“The baths of Caracalla, stripped of all their verdure and shrubs, and deprived alike of the tufted foliage amid which Shelley wrote, and of the flowery carpet which so greatly enhanced their lonely solemnity, are now a series of bare featureless walls standing in a gravelly waste, and possess no more attraction than the ruins of a London warehouse. The Coliseum, no longer ‘a garlanded ring,’ is bereaved of everything which made it so lovely and so picturesque; while botanists must for ever deplore the incomparable and strangely unique ‘Flora of the Coliseum,’ which Signor Rosa has caused to be carefully annihilated; even the roots of the shrubs having been extracted by the firemen, though, in pulling them out, more of the building has come down than five hundred years of time would have injured. In the Basilica of Constantine, the whole of the beautiful covering of shrubs with which nature had protected the vast arches, has been removed, and the rain soaking into the unprotected upper surface, will soon bring them down. Nor has the work of the destroyer been confined to the Pagan antiquities, the early Christian porches of S. Prassede and S. Pudenziana, with their valuable terra-cotta ornaments, have been so smeared with paint and yellow-wash as to be irrecognisable; many smaller but precious Christian antiquities, such as the lion of the Santi Apostoli, have disappeared altogether. And in return for these destructions and abductions Rome has been given—what? Quantities of hideous false rock-work painted brown in all the public gardens; a Swiss cottage and a clock which goes by water forced in amidst the statues and sarcophagi of the Pincio; and the having the passages of the Capitol painted all over with the most flaring scarlet and blue, so as utterly to destroy the repose and splendour of its ancient statues.”
We visited a very old house in the Ghetto, where at the time services were held by a company of Jewish converts. Rude, uncomfortable and mean, the place looked to any one accustomed to modern churches; yet that dreary apartment, up a flight of stairs, was typical of places for Christian worship in the imperial city of the second century. Few fashionable people know the existence of the room I mention, and attendants shyly ascend the dirty steps, wishing to be unobserved; just so, no doubt, it was with some of the companies in the second century who in Rome “sang praises to Jesus as to God.” In the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, little was known about the Gospel by the higher ranks. Emperors, consuls, magistrates, marched along the streets in haughty indifference, or with contemptuous hate towards the new superstition.
Much inquiry has arisen as to where Paul lived during his captivity in Rome. A local tradition affirms that in a subterranean church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which you pass going down the Corso, you have the very “hired house,” where for two years the Apostle lived. In the crypt-like place, there is nothing which looks like a human dwelling; and the tradition itself, in a city where such traditions abound, is of little if any value. A house in the Ghetto, extremely ancient, was pointed out to me by Dr. Philip, a Jewish missionary, as the probable spot; but his idea seems to have had nothing to rest upon, except that this old building is in the Jews’ quarter. What is fatal to the identification of the “hired house” in either of these spots is that the New Testament indicates it as connected with lodgings occupied by the Pretorian guard. The “soldier that kept him” would not be far away from comrades; and soldiers in general would be accommodated in the Pretorian camp, of which traces exist near the Porta Pia—a long distance from the Corso and the Ghetto.
My third visit to Rome was the close of my foreign travels. A word more in reference to them. Most frequently on my way to other countries, I passed through France to Paris, either by Calais and Amiens, or by Havre and Rouen. Let me refer for a moment to the cathedral at Amiens, one of the wonders of the world—the largest place of worship I know, except Cologne Cathedral, St. Peter’s at Rome, and St. Sophia at Constantinople. It takes away one’s breath to look up at its rich clerestory, and its roof, 140 feet high, half as high again as that of Westminster Abbey. Rouen has architectural beauty, and an historical interest beyond other French cities. The Church of St. Ouen surpasses the cathedral, and the Palais de Justice is a beautiful specimen of Civic Gothic. But associations of what happened in that city, during the fifteenth century, surpass its material monuments. Poor Joan of Arc—most touching example of self-delusion and self-sacrifice the world ever saw—how she absorbs interest as one stands in the Place de Pucelle, where she was burnt, the victim of French ingratitude and English revenge! Paris is so well known by everybody that no notice need be taken of it here.
We now return to Great Britain.
In the autumn of 1885 the Evangelical Alliance met at Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in the latter city I was entertained by the Lord Provost, Sir William and Lady Collins, and met there, Admiral Sir W. King Hall and his lady, with whom a pleasant friendship sprang up, and I accepted an invitation to visit them at their home, but his death soon afterwards deprived me of the anticipated pleasure. They appeared to me spiritually minded people; their society with that of our excellent host and hostess filled me with great pleasure. At the meeting I lamented, as I am accustomed to do, our numerous ecclesiastical divisions. “Here we are as Christians connected with denominational churches, and we may be compared to persons living in an island city, where we have our own municipal regulations, where some are in what may be called Episcopalian Square, some occupying Methodist Terrace, some residing in Congregational Road, and some liking to live by the waterside. Whilst these differences exist amongst us in this world, surely it sometimes crosses our minds that they are distinctions of a very temporary nature. The things which are seen are temporal, but the things not seen are eternal. We are looking away from what is familiar to what is now rare indeed—perfect unity.”
I have long found it to be one of the sorrows incident to old age to lament the loss of attached friends. In this respect I was much tried in the year 1886, for I had then to deplore the death of Lord Chichester, who became acquainted with me through the medium of the Evangelical Alliance about twenty years before. Of late he was unable to attend meetings, but our intercourse in private continued and increased as years rolled on. Descendant of Sir John Pelham, who figured in the French wars, described by Froissart, and an immediate relative of a well-known political family of the same name in the last century,—the Earl became an earnest Christian and an active philanthropist for more than half a century. Possessed of wide and varied information respecting men and things, and being eminently genial and altogether free from ostentation, his society could not but be agreeable and instructive. It was a treat to hear him recount incidents and conversations of former days. At different times he brought within view George IV., William IV., the Duke of Wellington, leaders of the Whig party, and other magnates. He told me that when approaching his majority his father proposed that he should enter the House of Commons, and the Duke of Newcastle promised him a seat for Newark. Before an election arrived the father of young Lord Pelham died, and the son became a peer. It is remarkable that the seat intended for him in the Lower House was next occupied by the now famous William Ewart Gladstone. “The Grand Old Man,” in conversation with my friend not long before his death, speculated, in his characteristic way, upon possible consequences to each, had the seat been accepted by young Lord Pelham. With the Hare family, the Osbornes of the ducal house of Leeds, the Rev. F. D. Maurice, and other distinguished persons, the Earl had been intimate, and could tell many a story about them. Though a thorough Evangelical, and zealous for all the great truths of Christianity, he was singularly free from prejudice against people of different views. He could appreciate goodness wherever it was to be found.
The Prince Regent, with old Queen Charlotte, paid a visit to Stanmer, the family seat, near Brighton, when the Earl was a boy, and an amusing picture in one of the rooms exhibits his Royal Highness in dandy fashion—his diminutive mother wearing a wonderful bonnet, the former earl acting as cicerone, and his eldest boy riding on a smart pony. The Stanmer Pelhams are descended, on the female side, from Oliver Cromwell, and have in their possession the Lord Protector’s Bible in four volumes, a miniature of him, which, I think, belonged to Lady Falconbridge, and a portrait of His Highness’s mother. It is curious to find these Commonwealth relics associated with mementoes in the family arms,—I refer to the buckle and strap of Sir John Pelham, who assisted in taking King John of France prisoner at the battle of Poitiers. In addition to these memorials, mention may be made of a fine copy in the library of Walton’s “Polyglot,” with the rare preface containing a reference to Oliver Cromwell.
Soon after the death of Lord Chichester I lost another friend, Mr. Cheetham, M.P. His daughters were educated at Kensington, and hence an intimacy sprang up between us, cultivated by visits to Eastwood, near Staleybridge, where he resided. He was a shrewd, energetic man, and figured conspicuously in the Anti-Corn Law League. His command of the Lancashire dialect, and his knowledge of Lancashire life, made him an amusing companion, and Lord John Russell would sometimes engage him in characteristic recitals, greatly to his lordship’s diversion. Mr. Cheetham had in early life known much of the Moravians, and ever retained a deep interest in that remarkable community, though to the end of life he remained a constant member of the Congregational communion. I have long been of Dr. Johnson’s mind: “If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendships in constant repair.” On that principle I have habitually sought to make up for losses from bereavement.
Here let me add a few lines respecting the Archbishop of York, Dr. Magee, previously Bishop of Peterborough.