midnight
At first I thought it was the priest who ordered it to be broken . But no , two little boys who heard a priest talking . They tell strange stories in Dublin about that statue . It appears that , after seeing it , Father McCabe went straight to Father Brennan , and the priests sat till midnight , sipping their punch and considering this fine point of theology -- if a man may ask a woman to sit naked to him ; and then if it would be justifiable to employ a naked woman for a statue of the Virgin . Father Brennan said , ` Nakedness is not a sin , ' and Father McCabe said , ` Nakedness may not be in itself a sin , but it leads to sin , and is therefore unjustifiable . ' At their third tumbler of punch they had reached Raphael , and at the fourth Father McCabe held that bad statues were more likely to excite devotional feelings than good ones , bad statues being further removed from perilous Nature . '' `` I can see the two priests , I can hear them .