IT HOLY WEEK AT ROME. BY J. P. LACROIX. is with no slight degree of hesitation that I attempt a brief sketch of what I saw in Italy, but especially in Rome, during Holy Week; or more definitely, during the eight days which close with Easter Sunday. Nevertheless, I will attempt it. My plan is to speak simply of what I myself saw; for the offices and ceremonies of this week are so many, so various, take place in so many different localities, and above all, are so lengthy and wearisome, that no one mortal can well attend and appreciate all of them. I did not have the pleasure of seeing the first of those holy days, Palm Sunday, in the Eternal City; but I saw it in Florence, a city in which it is celebrated with almost equal pomp and circumstance. Early on the morning of this day I betook myself to the Duomo, the great cathedral of the city. Its portals were constantly receiving and giving forth streams of excited people. The earnest countenances of all seemed to express a consciousness that the day and its parade constituted an important epoch in the history of their souls; though I rather suspect that the real motive of the animation was simply an anxiety to see as many as possible of the splendid pageants with which the Romish Church celebrates the day. Before we had reached the portal, we were met by all sorts of ragged boys and pretty girls, each with a bunch of twigs, some of them resembling palm branches, of which they desired us to purchase a portion. These were branches which had been blessed by a priest, and were designed to be borne by all Catholics who would witness the great symbolical procession. We entered the Duomo, and after growing weary of witnessing pompous rites, and of breathing "incensed" air, saw at last the formation of the procession of palms. It consisted of the inferior clergy in front, and was terminated by bishops and other high Papal officers, followed by an archbishop, the chief officer of the day. The design of the procession is to give an outward representation of the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem on the occasion when it is said of him that "much people, when they heard that he was coming, took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him and cried: Hosanna, blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord." It moved from the Duomo very slowly along crowded streets, to a church in a distant part of the city. At the door of this church the procession was arrested and before being permitted to enter, went through a sort of ritualistic parley, in which a choir in the depth of the church discoursed strains of heavenly music, and was responded to in tones of thunder by a similar choir from without. Finally the procession was permitted to enter and join in further ceremonies, which I did not choose to witness. On leaving Florence we hoped to arrive in Rome in time to enjoy the spectacles of Holy Thursday, but our train was a little behind time, and we were disappointed. Besides this, the omnibus which we entered was about half an hour in getting ready to leave the depot, and when it did start moved so slowly as to consume about an hour in reaching our hotel. But, alas! even then it did not prove to be our hotel. We had arrived at a very inopportune season. Tens of thousands of strangers from all parts of Christendom had flocked to Rome to witness the greatest pageant of the world, the celebration of Easter in the city of the Pope, and all the public houses were filled to excess. Neither love nor money could purchase for us even the simplest quarters. There remained to us but one alternative, namely, to plunge into the city, stranger as we were, and seek private lodgings. We were soon at the work, and during its continuance of an hour, found many instances of what seemed to us like the workings of the dark side of human nature. We had no trouble in finding abundance of unoccupied furnished apartments, but the difficulty was to find any thing like a Christian price. The Catholics seemed to have all turned Jews, and to have lost all conception of the normal functions of a conscience. In repeated instances they asked for a room for a few days only more than was the ordinary price of a similar room for two months. I must confess, however, that they treated me with great politeness. They seemed very anxious that I should engage rooms immediately, and were quite fearful if I did not that the city would soon be so full as to render it impossible for me to find even a place to lay my head. The simple fact in the matter is, that many of the people of Rome have very few visible means of support, but depend almost entirely on "fleecing" the multitudes of strangers, who for many reasons are continually flowing to the city. I succeeded, however, after much interesting experience, in obtaining suitable rooms in the Vie di Ripetta, conveniently situated about midway between the Coliseum and St. Peter's Church. By this time several precious hours of Holy Thursday had been consumed; still we determined to see what we could. Accordingly, after a hurried repast, we hastened off in the direc tion of St. Peter's. At first we found the streets almost deserted; but pretty soon we began to meet rapidly-driving carriages. This led us to fear what we soon learned in fact was the case; namely, that the chief ceremony of the day, with its closing Papal benediction, had been completed. The crowd which met us soon grew very dense, so that it was difficult to proceed. Finally, on nearing the great bridge over the Tiber, the Ponte di San Angelo, we were brought to a dead halt; for the vast multitude which had witnessed the solemnities of the day, was now pressing its way from St. Peter's to the main part of the city which lies on the opposite, the south-eastern, side of the river. And as they all passed over this one bridge, it became choked up, and remained for some time in a state of uncomfortable blockade. While we were waiting for the multitude to pass, we had ample time to make observations. of fasts. Some seemed to be men of noble feeling and high culture, but the majority produced a different impression. But finally the press of the multitude had passed, and we were enabled to cross the bridge. Here, turning to the left, we took the better of two parallel streets, and after several minutes' walking, came to the entrance of the piazza of St. Peter's. At this point we stopped a few moments and endeavored to comprehend the spectacle that lay before us. The piazza, in the center of which stands a beautiful Egyptian obelisk of red granite, one hundred and twenty-six feet in hight, which was brought to Rome from Heliopolis by order of Caligula, was the first object of our attention. It embraces an area of several acres, and is slightly elliptical in form, being inclosed on either side by a semicircular colonnade. Between the obelisk and the colonnades on either hand, stand two of the finest fountains in the world. Their snowy waters are forever sparkling in the light of the sun or moon. Beyond this finely-paved ellip Just across, at the north end of the bridge, stands the celebrated Papal castle of San Angelo, a huge cylindrical mass of masonry, built originally for a mausoleum, by the Emperortical area, and immediately in front of St. PeAdrian, in the second century. It has done service in former ages as a fortress for the Popes. According to tradition it bears the name Angelo in commemoration of the fact that, during the prevalence of the pest, in the sixth century, an angel was seen to alight upon it and solemnly sheath his sword, in token that the wrath of God was appeased. The bridge, which is now ornamented by ten large angels in marble, was originally constructed by the same Emperor, and takes its name from the castle. But more interesting still than these dead works, was the living multitude which streamed into the city. All classes were there, from the ragged, rascally-looking peasant, to the haughty heirs of ancient nobility. The splendor of the carriage or chariot corresponded exactly with the dignity of the occupant. Bishops, archbishops, and princes rode by in great numbers; but neither they nor their gilded trappings had much of interest for me. I was chiefly attracted by the gorgeous equipages of the Cardinals. I had elsewhere seen many specimens of royal carriages on occasions of state, but it seemed to me that I had never seen any thing nearly so splendid as the chariots of these pretended servants of Christ. They were literally of purple and gold. As it was a warm day, the windows of the chariots were open and we had a fine view of the physiognomy of the Cardinals, with their purple robes and hats. All temperaments were represented, from the gross, corpulent epicure to the sallow and ghastly reciter of prayers and keeper ter's, lies a square court inclosed between two straight colonnades, which unite the ellipse with the sides of the great cathedral. At first I found it utterly impossible to realize that I stood before the largest, the most magnificent temple that had ever been erected for the worship of the Almighty; and it was not till after repeated visits that I finally got rid of this impression. I attributed this to the fact that I had just spent a week in Florence, during every day of which I had visited that great masterpiece of the architect, Brunelleschi, the Duomo. This church, it has always seemed to me, far surpasses St. Peter's in impressing the beholder with the feeling of the vast and sublime. The façade of St. Peter's disappoints every body. It is so divided into horizontal stories or sections, that the impression of vast- ̈ ness is destroyed. And besides this, the dome which rises over the transept in the west end, is so far from the façade that when you stand in the immediate front it is entirely invisible, so that in fact the most unfavorable of all points from which to behold this vast building, is just in front of it about one hundred yards distant. On passing the vestibule and entering the body of the church, we experienced a feeling of disappointment and almost chagrin. We stood in the center of the chief nave of the largest church in the world, and yet we remained unimpressed. It was in vain that we recollected that the length of the church was five hundred and seventy-five feet; that of the transverse nave four hundred and seventeen feet, and that the width of the nave in which we stood was eighty-seven feet; we could not realize the emotion which we thought we ought to experience. Perhaps we had expected too much. I find, however, some apology for my apathy in the style of the architecture of St. Peter's. I have never been able to admire the Italian style as compared with the Gothic. Such churches as the cathedral of Magdeburg and Notre Dame at Paris, are much better adapted to impress the soul with awe and wonder, than the gigantic proportions of St. Peter's. Westminster Abbey, in London, strikes me with much greater power than St. Paul's, though the latter is much larger. After several visits and repeated attempts, however, I succeeded to some extent in feeling the vastness of St. Peter's. I helped myself to this in various ways. For example, I observed from the entrance of the cen tral nave, that there were attached to the main pillars at the sides, several vases for holy water which were supported by infants in white marble. On approaching these very small infants, as they seemed to be, we were surprised to see them transformed into masculine figures, six or seven feet high. Men when seen in the opposite end of the nave seemed like very insignificant dwarfs. A conversational voice grew indistinct when not half the length of the church distant. On the frieze surrounding the base of the dome are inscribed in Latin these words: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom." This, as seen from below, is only comfortably legible, and yet on ascending to the dome each letter is discovered to occupy a space of about forty-two square feet. Within the dome are depicted in mosaic the four evangelists with their emblems. These, as seen from below, are, likewise, only large enough to be distinctly seen. But on nearer approach even the delicate quill in St. Mark's hand proved to be at least six feet long. The tints and shadings of color which are required to produce these exquisite portraits are discovered to rest not on the genial surface of a canvas, but to be produced by little irregular blocks of differently-colored enameled stone carefully collocated and imbedded in mortar. It is a very rough, coarse-looking surface, and in places you can lay your finger in the mortarless crevices. The little blocks present on an average about a square inch of surface. The other exquisite mosaic pictures in the various parts of St. Peter's are produced in the same way. One wonders how such marvelous creations can be wrought by such simple means; and yet all that is required is a due regard to the laws of distance, and a proper selection of the little colored stones. On entering the main nave the first object which arrests the somewhat bewildered attention, is the confession or tomb of St. Peter. It lies below the pavement of the church, is surrounded by a circular balustrade, and descended to by two flights of stairs. Before the altar stands, in kneeling posture, a fine statue of Pius the Sixth, by Canova. More than one hundred lamps are here kept forever burning. Over the tomb and immediately under the dome stands a splendid baldachin of gilded bronze, sustained by four lofty spiral columns of composite order, likewise of gilded bronze. The metal employed in this fine work of Bernini weighs not less than ninety-three tuns, and was obtained by despoiling the Pantheon. This magnificent tomb is supposed to contain one half of the body of St. Peter. The great dome, which rises like the vault of the starry heavens above this tomb, is the next object of our wonder. The soul never wearies of gazing up into its remote depths. It is here that the immensity of the church is most deeply felt. Who that has ever seen there the sublime mosaics of the four Evangelists, but especially that of St. John, will ever forget them! This vast dome is one hundred and thirty feet in diameter, rests on four arches, supported by as many pillars, each of which is two hundred and thirty-four feet in circumference, and, like that at Florence, is of double structure, a dome within a dome. One of the four gigantic pillars is pierced by a spiral stairway, by means of which visitors ascend to the base of the dome. From thence the stairway winds along between the inner and outer domes, and at last leads to the lantern. Strangers who ascend are allowed to proceed at their leisure, and to halt as often as they please. This latter we found it quite necessary to do, inasmuch as the winding ascent is much more wearying than the walking of many miles on a level surface. Arriving at the top of the main part of the church, we were very glad to halt and walk about over its vast area. We seemed just to have reached the surface of terra firma, so large was the surface around us. There was space there for quite a large field of grain. At least a respectable village could have found there ample room. And indeed it did not seem unvillage-like; for wherever we looked we saw inhabitants, some at amusement, others plying the implements of many trades. We saw masons, carpenters, and policemen; and, stranger still, we saw the dense smoke and heard the clang of blacksmiths' shops. Yes, it is a fact. The continual repairs which the vast cathedral requires have occasioned the locating on its roof of permanent shops. Here the work of hewing stone, and of beating iron bars with the huge sledge-hammer, goes unceasingly on, without in the least disturbing the prayer-like, the death-like silence of the temple below. We have now reposed long enough to resume the ascent. We are again very weary before reaching the top of the dome. Here the landscape which spreads out on every side is rich beyond description. At this point we fell in company with a very clever American priest, with whom we had much pleasure in studying the landscape, and in identifying the prominent objects of the city at the south-east. We now ascend further to the top of the lantern, and from thence can climb, if we choose, a long ladder, and finally enter the great metallic ball, seven feet in diameter, which is the limit for the most daring adventurer, except it be the chief sexton, who, by means of an iron ladder, climbs on the outside of the ball to the great cross which surmounts the whole. This man, whose life is often in so great danger, is said to enjoy from the Pope the benefit of a perpetual absolution, so that, lose his life when he may, he will always be ready. We ventured to climb the ladder and enter the ball; though our English companion, after mounting a few yards, was taken with faintness of knees, and, exclaiming that it was "too much like going into eternity for him," beat a sudden retreat. self was not very well repaid, except in the name of the thing; for, it being quite a warm day, and the port-holes of the ball being rather small, I found the air of the interior very hot and very impure. Descending to the platform below, we took a final survey of the enchanting panorama around us, and, with a rather sad heart, began the descent. What stranger, in face of the extreme unlikelihood of ever standing in such a place again, could close his eyes on the bright scene before him, and enter the gloomy stairway of descent, without melancholy thoughts! I my We soon found diversion, however, in reading the tablets which have been placed in the walls along the upper stairway in memory of the distinguished persons, princes and poets, who had honored it with a personal ascent. Most of the distinguished princes of modern history have made the ascent. Of many of them it is engraved in marble that they climbed even into the ball." I noticed, among those who did not venture quite so high, the Emperor Nicholas of Russia. It is a full day's work to ascend St. Peter's, enjoy the sights, and then make the wearisome descent. (TO BE CONTINUED.) A NEW-YEAR'S SONG. BY ALFRED TENNYSON. RING out, wild bells, to the sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: Ring, happy bells, across the snow: For those that here we see no more; Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. THE SUN OF LOVE. BY AUGUSTA MOORE. O LORD, Christ Jesus, take me to thy heart- By the sweet solacing of Love Divine. O Thou that madest hearts to yearn for love, And I shall know no want, shall feel no pain. What are all these but sparks struck off from Thee? And when they fail, O glorious Sun of Love, I lose my loss in thine infinity. hearts, for a smile illuminated the face of the widowed mourner, and the reader, noted among her friends for a love of metaphysics and ability to reason logically, went on audibly thus: Christ is Christianity. In him are all its truths, all its motives, all its glory summed up. He is its Alpha and Omega; the embodiment of all it teaches, all it prescribes, all it promises." "A singular coincidence, that we should all at this moment be thinking of the Savior of the world," said Mrs. Ellis, "and how strikingly it shows the absolute necessity to the human soul of an object of trust and adoration." "Yes," and the reader closed her book for a time, "and I should love to know just how He seems to each of us. To me, he is the highest Pictures of exquisite beauty graced the walls, the study of which brought holy thoughts into the minds of the gazer, and scattered about were stereoscopic views of lake and river; of castle and cottage; of water-fall and forest-ideal of goodness, the model teacher, hero and with charts and globes which send one's imagination swiftly sailing round the world, whence it comes back, after a glad, gay voyage, freighted with the wealth of foreign shores. Floating on the Summer air into the baywindows, from freshly-blown roses and whiteflowering syringas, came a deep, mysterious fragrance, and glancing in from the red, earthen pots outside were geraniums with scarlet bloom, fuschias with pendent, creamy bells, and calyx of royal purple. As a foil to this brightness, the "Wandering Jew," with thick, glossy leaves of green, twined upon the white trellis, appearing to emulate its namesake in freshness and length of life, and from its present thrifty condition seemed ready, too, for interminable travel, unless held in check by careful hands. The maples threw lengthened shadows on the ground, and just in front grew the arbor vitæ, suggesting the Tree of Life growing by that nameless river whose flow gladdens the dwellers of the New Jerusalem. The three occupants of the library-room were all in a meditative mood. Emma, with absorbed eye, was deep in Tulloch's "Christ of the Gospels." Pauline, with half-closed book, looked out into the shadows upon the beautiful plants below; and the third, Mrs. Ellis, reclining upon the sofa, with saddened brow and in mourning robes, was intently surveying a cross of mosses framed on the wall, and at whose foot, uprising from a bed of ferns and grasses, a fair hand had written, "In te, O Christe, spero." Just then, the lady looking forth from the window, as her eye caught sight of the jets thrown back into their basin of water-lilies, repeated in a low, sweet voice, There is a fountain filled with blood." martyr, the Divine example so pure and holy that I can not hope to attain to it." "To me," said the fair girl at the window, Pauline, who, by the way, was a missionary's daughter, sent home from foreign lands to be educated, "he is an Elder Brother, my constant and faithful Friend. Yes, more: he is father and mother, home and country, my all." And her eye glowed with rapture as she spoke, for she had her father's fervor and his own love for that Savior he proclaimed to the heathen. "To me," said Mrs. Ellis, "he is the sorrowing One. I ever think of him in Gethsemane, in Pilate's hall, or on the dreadful mount of crucifixion, bearing the sins and the griefs of the world, and in that dark hour exclaiming, 'Eloi, eloi, lama sabacthani!" Her tears were fast gathering when the missionary's daughter, springing to her side, embraced her tenderly and said, "Weep not; He is risen, and now, loving and true as on the earth, is saying, 'Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden.'" Emma looked at the young girl as if she longed to possess her child-like faith, and she spoke rather sorrowfully, "You are beholding the ascended Christ, while I look upon him as during his incarnation; hence your ideas concerning him are enthusiastic, while mine are coolly philosophic. With my peculiar temperament, I am almost devoid of faith, and must arrive at certain conclusions from external evidence only, while yours reaches to that 'within the vail,' and sees there what is hidden to me." "Are you not to yourself, Emma, too often saying, 'Ecce homo!' Christ, in his incarnation, is to you a model of excellence; but is he present to you, spiritually, the risen Redeemer, able to save you?" "I admit that my reading and thinking perThis seemed to touch the key-note of all their tain, in great measure, to him in his humanity. |