk, like one
soldier, serves as a decoy to another. Did you ever see a recruiting
sergeant, in all his glory, among a party of rustics at a village
alehouse? How skillfully he displays the bright side of a soldier's
life, while hiding every dark spot. The church has many a recruiting
sergeant, who can put the best of ours to shame. Many a recruit, too,
like our young friar, is caught very young."
They had now turned into another street, and L'Isle, stopping the
party, pointed out a large building opposite to them.
"What a curious mixture of styles it presents," said Mrs. Shortridge.
"What a barbarous mutilation of a work of art," exclaimed Lady Mabel.
"This is, or rather was," said L'Isle, "the temple of Diana, built
before the Christian era, perhaps while Sertorius yet lorded it in the
Peninsula, and made Evora his headquarters. The architect," continued
he, looking at it with the eye of a connoisseur, "was doubtless a
Greek.
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