3-070-686 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Returning from Midnight Mass", by M. Montbard, 1881. 'In one of the old towns of Brittany, where the inhabitants still preserve both their peculiarities of costume and manners and their habit of devout attendance on the religious services of the Roman Catholic Church, such a scene might be witnessed, on New-Year's Eve, as the Artist, himself a Frenchman, has delineated in our Engraving...the earnestness and gravity of demeanour with which these French Catholics, each little family or friendly group by itself, step homeward from a peculiarly solemn meeting in celebration of their Divine faith, could not be surpassed in any age or nation of modern Christendom. If there is any element of feeling here which should appeal to human sympathy, irrespective of all ecclesiastical divisions, it may serve to inspire us with the spirit of tolerance and respect for those whose belief may not in all its points correspond entirely with own'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.