Gabriel pitied the great poverty of these people, and admired the humbleness of these Cathedral servants, content to live and die in the same place, without any curiosity as to what was taking place outside the walls. The church seemed to him a huge derelict. It was like the petrified skeleton of one of those immense and powerful animals of former days, that had been dead for ages, its body decayed, its soul evaporated, and nothing left but this framework, like to the shells found by geologists in prehistoric strata by whose structure they can guess at the soft parts of the vanished being. Seeing the ceremonies of worship which in former days had so moved him, he felt roused to protest, a longing to shout to the priests and acolytes to stop, and withdraw, as their times were passed, and faith was dead, and it was only from routine and the fear of outside opinion that people now frequented these places, which formerly religious fervour had filled from morning till night.
On his arrival in Barcelona Gabriel's life was a whirlwind of proselytising, of struggles, and of persecutions. The "companions" respected him, seeing in him the friend of all the great propagandists of "the idea," and one who might himself rank among the most famous revolutionists. No meeting could be held without the "companion" Luna; that natural eloquence which had caused such wonder on his entry into the seminary, bubbled up and spread like an intoxicating gas in these revolutionary assemblies, firing that ragged, hungry, and miserable crowd, making them tremble with emotion at the description of future societies set forth by the apostle, that celestial city of the dreamers of all ages, without property, without vices, without inequalities, where work would become a pleasure, and where there would be no other worship but that of science and art. Some of his hearers, the darker spirits, would smile with a compassionate gesture, listening to his maledictions against authority, and his hymns to the sweetness and triumph to be won by passive resistance. He was an idealist, one to whom they must listen because he had served the cause well; they who were the strong men, the fighters, knew well enough how to crush in silence that cursed society if it should show itself deaf to the voice of Truth.