Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/652

636 folk are generally too much in touch with the world to develop it to such an extent as do mystics who live in seclusion, or under the dwarfing shadow of ecclesiastical authority.

In this type of face we find not a few points similar to those already discussed. For some mysterious reason the subcutaneous tissue over the cheek bones and under the jaw gets an undue supply of nourishment. The skin, however, is less flabby and has more color than that of the musician, and in this respect the priest occupies an intermediate position between him and the last of our trio. Naturally, there is more evidence of mental activity in the priestly than in the musical face, and, especially where our reverend subject is conscious of a share in the apostolic legacy, his sense of authority gives a more muscular set to his lips. Habits of self-denial and self-command give him characteristics which make him, as a rule, compare favorably with his physiognomical associates; but when these, and marked intellectual traits, are absent, and no physical bars to nutritive processes intervene, he is capable of reaching an even lower level of ugliness than they.

Probably nowhere can one see the less prepossessing characteristics of the priestly type in so pronounced a form as among the humbler Catholic clergy in Ireland. Here we have most of the conditions (mentioned above) which are required for the full development of sympathetic facial traits. The Irish priest is generally drawn from a healthy and imaginative peasant class, readily given to emotion and superstition, and not overburdened with intelligence. His constitution is sound, his digestion is good, and he is not very rigidly abstemious either by rule or custom. I see no reason to doubt the testimony of impartial critics who declare that, taken as a whole, the Irish priests are the most chaste and devoted body of clerics upon earth. They are undoubtedly of good report, but they can not be classed among the "things that are lovely." Judged from the conventional rather than from the scientific standpoint, the expressions of these good men are indicative of anything but of spiritual purity or of intellectual refinement. In their jaws, lips, and eyes, those traits which are generally considered to be the marks of the grosser animal qualities are so apparent as to force themselves upon the attention of the spectator.

Now why does a clerical congress in the Isle of Saints appear—as far as outward facial aspect is concerned—like a parliament representing the interests of the world, the flesh, and the devil?

People of "the opposite religion," to use a convenient phrase which we owe to Lord Salisbury, have not been backward in suggesting explanations of the phenomena which are not very favorable to the doctrines and practices of the spiritual followers