SATURDAY BEFORE EASTER.
I have not been able to ascertain the reason why the Roman Catholic celebrate the resurrection this morning, with an anticipation of nearly four and twenty hours, and yet continue the fast till midnight or the beginning of Sunday. This practice is, I believe, of high antiquity.
The service begins this morning without either the sound of bells or of musical instruments. The Paschal Candle is seen by the north-side of the altar. But, before I mention the size of that used at our cathedral, I must protest against all charges of exaggeration. It is, in fact, a pillar of wax, nine yards in height, and thick in proportion, standing on a regular marble pedestal. It weighs eighty arrobas, or two thousand pounds, of twelve ounces. This candle is cast and painted new, every year; the old one being broken to pieces on the Saturday preceding Whitsunday, the day when part of it is used for the consecration of the baptismal font. The sacred torch is lighted with the new fire, which this morning the priest strikes out of a flint, and burns during service till Ascension-day. A chorister in his surplice climbs up a gilt-iron rod, furnished with steps like a flag-staff, and having the top railed in, so as to admit of a seat on a level with the end of the candle. From this crow’s nest, the young man lights up and trims the wax pillar, drawing off the melted wax with a large iron ladle.
High mass begins this day behind the great veil, which for the two last weeks in Lent covers the altar. After some preparatory prayers, the priest strikes up the hymn Gloria in excelsis Deo. At this moment the veil flies off, the explosion of fireworks in the upper galleries reverberates in a thousand echoes from the vaults of the church, and the four-and-twenty large bells of its tower, awake, with their discordant though gladdening sounds, those of the one hundred and forty-six steeples which this religious town boasts of. A brisk firing of musketry, accompanied by the howling of the innumerable dogs, which, unclaimed by any master, live and multiply in our streets, adds strength and variety to this universal din. The firing is directed against several stuffed figures, not unlike the Guy Fawkes of the fifth of November; which are seen hanging by the neck on a rope, extended across the least frequented streets. It is then that the pious rage of the people of Seville is vented against the archtraitor Judas, whom they annually hang, shoot, draw and quarter in effigy.
The church service ends in a procession about the aisles. The priest bears the host in his hands, visible through glass, as a picture within a medallion. The sudden change from the gloomy appearance of the church and its ministers, to the simple and joyous character of this procession, the very name of Pasqua Florída, the flowery Passover, and, more than the name, the flowers themselves, which well-dressed children, mixed with the censer-bearers, scatter on the ground, crowd the mind and heart with the ideas, hopes, and feelings of renovated life, and give to this ceremony, even for those who disbelieve the personal presence in the host, of a Deity triumphant over death; a character of inexpressible tenderness.