IV.
In what quiet library, in what lordly mansion, was this old book safely stored away through all these changing scenes of pageantry and splendor, of riot and bloodshed? Who was he that first received it, new and comely, from the hands of William Stanly, printer, (who is saved to fame in a little corner of the title-page,) and what name is this, written on the margin in ink, embrowned now and almost obliterated, which evidently was once intended to establish ownership? The dedication to my Lord of Ellismere bespeaks for it a place with the noble and learned; who among them found time then to seek
"how to liue wel and how to die wel, from our Seneca—whose diuine sentences, wholesom counsailes, serious exclamations against vices, in being but a heathen, may make us ashamed being Christians." (Translator's preface.)
What statesman, by lamplight perhaps, when the toils of the day were over, turned these very pages, and drew a rule for his steps from the maxims of the Roman? Hadst thou but a tongue, old book, what tales thou mightest tell! Where wert thou when that pestilence, the plague, swept from London 100,000 of its inhabitants? or where when its career was checked by that other horror, the great conflagration? when the bells from a hundred steeples tolled their own requiem, and the number of houses in London was diminished by 13,000.
One hundred years had passed over it when George I. ascended the English throne; then came Georges II., III., and IV., King William and Queen Victoria. Under the two first, no small portion of the troubles, both at home and with foreign nations, were traceable to the plots and intrigues of the last solitary scion of the house of Stuart; and with George III. a new war boomed over the Atlantic. At last it was finished; and at the somewhat mature age of two hundred and fifty-six years, but still in good condition, our time-honored volume has crossed the ocean to find a new home under the stripes and stars. One more exponent, in its silent eloquence, of that
"Vitæ summa brevis"
which the Roman poet warns us is not to be counted on.
THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
NUMBER FOUR.
Another month of the Vatican Council has passed by without any public session. There has not been a general congregation since February 22d, when the twenty-ninth was held. This absence of grand public ceremonials has driven some of the newspaper correspondents to turn elsewhere in search of sensational items. We are no longer inundated, and at times amused, by column after column of newspaper accounts narrating speeches and events in the council that had scarcely any existence, except in the fertile imaginations of the writers. The outward calm in Rome has produced its effect in no small extent in the newspaper world.
This calm, however, is by no means the calm of inaction. Quite the contrary. At no time were the fathers so assiduously engaged in the deep study of the matters before them, or more earnestly occupied with their conciliar labors.
We stated in our last number that they were then engaged in the discussion of the subjects of discipline, on which several schemata, or draughts, had been drawn up by preparatory committees of theologians, in anticipation of the council. The discussion was continued, on February 19th, with six speakers, on the 21st with seven speakers, and was closed on the 22d with seven other speakers, when the fourth schema, or draught, on discipline, was referred, as the preceding ones had been, to the appropriate committee or deputation on matters of discipline.
Thus, within two months, since the congregation of December 28th, when the discussion began, one schema on faith and four on discipline had come up before the bishops; and there had been in all one hundred and forty-five speeches delivered on them. The experience of those two months had made several points very clear:
First, the schemata, or draughts, as prepared by the theologians, did not prove as acceptable to the bishops as perhaps their authors had expected. On the contrary, the bishops subjected them to a very searching examination and discussion, criticising and weighing every point and every expression; and seemed disposed, in measure, to recast some of them entirely.
Secondly, the mode in which this examination had so far been conducted might, it was thought, be improved, both in its thoroughness and in the length of time it occupied. So far, all the prelates who wished had spoken one after another. The sittings of the congregations usually lasted from nine A.M. to one P.M., and became a great trial of the physical endurance of many of these aged men. The prelates could not refrain from asking each other, What progress are we making? How long will this series of speeches last?
Again, many of the speakers, unwilling to occupy the attention of the congregation too long, strove to condense what they wished to say, and sometimes omitted much that might have thrown additional light on the subject, or would be material for the support of their views. Yet how could this be avoided without extending the discussion beyond the limits of endurance.
Still more, many prelates, whose mature and experienced judgments would have been most valuable, would not speak; some, because they were unwilling to increase the already large number of speakers; others, because their organs of speech were too feeble to assure their being heard throughout a hall which held over a thousand persons in by no means crowded seats.
These points had gradually made themselves manifest, and, as we intimated in our last article, the question had been raised, how these difficulties could be met. Some suggested a division of the prelates into a number of sections, in each and all of which the discussions might go on at the same time. But, after much consideration, another method was resolved on, and was announced in the congregation of the 22d of February as the one to be followed in the examination and discussion of the next schema, or draught, to be taken up by the council.
The main points of these additional regulations are the following: When a schema comes before the council for examination, instead of the vivâ voce discussion, which according to the first system would take place in the congregations, before sending it to the proper committee, if necessary, the cardinals presiding shall fix and announce a suitable time, within which any and every one of the fathers, who desires to do so, may commit his views on it to writing, and shall send in the same to the secretary of the council. Any amendments, additions, and corrections which he may wish to make must be fully and clearly written out. The secretary must, at the end of the appointed time, transmit to the appropriate committee, or deputation of bishops, all the remarks on the schema. The schema will be examined and remodelled, if necessary, by the committee, under the light of these written statements, precisely as would be done if the members had before them the full report of speeches made in the former style before the congregation. The reformed schema is again presented to the congregation, and with it a summary exposition of the substance of the remarks and of the amendments proposed. "When the schema, together with the aforesaid summary, has been distributed to the fathers of the council, the said presidents shall appoint a day for its discussion in general congregation." In parliamentary usage, this corresponds to having the discussion, not on the first, but on the second reading of a bill.
This discussion must proceed in the strict order of topics, first generally; that is, on the schema wholly or in part, as it may have been brought before the congregation; then on the several portions of it, one by one. The speakers who wish to take part in the discussion must, in giving in their names as before, state also whether they intend to speak on the schema as a whole, or on some special parts of it, and which ones. The form of amendment, should a speaker propose one, must be handed in, in writing, at the conclusion of his speech. Of course, the speakers must keep to the point in debate. If any one wanders from it, he will be called to order. The members of the reporting committee or deputation will, moreover, be free to speak in reply, during the debate, as they judge it advisable.
The last four of these by-laws are the following:
XI. "If the discussion be unreasonably protracted, after the subject has been sufficiently debated, the cardinals presiding, on the written request of at least ten bishops, shall be at liberty to put the question to the fathers whether the discussion shall continue. The fathers shall vote by rising or retaining their seats; and if a majority of the fathers present so decide, they shall close the discussion.
XII. "When the discussion on one part of a schema is closed, and before proceeding to another, the presiding cardinals shall take the votes of the general congregation, first on the amendments proposed during the discussion itself, and then on the whole context of the part under consideration.
XIII. "The votes, both as to the amendments and as to the context of such part, will be given by the fathers in the following mode: First, the cardinals presiding shall require those who assent to the amendment or text to rise; then, by a second call, shall require those who dissent to rise in their turn; and after the votes have been counted, the decision of the majority of the fathers will be recorded.
XIV. "When all the several parts of a schema have been voted on in this mode, the cardinals presiding shall take the judgment of the fathers on the entire schema under examination as a whole. These votes shall be given vivâ voce, by the words, Placet or Non Placet. But those who think it necessary to add any condition shall give their votes in writing."
It is already evident that the first provision of these by-laws or regulations is attaining its purpose. At the congregation of February 22d, when they went into force, a certain portion of a new schema, or draught, on matters of faith, was announced as the next matter regularly coming up for examination, and the space of ten days was assigned within which the fathers might write out their criticisms, and propose any emendations or amendments to it, and send such written opinions to the secretary. There was no limit to hamper the bishops in the fullest expression of their sentiments. They might write briefly, or at as great length as they deemed proper. Moreover, in writing, they would naturally be more exact and careful than perhaps they could be in speeches often made extempore. There would also be less liability of being misunderstood. Moreover, many more could and probably would write than would have spoken. It is said over one hundred and fifty did so write on this first occasion; so that, in reality, as much was done in those ten days as under the old system would have occupied two months. The second portion, touching the debate before the congregation, will of course be effective and satisfactory. And it is confidently hoped that the third portion, as to the mode of closing the debate and taking the vote, will, when the time comes for testing it, be found equally satisfactory.
In our previous numbers we have avoided falling into the very error of the correspondents which we have repeatedly blamed; we have not pretended to have succeeded in getting a glimpse behind the curtain which veils the council, and so to have qualified ourselves to speak without reserve of the matters treated by the fathers in their private debates. Even had circumstances brought some knowledge of this to us, it would be under obligations which would effectually prevent our touching on it in these articles. But we can be under no such obligation in regard to questions which, if we are correctly informed, have not come, at least up to the present time, before the congregations of the council. There is one such question which excites universal attention, perhaps we should rather say universal talk, outside the council—the infallibility of the pope. It has become in Europe the question of the day. Books have been written on it, pamphlets discussing it are issued every week, and England, France, Germany, and Spain have been deluged with newspaper articles upholding it or attacking it—articles written with every possible shade of learning and of ignorance, and in every degree of temper, from the best to the worst. The articles are what might be expected when the writers are of every class, from erudite theologians down to penny-a-liners, and when, if some are good and sincere Catholics, many are by no means such. Protestants have written on it, some in favor of the doctrine (!), most of them against it. The bitterest and most unfair articles, however, have been and are those written by the political opponents of the church; though how this precise question can come into politics, any more than the existence of religion, the divinity of the Saviour, the infallibility of the church, or any other point of doctrine, we cannot see. But in Europe, if religion does not go into politics, politics, or at least politicians and political writers, have no scruples in going into religious matters. In fact, the most advanced party of "progress, and enlightenment, and liberty" proclaim that there should be no religion at all, that it narrows the intellect by hampering freedom of thought, and enslaves man by forbidding him to do much that he desires; and as they think mankind should, on the contrary, be free from all its trammels; and as they hold it to be their special mission to effect this liberation, they systematically omit no occasion of attacking religion. For them, one point is as good as another; the infallibility of the pope will do as well as the discovery that a crazy nun, subject to furious mania, was confined in a room so small that the sides of it only measured twenty feet one way and twenty-three the other, and so low that one had to stand on a step to reach the window. Any thing will serve this class of writers. And, unfortunately for religious news, much of what appears in the press of Europe, and must gradually be infused, in part at least, into the press in the United States, is from such pens, and is imbued or is tinged with their spirit.
We would not do justice to Rome and the council if we omitted to mention a very interesting event with which the council is connected, if only as the occasion. We mean the Roman Exposition of Arts, as applied to religious purposes. It was opened by the pope three weeks ago.
The traveller arriving in Rome by the railway cannot fail to be struck with wonder at the view which opens before him the instant he steps out of the door of the central station. Just across the square, huge dark masses of rough masonry rise before him. Some are only twenty or thirty feet high, and their tops are covered with the herbage or bushes that grow on the soil, wafted thither by the winds of centuries. Others are still higher, and are connected by walls equally old, some broken, some nearly entire. Here and there immense arches of masonry, a hundred feet high in the air, still span the space from pier to pier, and bear a fringe of green herbage. Every thing tells you of the immensity of the building, or group of buildings which men erected here in ages long gone by. But even still, as you see, portions of these walls and arches are used. Not every pier is a mere isolated ruin; not under every arch can you look and see through it a broad expanse of blue Italian sky. Modern walls are joined to these piers; the ancient walls too are turned to account; irregular roofs, some high, some low, come against them. Here, through the high openings in the original wall, men are busy taking in or delivering bundles of hay from the store-house they have constructed. There, through doorways and windows of more modern shape, you see that another portion is made to serve as barracks for soldiers. Other buildings stretch away northward and westward, schools, orphanages, and a reformatory, as you see by their various inscriptions. But though of more recent date, they have not lost all connection with the ruins; for the ground all along shows traces of the original constructions in the fragments of broken columns and in patches of the ancient masonry, which between and beyond them continues ever and anon to rise in outlying masses. But in the centre, where the strong masonry rises higher than elsewhere and is best preserved, there spreads a wide roof surmounted by crosses at the gables. To the eastward, the ruins seem to die away in a long and not very high line of buildings, evidently cared for and inhabited. The walls are covered with plaster, and the windows are glazed, and protected by shutters. Over the ridge of the roof you may see the lofty summits of some cedars that are growing in a court-yard or garden within.
These are the mighty remnants of the Baths of Diocletian, commenced by that emperor in the year 302. Built at the period when Rome was at the zenith of her wealth and luxury, it far exceeded all other buildings of its class in the seven-hilled city, both in vastness and in grandeur. It was undertaken in a time of the most cruel persecution of the church, and the Christians who were condemned to imprisonment and hard labor, because they would not deny their Lord, were brought here day after day from many a prison, and fettered like convicts, and were made to labor in erecting this pile devoted to pride, and luxury, and debauchery. Many an account of the martyr Christians of that age tells of old and young men and women, condemned for their faith, and sent to die here a lingering death of martyrdom. Many a soul passed from this spot straight to heaven. For who hath greater love than he who giveth his life for his friend? Many a prayer of Christian faith, of holy resignation, of ardent hope of a better life, was here uttered day after day, and hour after hour, all the years the work lasted. The antiquarian still finds here and there the bricks which believing hands marked with a cross, the outward expression of the prayer of their hearts, offering their labors and sufferings, endured for his sake, to Him who for their sakes labored and suffered on the cross. It is estimated that more than forty thousand Christians toiled at the work. It was in these ruins, if we mistake not, that was found one of the marble tablets inscribed with an encomium of Diocletian, for having purged the world of that vile and hateful superstition called Christianity.
In this vast pile of buildings, thirteen hundred feet from east to west, and twelve hundred from north to south, there were halls, court-yards surrounded by ample porticoes, pools for swimmers, thousands of baths, libraries, galleries of painting and sculpture, portions set aside for philosophic discussion, other portions for gymnastic exercises and games, and every thing that Roman luxury or Roman debauchery called for, and Roman wealth could provide.
The first dismantling and partial destruction of the buildings seems to have occurred when Alaric sacked Rome. Yet even a century later portions of them were still used for the original purpose as baths.
It is needless to say how they suffered still more, by alternate violence and neglect, for many centuries afterward. Often it was occupied by soldiers as a stronghold, and it suffered at their hands, as by alterations here and there they strove to make the place more defensible. Often it was assailed and taken, and then suffered still more, as whatever could be was toppled over in anger. And when the soldiers left it quiet, rain and winds and storms continued the work of destruction. In the sixteenth century all this property was owned by Saint Charles Borromeo. He gave it to the pope, Pius IV., who determined to construct a church, if possible, in the midst of these ruins, and so put them under the guardianship of that very religion which gave so many martyrs toward their construction. The pontiff committed the task to Michael Angelo, who executed it in a manner which won an admiration next to that gained by his great work at St. Peter's.
Amid the ruins there stood a vast hall, three hundred and twenty-five feet long and sixty feet broad. Its massive walls were perfect, and the vast arch of masonry that covered it, at the height of over one hundred feet, though weakened by the exposure of centuries, still stood unbroken. The Caldarium stood near by on one side, and the old natatio, or swimming room, joined it on the other. Both still preserved their vaulted roofs. Michael Angelo united them, and, preserving the walls and the massive monolith columns of red Egyptian granite, which were all standing, skilfully produced a noble church in the form of a Greek cross, which is known as St. Mary of the Angels. One loves to pass an hour in that vast, quiet, and attractive church, under the olden arch, now protected from the weather by an additional tiled roof, viewing the exquisite statues of saints, and the masterpieces of painting, the originals, some of them, of the mosaics over the altars of St. Peter's, or listening to the Cistercian monks who serve the church as they slowly and reverently chant the divine office at their stated hours of day and night.
On the eastern side, toward the Pretorian Camp, war had done its most destructive work. Here Michael Angelo found the ruins so entirely beaten down that most of the space had been devoted to gardens, though encumbered indeed by sundry picturesque mounds of masonry. Here, using the materials at hand so far as they would serve, he erected a monastery for the Cistercians, a plain quadrangular building, inclosing an open space about four hundred feet square. To each side of this the building presents a portico, or arcade, which thus forms a cloister, supported by twenty-five columns of travertine. No work of that great architect and artist exceeds this cloister in its simplicity, and the exquisite beauty of form and proportion in all its parts. In the centre of the yard is a majestic, ever-flowing fountain, throwing its stream of water aloft. This falls into an ample marble reservoir beneath, whose waters ripple and sparkle in the sunlight as the gold-fish are darting to and fro into the shade of water-lilies or out to court the beams of the sun. By this basin the architect planted with his own hand four young cedars, which throve apace. Three of them are still standing, historic trees. Two are strong and vigorous, though three centuries old; a third is in the decrepitude of old age, shattered and broken by the winds, but still bravely struggling to the last to raise its topmost branches upward toward heaven. The fourth perished some years ago, and has been replaced by another, younger one, which a good Cistercian, they say, obtained by securing in time and carefully nursing a young shoot of the old tree itself.
Around the cloister are the cells of the brethren. They seem to have a curious fancy of fastening placards on their doors. You can see half a dozen of them of different sizes. On some doors the sheet of paper is apparently fresh and clean, and is still securely fastened by four tacks, or by wafers under the corners. On other doors some of the tacks have fallen out, or the wafers have lost their hold, and the paper hangs dangling by a single corner. The winds have blown it until it is torn. The rain has moistened and caused it to curl. The upper portion hangs loosely over, half hiding the writing on it. You approach and stretch out your hand to lift it up, that you may read what a Cistercian had placarded on the door of his cell. It is all a delusion! There is no paper! Some painter, quitting the world, retreated to this community. In its quietude and silence, and in its penitential life, he found again peace and tranquillity of soul, and the gayety of his youth came back to him. He took a boyish pleasure in playing this clever artistic practical joke on the strangers whom curiosity, or other motives, from time to time, brought to look at the interior of a Carthusian monastery. He died peacefully and piously years ago, but the brethren have not ceased to enjoy the joke he perpetrated.
What a practical lesson of the power with which God rules the world! In this spot where a cruel and sanguinary emperor persecuted and martyred Christians by the thousands, and boasted that he had exterminated the Christian church, the ruins of his vast work owe their preservation to the sacred power of a Christian church. Where luxury, and the pride of the world, and every form of sensuality were wont to seek their gratification, now meek and humble white-robed Cistercians who have renounced the world and its pomps and sins, and are vowed to poverty, chastity, and obedience, work and study in silence, fast austerely, and make the hours of day and the hours of night holy by prayer and chanting of psalms. The heathen empire of Rome has passed away, but the church it tried to destroy lives in perpetual youth. Rome has lost her heathen power of ruling with the sword the bodies of men from the Pillars of Hercules. But through that very Christianity Rome has received and wields a far higher power than the sword could give. She guides the consciences and minds of men, not only through the provinces of her olden temporal empire, but beyond their limit, in lands where the eagle of a Roman legion was never raised, and in countries of whose existence the Roman emperors never dreamed. To the thoughtful mind the Cistercian monastery and the noble church of St. Mary of the Angels but typify the glory of Christian Rome, built amid the ruins of her olden heathen power.
The proposal, made originally by whom we know not, of opening an exposition of religious art at Rome during the sittings of the council, was immediately taken up with enthusiasm. His Holiness assigned the garden of this noble cloister as the best adapted site to be found in Rome, except at a large expense. The Cistercians withdrew temporarily to other buildings close by, and gave up their own beautiful place to architects and workmen. The cloister, or broad open arcade, which runs round the square garden was chosen to form the outer gallery or halls, altogether about twelve hundred feet long by twenty broad. Within this outer gallery, and just touching each side in the middle, is a series of sixteen rooms, all of the same size, and of the same irregular, or rather rhomboidal, shape, forming, as it were, a broad polygon of sixteen sides. Within this polygon is the central portion of the garden, still unoccupied, with its gravelled walks, its green sward, its rose-trees and flowering plants, its ever-gushing fountain, the ample basin receiving the water, the glistening gold-fish, and the majestic cedars of Michael Angelo. The arcade has, of course, its own covering. The sixteen rooms of the polygon are roofed with glass, to let in the flood of light, and a few feet below the glass is another roofing, or awning, to soften its intensity and to mitigate the heat of the direct rays of the sun. Large openings in the partition walls allow free passage from room to room, all around the polygon; and where it touches the arcade or outer halls, other doors allow you to pass to them, or by opposite doors you may pass out to walk in the garden.
The exposition was opened on the 17th of February by the pope himself, in the presence of the commission for the exposition, a number of cardinals, some three hundred of the bishops, and a large concourse of clergy and laity. He made an impromptu discourse, touching chiefly on the true progress which art has made under the inspiration of religion and the patronage of the church, and in illustration referred to some of those unrivalled works of religious painting and sculpture which are found in Rome.
Nothing could be more appropriate to the assembling of so many bishops and priests and pious laymen in Rome, drawn by the council, than this exposition. Go when you will, you will find many of all these classes spending hours in studying a collection of religious works of every kind, such as most of them have never seen. In size and extent this exposition cannot, of course, compare with those vast ones of London and Paris. They sought and received objects of every kind. This admits nothing that is not devoted to, or in some way connected with, religion. It would correspond, therefore, with one section of the Paris Exposition of 1867. Considered in this light, it does not, as a whole, fall below it; in several respects it is superior.
We have not the space now to enter into a detail of the many and multifarious objects offered for examination. Every art seems represented. For what is there that cannot be made to give glory to God? Still, we may glance at a few of the chief groups.
The exterior arcade is chiefly devoted to sculpture and paintings. Of the former there are here and elsewhere in the exhibition over two hundred and fifty pieces, in marble, in plaster, or metal, or wood. I do not count the hundreds of sweet little things in terra cotta, nor the many objects in ivory. Tadolini, Benzoni, Pettrich, and a hundred other artists from Rome, and other parts of Italy, Germany, and France, have sent the work of their chisels. As a whole, this group of subjects stands far higher in point of good art than was looked for. Some of the statues are of a high order. We may instance a group of heroic size by Tadolini, representing the Archangel Michael overcoming Lucifer, after the painting by Guido, and two life-size Madonnas by Pettrich, all of which, we understand, will be forwarded to the United States. There is in one of the French rooms a plaster copy of the statue of the holy Vianney, curate of the village of Ars, near Lyons, in France, who died a few years ago in the odor of sanctity, and who, the Catholics of France are confident, will in due time be canonized. He is robed in soutane, surplice, and stole, and is kneeling in prayer, his face turned upward toward heaven. I do not speak of the style and execution, which are good; but of the face, which attracts every one. It is said to be a perfect likeness. Thin, gaunt, with features sharp and exaggerated by the lack of flesh, rather ugly than otherwise, there is an expression of simplicity, of piety, of kindness, of earnestness, which makes it far more than beautiful, a face that grows in sweetness as you look on it. And yet study the individual features, forehead, eyebrows, nose, mouth, chin, cheek-bones, the chief lines and wrinkles. They are precisely the same as on the repulsive face of Voltaire! What different expressions were given to the same features by the calm piety, the love of God and our neighbor, the spiritual peace dwelling in the soul of the saintly priest, and the pride, and envy, and passions, and the bitter, hopeless or despairing unbelief of the apostle of evil.
As we examine these statues, so good in their execution and so truly religious in their type, one cannot but feel a regret that in the United States we are such strangers to the use of them in our churches and chapels and oratories. Here and there are found, indeed, casts in plaster of Paris, sometimes in papier-maché. But how few real works of merit in materials and in style! If the clergy who are at work building our churches, and some of the laymen who are seconding them in this work, could only see those statues of our Lord on the cross, or bearing the cross and sinking under its weight, or healing the blind, or blessing little children; or those sweet ones of the Mother and Divine Child, in various positions; or of the Blessed Virgin, of St. Joseph, of Saint Cecilia, Saint Agnes, and of so many other saints and groups representing religious subjects; surely among them, in marble, in iron, bronzed, silvered, gilt, or illuminated with polychrome, and such a variety in size and in cost, they would understand the void in our churches, and would each do his part to supply it.
Especially would this be the case with the stations of the way of the cross. No devotion is more tender and consoling, and at the same time none more strengthening to true piety and the practice of virtue, than this pilgrimage of faith, in which we accompany our Lord, and, as it were, stand by his side, during the several scenes of his sufferings down to his death on the cross and his burial. No devotion is more popular, because none better suited to the faithful of every condition and class. Would it not be well if the engravings of those different scenes, so often found—we had almost said, disfiguring the walls of our churches, could give way to some of those basso-relievos and alto-relievos of France, of Italy, and of Germany, such as we see here? The love of the beautiful and striking is innate in man. Even the child feels it; and in manhood, use and education but develop and increase the satisfaction it gives. While we smiled, we could not but sympathize in some measure with the Italian sculptor who, on his dying-bed, pushed away a crucifix which a pious attendant wished to place in his hands. "Not that, not that! it makes me angry," he said; "it is horrid! Give me the other one; it is well made. That will excite devotion." Let children be taught, in a way they will love, to think often, to know, to realize, even from their tenderest years, what the loving and merciful Saviour suffered for man. Lessons well learned at that tender and innocent age seldom fade from the mind and heart in after years. And no way of teaching that lesson is more effectual than the one we indicate.
There are more than five hundred paintings in the exposition. Of these perhaps two hundred are by the old masters, and have been placed here by their owners.
These embrace paintings by the divine Raffaele, as the Italians call him, Domenichino, Annibale Carracci, Correggio, Maratta, Carlo Dolce, Salvator Rosa, Murillo, Leonardo da Vinci, Guido Reni, Rubens, Vandyke, Ribeyra, Del Sarto, and a host of other old masters, Italian, German, Flemish, and Spanish, whom we need not name. There we may gaze with rapture on the excellence of art inspired by religious thought. It is a fact not to be overlooked or forgotten, in these days of irreligion, that the best paintings which the best artists ever painted were all produced when they brought their powers to represent a religious subject. In painting, and in other things too, he works best who works in the spirit of religion and the fear of God.
The larger number of the paintings are of later date, many of them by living artists. To our eye, certainly not trained to criticism, many of them appear worthy of high praise. But we believe the general verdict is not so favorable to them as to the statuary. Still, we must remember that here they have to compete side by side with those old paintings of the highest order. The contrast between their freshly laid colors and the colors of older paintings, toned down by age, if not somewhat faded, is so strong and striking that this very difference, often no real difference on the part of the painters, is set down as a defect to be censured. The portrait of the pope, by our American artist Healy, is undoubtedly the best likeness of the Holy Father in the exposition.
What we said of the statuary we may repeat with equal reason of religious paintings. How easy it would be to adorn our churches and chapels with these books of the eye, one glance at which often teaches more than a sermon. The artists at home capable of producing a religious painting worthy of being placed in a church are few, perhaps might be counted on one's fingers. European painters capable of giving an original ask such prices for their work as generally to put them as far beyond our means as if they were to be painted at home. Even at that, their conception and treatment of a subject will scarcely stand comparison with approved works of the best masters who have already treated the same subjects. But there is a large class of painters here who devote themselves to copying and reproducing those old paintings, on every scale as to size. The execution of many of them is good, and the prices for which the artists are willing to work seem very low. It is wonderful how much painting, and good painting, five hundred dollars well laid out in Rome will obtain. Several of our clerical friends, who have visited Rome this winter, carry back with them evidences of this fact.
Next to the paintings should come the stained glass, which is superb, and is offered at a price which seems really astonishing—about five dollars a square foot for the richest kind, with life-size figures.
The large windows, from several competing manufacturers, are so mounted that the light shines through them, and you can examine at full leisure and carefully the wondrous effects of united brilliancy and softness in these works of peculiarly Christian art. The art of painting on glass, which many, up to a recent period, thought entirely lost, has revived in this century, and seems fast approaching the perfection which it attained in the middle ages. There is one marked difference observable between the old windows and some of the work here. The ancients displayed their skill in combining together thousands of minute pieces of glass of different colors, so as to make up a picture in its proper colors and its lights and shadows. The modern artists have attempted the task of producing the picture on a single large sheet of glass. This would free it from the single defect almost unavoidable in this work—the stiffness of the figures. But the earlier attempts presented such variation in the perfections of the several colors used as to be failures, in point of that brilliancy and play of light which constitute the charm of this work. The source of the defect was to be found in the laws of nature, on which every work, and this work directly, depends. The general mode of procedure in which glass is colored is this: The subject is painted on the surface of a sheet of glass with metallic paints. The glass is placed in an oven and slowly and carefully raised to that point of heat at which it grows soft. The particles of metal constituting the colors sink into the glass and become portions of its substance. The difficulty was found to spring from the great difference in the rate and manner in which the colors would sink into the softened substance. What would give some colors perfectly, would leave others imperfect; and continuing the work until these were perfect, would often destroy the first. But patient study and careful work have overcome these difficulties to a degree which we did not expect. There are full-size figures here in stained glass rivalling those of the middle ages in brilliancy, and possessing the freedom of a painting on canvas.
The perfection of the Gobelins tapestry is almost incredible. A large canvas, twenty-five feet by ten, presents the Assumption by Titian, and near it is a life-size figure of our Lord in the tomb. It is a sermon but to look on the cold, rigid body of him who bore our transgressions. There are specimens of photography, some showing life-size figures, of oleography, lithography, chromo-lithography, engravings on copper, for which Rome cannot be excelled, on steel, and on wood. In many of these branches France and Germany rival, if they do not surpass Italy. But Rome stands unrivalled in mosaics, of which there are here exquisite specimens.
In architecture, we find plans of churches and colleges, very full and clear, but not striking; designs for the interior of chapels and sanctuaries, of a far higher order of art, several miniatures of churches; a fac-simile in white marble of the front of St. Peter's, and another in wood, on the scale of about one inch to ten feet, showing the entire exterior of the church front and dome in all its details, the colonnades, fountains, and square before it, and so constructed that it can be opened in several ways, in order to give an equally correct and minute view of the interior with all its ornamentation. You may recognize every painting and statue in the basilica. It took years of patient labor to make this model, and it is said to have been sold to an Italian prince for twenty thousand dollars. What a pity such a work should be shut up in some palace in the city where every one can go to the real St. Peter's. It should rather be sent to distant countries, where thousands, who will never go to Rome, might be able to obtain from it a far clearer conception than any books can give of the form and splendor of this great temple, which is deservedly the pride and the glory of the Christian world.
In music, there are organs with the latest and best improvements, harmoniums, Alexandre organs of various powers and many stops, and chimes and church-bells hung on a new patent system, by which a mere boy can swing easily and ring loudly a bell of nearly a ton weight. As for texts of church music, you may turn over the parchment leaves of huge folio graduals and antiphonaries, in which the good old monks of past ages wrote the Gregorian notes and the words so large and so clear as to be easily read in the choir, even at the distance of ten feet. There are later ones printed nearly as large, and collections of modern church music from Italy, Germany, and from France.
Ecclesiastical vestments abound in the exposition. Rome, Milan, and other cities of Italy are represented by the most celebrated of their manufacturers. France has sent a multitude from Paris, Lyons, Grenoble, Montpellier, Nismes, and elsewhere. Others have come from Germany and from Spain. Here are copes and chasubles, dalmatics, antipendiums, and veils, of the richest material and exquisite workmanship. You can examine the ample yet light and pliable vestments of Italy, the rich and stiffer ones of France, the narrow and scantier form of Austria, and the heavier ones from Spain, that ought never to wear out. In the matter of vestments you are taught a lesson of history. For here, carefully preserved in large glass wardrobes, are shown the vestments used six hundred and eight hundred years ago, if not a thousand years ago, in St. Peter's, in St. Mary Major's, in St. John Lateran's, and in the cathedral of Anagni.
The emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, as it was called, which sprung into existence in the ninth century, and died in the convulsions of Europe consequent on the French revolution, were bound to come, if circumstances allowed it, to Rome, to receive their royal consecration in St. Peter's at the hands of the pope. On such occasions, the emperor was admitted for that time into the sanctuary, wore a deacon's dalmatic, and chanted a gospel. Here you may look at the identical dalmatic which they wore a thousand years ago. It is of silk, and the figures which decorate it were worked with the needle, in gold thread. Near by are copes, and chasubles, and mitres faded and worn; which still give evidence of the art and care in making them, the richness of the materials used, and of the skill of the embroidery and painting which decorated them. What will the modern chasubles and copes around us, now so fresh and splendid, look like in A.D. 2500?
Church vessels of every class are equally abundant. Chalices, pixes, cruets, censers, incense-cups, crosses, crucifixes, ostensories, croziers, every thing that can be thought of, are here, often in their richest forms. There are chapelles for priests, and chapelles for bishops. Altar candlesticks and candelabra of every size and graceful form tempt you. Perhaps the most interesting in a scientific and also a pecuniary view, is the large collection of all those vessels made of bronze aluminium, of a light gold color, and not liable to tarnish. The weight is light, and the prices low.
There are altars of marble, of cast-iron, of bronze gilt, and of wood colored and illuminated, the last-named truly beautiful, and they would well replace some of those far more costly constructions sometimes to be met in our churches.
Altars lead us to candelabra, candlesticks, and chandeliers; and here they are displayed in every size, from an immense chandelier to be suspended in a church, of metal gilt, ornamented with angels and religious emblems, and bearing sixty-five lights, down to the tasteful bongie, or tiny candlestick which an acolyth holds in his hand when he attends a bishop at the altar. Altar candlesticks and candelabra seem a specialty with the French artists. The graceful curve of the outlines, the appropriateness and suggestiveness of the decoration, and the ease with which all these pieces may be combined to produce on the altar a whole simple and tasteful, or rich and splendid, can scarcely be conceived. They bring to their work the spirit of the children of Israel in the desert, offering their gold and jewels to Moses for the ornamentation of the tabernacle of the Most High. Man can never do too much to testify his homage and his loving obedience to God.
In Christian bibliography the chief Catholic publishers have done well. The polyglott press of the Propaganda exhibits many of its late publications; among others an accurate fac-simile of the Codex Vaticanus of the Scriptures, and a volume containing the Lord's Prayer in two hundred and fifty languages, in the proper characters of each language, where it has any. The volume presents one hundred and eighty different forms of type. Salviucci, of Rome; Pustet, of Ratisbon; Dessain, of Malines, and many others exhibit well printed and richly bound copies of their chief publications. Vecco & Co., of Turin, show the eighteen volumes they have already printed of the new edition of the Magnum Bullarium. Victor Palmé, of Paris, displays an enormous line of folio volumes, the Acta Sanctorum of the great Bollandists, the republication of which he has just finished in fifty-eight volumes. To this he adds his edition of the Ideologia, by the professors of Salamanca, his Gallia Christiana, his edition of Annales Baronii, and the introductory volume of a new edition of the Collectio Maxima Conciliorum, which he has just commenced.
It was sad not to find the veteran Migne here, and to think of that sad conflagration which consumed the work of a lifetime. He had undertaken, and after fifty years of steady persevering labor, was finishing the greatest bibliographical achievement of the publishers of this century. The twelve or thirteen hundred large volumes he had published in his collection, embracing all the fathers, Greek and Latin, ample courses of Scripture, theology, and canon law, encyclopædias, history, theologians, preachers, etc., would have presented the largest and most imposing array of volumes—almost a complete theological library in itself. Great as was his loss, that to the clergy was greater.
We mention last a collection which every visitor to the exposition hurries to see first, as most deserving of his attention, the collection of articles which the Holy Father himself directed should be sent here from the Sixtine Chapel: 1. The famous tiara presented to him by the Queen of Spain. The three crowns on it are of brilliants and pearls, the roses are rubies and emeralds, the ball on the summit is of rubies, and the cross above of diamonds. As a work of art, it is considered a chef-d'œuvre of grace and elegance, and does honor to the artists of Spain. 2. A chalice of gold covered with brilliants and diamonds. These diamonds and brilliants were a present from Mehemet Ali. 3. A large golden ostensory, of Byzantine style, the rays of which are studded with brilliants, from the same donor. 4. A large processional cross of gold, the staff of silver gilt. The cross is of an elegantly flowering Gothic form, and is adorned with precious stones and enamel. It was made to order in France, and is a present from the Marquis of Bute. Chalices, mitres, vestments, cruets, an ancient MS. missal, exquisitely illuminated and richly bound, with many other objects, make up a large list of articles which His Holiness has sent to give additional interest to the exposition. Others have acted in the same spirit; and certainly, if the number, the richness, and the exquisite taste and elegance of the articles displayed can effect it, the exposition is a success. The attendance has been pretty fair, and as the governmental outlay has been but small, may prove remunerative. The exhibitors will certainly succeed in introducing their works to the religious world far more generally than they could have ordinarily looked for. And the visitors seem all satisfied that each repeated visit to the exposition is a renewed and increased pleasure. We may perhaps endeavor next month to be able to write more at length of the more prominent articles in the exposition, with reference to the needs of our American churches.