"But do you not find," said Inglesant, "that this devotion, which is so ephemeral, is rather given to the sensible object than to the unseen Christ?"
"It may be so," said the rector; "there is no good but what has its alloy; but it is a real devotion, and it reaches after Christ. Granted that it is dark, no doubt in the darkness it finds Him, though it cannot see His form."
"Doubtless," said Inglesant, who saw that the rector did not wish to dwell on this part of the subject, "as we say in our service in England, we are the sheep of His pasture, and we are all branded with the mark which He puts upon His sheep—the innate knowledge of God in the soul. I remember hearing of a man who believed that he had a guardian spirit who awoke him every morning with the audible words, 'Who gets up first to pray?' If this man was deluded, it could not have been by Satan."
In the morning, when Inglesant awoke, he saw from his window, over the city wall, the Monte Mario, with its pine woods, and the windows of its scattered houses, lighted by the rising sun. The air was soft and balmy, and he remained at the open window, letting his mind grow certain of the fact that he was in Rome. In the clear atmosphere of the Papal city there was a strange shimmer of light upon the distant hills, and on the green tufts and hillocks of the waste ground beyond the walls. The warm air fanned his temples, and in the stillness of the early morning a delicious sense of a wonderful and unknown land, into the mysteries of which he was about to enter, filled his mind.
It was indeed a strange world which lay before him, and resembled nothing so much as that to which the rector had aptly compared it the night before, a sacred interlude full of wild and fantastic sights; Churches more sublime than the dreams of fancy painted, across whose marble pavements saints and angels moved familiarly with men; pagan sepulchres and banqueting chambers, where the phantoms flickered as in Tartarus itself; vaults and Christian catacombs, where the cry of martyrs mingled with the chanting of masses sung beneath the sod, and where the torch-light flashed on passing forms of horror, quelled everywhere by the figure of the Crucified, that at every turn kept the place; midnight processions and singing, startling the darkness and scaring the doers of darkness, mortal and immortal, that lurked among the secret places, where the crimes of centuries stood like ghastly corpses at every step; and above all and through all the life of Jesus, enacted and re-enacted year after year and day by day continually, not in dumb show or memorial only, but in deed and fact before the eyes of men, as if, in that haunt of demons and possessed, in that sink of past and present crime, nothing but the eternal presence and power of Jesus could keep the fiends in check.
The rector took Inglesant over the College, and showed him the life and condition of the inmates under its most pleasing aspect. As he then saw it it reminded him of a poem he had heard Mr. Crashaw read at Little Gidding, describing a religious house and condition of life, and he quoted part of it to the rector:—
"No cruel guard of diligent cares, that keep
Crowned woes awake, as things too wise for sleep:
But reverend discipline, and religious fear,
And soft obedience, find sweet biding here;
Silence and sacred rest, peace and pure joys."
When they had seen the College the rector said,—
"We will go this morning to St. Peter's. It is better that you should see it at once, though the first sight is nothing. Then at three o'clock we will attend vespers at the Capello del Coro, where there is fine music every day in the presence of a cardinal; afterwards, as Rome is very full, there will be a great confluence of carriages in the Piazza of the Farnese Palace, which is a favourite resort. There I can show you many of the great ones, whom it is well you should know by sight, and hear something of, before you are presented to them."
As they passed out into the street of the city the rector began a disquisition on the discovery of antiquities in Rome. He advised Inglesant to study the cabinets of medals which he would meet with in the museums and palaces, as they would throw great light upon the statues and other curiosities.