Well, our American sermon was dry, but sensible and conscientious. It did not congratulate those who had accepted the mysterious atonement, nor threaten those who had neglected to do so. But it exhorted all men towards a reasonable, religious, and diligent life, and thus afforded the commonplace man a basis for effort, and a possible gradual amelioration of his moral condition. One little old-fashioned phrase, however, the preacher let slip. He cast a slight slur upon the moral, as distinguished from the religious man. Now, modern ethics do not recognize this distinction. For it, true morals are religion. He who exemplifies the standard does it more honor than he who praises, and pursues it not. And he who prays and plunders is less a saint than he who does neither. We passed this, however, and went away in peace.
Our third Sunday morning was passed in S. Andrea delta Valle, a large and sumptuous church, where we had been promised a fine messa-cantata, i.e., a mass performed principally in music. Mustafa, of the pope's choir, was there, with some ten other vocalists, who put into their Kyrie, Miserere, and so on, as much operatic emphasis and cadence as the bars could hold. The organ was harsh, loud, and overpowering, the music utterly uninteresting. Mustafa's renowned voice, which has suffered by time and use, has something nasal and criard in it, with all its power. He still takes and holds A and B with firmness and persistence, but his middle notes are unequal and husky. Although the sopranos of to-day are merely falsetto tenors, and their unsexed voices a fiction, they yet acquire in process of time a tone of old-woman quality, which contrasts strangely with their usually robust appearance. On this occasion we did not conjecture whose might be the music to which we listened. It had a mongrel paternity, and hailed from no noble race of compositions. Having, however, our comfortable chairs, and being out of the murderous direct reverberation of the organ, we sat and saw as outsiders the flux and reflux of life which passed through the church. It was obviously, this morning, a place of fashionable resort; and many were the good dresses and comfortable family groups that first appeared, and then were absorbed among its crowded chairs and their occupants. The well-dressed people were mostly, I thought, of medio ceto,—middling class,—which in Rome is a term of strict reprobation, and answers to what we used to call Bowery in New York. Their devotion had mostly a business-like aspect. They hired their chair, brought it, sat down, made their crosses and courtesies, accompanied the priest with their books, went down on their knees at the elevation of the host, had benediction, and went. Mass was taking place at various side altars, and people were coming and going, as their devotions were past or future. Dirty and shabby figures mingled with the others; a group of little children from the street, holding each other by the hand; a crippled old woman, hobbling on two crutches, who, wonderfully, did not beg, of us at least; an elderly dwarf, of composed aspect, some thirty-eight inches high, who took a chair, but could not get into it, so squatted down beside it, and stared at us. A loud bell was rung, and one in yellow satin bore an object under yellow satin across the church. This was the sacrament, going to one of the altars for the beginning of the mass. Having mused sufficiently on the music and on the crowd, we desired to hear a Puritan sermon, and, there being none to be had, we went away.
Away to the Farnesina Palace, lovely with Raphael's frescos of Galatea and the story of Psyche, with Michael Angelo's grim charcoal head looming in the distance. The Psyche series has suffered much by restorations; and though the gracious outline and designs remain, the coloring, one thinks, is far other than that of the master. The Galatea has faded less, and has been less restored. The lovely Sodoma fresco up stairs—the family of Darius—was undergoing repairs, and could not be seen. The palace belongs to the ex-king of Naples. It was formerly visible at all times, but may now be seen only on Sunday. He himself now lives in Rome, and perhaps chooses to tread its banquet halls deserted, which possibly accounts for the present restriction. In the afternoon we were bidden to see the embalmed remains of an ancient pontiff,—Pius V.,—who should be happy to make himself useful to Catholic institutions at a period so remote from the intentions of Nature. The old body is shown in a glass case, upon an altar of Santa Maria Maggiore. He lies on his side, his darkened face adorned by a new white beard composed of lamb's wool. His hands are concealed by muslin gloves; his garments are white, and he wears a brilliant mitre. And the devout crowd the church to touch and kiss the glass case in which he resides. There is, moreover, a procession of the crucifix, and vespers are sung in pleasing style by a tolerable choir; and many pauls and bajocs are dropped hither and thither in pious receptacles by the pious in heart. So, I repeat it, the mummied pope, sainted also, is of use.
CATACOMBS.
Of all that befell us in the catacombs we may not tell. We betook ourselves to the neighborhood of St. Calixtus one afternoon. A noted ecclesiastic of the Romish church soon joined our party, with various of our countrymen and countrywomen. He wore a white woollen gown and a black hat. Before descending, he ranged us in a circle, and harangued us much as follows:—
"You will ask me the meaning of the word 'catacomb,' and I shall tell you that it is derived from two Greek words—cata, hidden, and cumba, tomb. You have doubtless heard that the whole city of Rome is undermined with catacombs; but this is not true. The American Encyclopædia says this. I have read the article. But intramural burials were not allowed in Rome; therefore the catacombs commence outside the walls. They are, moreover, limited to an irregular extent of some three miles. Why is this? It is because they were possible only in the tufa formation. Why only in the tufa? Because it cuts easily and crumbles easily, hardening afterwards. And as the burials of the Christians were necessarily concealed, it was important for them to deal with a material easily worked and easily disposed of. The solid contents of the catacombs of Rome could be included within a square mile; their series, if arranged at full length, would not measure less than five hundred miles. In some places there are no less than seven strata of tombs, one below the other." All of this, with more repetitions than I can possibly signify, was delivered under the cogent stimulus of a roasting afternoon sun of the full Roman power. Being quite calcined as to the head and shoulders, we somewhat thankfully undertook the descent. The extreme contrast, however, between the outer heat and the inner chill and damp, proved an unwelcome alternative to most of us. Had we been allowed a somewhat brisk motion, we should have dreaded less its effects. But Father —— fought his ground inch by inch, and continued to carry on a stringent controversy with imaginary antagonists. We will not endeavor to transcribe the catechism, at once tedious and amusing, with which he held captive a dozen of Yankees prepared to sell their lives dearly, but uncertain how to deal with his mode of warfare. He kept us long in the crypt of the pontiffs, where are found two fragments of marble tablets bearing names in mingled Latin and Greek character. One inscription records, "Anteros episcopus." The other is of another name—"episcopus et martyr." The father now led us into a narrow crypt, where his stout form wedged us all as closely as possible together. He showed us on the walls two time-worn frescos, one of which—Jonah and the whale—represented the resurrection, while the other depicted that farewell banquet at Emmaus in which Peter received the thrice-repeated charge, "Feed my sheep." To this symbolical expression the father added one later and more puzzling. The fish which appeared in one of the dishes represented, he told us, the anagram of Christ in the Greek language—icthus, the fish, Jesus Christos theos—I forget the rest. The fish was the only hint of the presence of Christ on this occasion, and its significance could be apprehended only with this explanation. These pictures, he insisted, sufficiently showed us that the early Christians had religious images—a point of great authority and significance in the Catholic church, for us how easily disposed of! The pictures and the symbolism of the primitive church are both alike features of its time. In periods when culture is rare and limited, the picture and the parable have their indispensable office. The one preserves and presents to the eye much that would otherwise be overlooked and forgotten; the other presents to the mind that which could not otherwise be apprehended. The painted Christs, Madonnas, and so on, were in their time a gospel to the common people. Even in Raphael's period, even in the Italy of to-day, how few of the populace at large are able to save their souls by reading the New Testament! The paintings undoubtedly answered a useful purpose, as all men must acknowledge; but the Catholic system, carried out in its completeness, would give a melancholy perpetuity to the class of people who cannot read otherwise than in pictures. Even where it teaches to read, it withholds the power of interpretation. Protestantism means direct and general instruction. It gives to the symbolism of the Bible its plainest and most practical interpretation, without building upon it a labyrinth of types whose threading asks the study of a lifetime.
The fear and danger of early times had, no doubt, much to do with the growth of symbolism, both in pictures and in language. The intercourse of the early Christians was limited and insecure. It was guarded by watchwords. Its bodily presence took refuge in pits and caves. Its thought buried itself in similitudes and allusions. But now, when Christianity has become the paramount demand of the world, this obscurity is no longer needed nor legitimate.
The parables of Christ may be supposed to have had a double object. The most usually recognized is that of popular instruction, in the form best suited to the comprehension of his hearers. Many of his sayings, however, point to another meaning; viz., the discrimination between those who were fitted to receive his doctrine, and those who were not. How many, among the multitudes who heard him, can we suppose to have been anxious about the moral lessons intended by his illustrious fables? Few indeed; and those few alone would be able to understand his teaching, and, in turn, to teach according to his method. So he represents the kingdom of heaven which he preached as a net thrown into the sea. His sermons were such castings of the net; he made his disciples fishers of men. The Christian church, like the Jewish, rapidly degenerated into a tissue of legends and observances—at first representative of morality, soon cumbrous, finally inimical to it.
All this time, however, we are standing wedged by Father —— in a narrow compass, and, while the thought of one undertakes this long, swift retrospect, the temper of the others becomes irritated—not without reason. So we insist upon breaking out of the small quadrangle, and are led into the crypt in which were found the remains of St. Cecilia. Here tradition again holds a long parley with the representatives of modern thought. St. Cecilia, a noble Roman lady, was beheaded, but survived the stroke of the executioner three days, which she occupied in describing and explaining the doctrine of the trinity. (This, therefore, is the doctrine of those who have lost their head.) For this purpose she employed two fingers of the right hand and one of the left. All of this passes without controversy. Her body was found lying on its face, in an attitude perpetuated by the well-known statue in the church in Trastevere. But in this crypt are the relics of an altar, erected over the remains of another saint. The early Christian altars, our guide says, were always erected above the burial-place of some saint. Hence, no Catholic church is allowed to dispense with the presence of consecrated bones. Other graves, moreover, cluster around that which is supposed to have consecrated this altar: sums of money were paid for the privilege of interment in this proximity. This clearly shows the early Christians to have supposed that the saint himself had the power to benefit them, and the right of intercession. This we concede as quite possible; but does this go to show, O father, that the saint had any such power? Let us go back after this fashion in other things. Fingers were made before knives and forks, skins were worn before tissues, and nakedness is of earlier authority than either. A predatory existence has older precedent than agriculture or commerce. Let us go backward like a crab, if you will, but let us be consistent.
In another crypt we are shown two marble sarcophagi, well carved, in each of which lies a mouldering human figure once embalmed, and now black, without features, and with only a dim outline of form. Elsewhere we are shown a large marble slab handsomely engraved, with the record of a Christian martyr on one side, and with an inscription concerning the Emperor Hadrian on the other, presenting the economic expedient of a second-hand tombstone. We passed also through various dark galleries, and down one staircase. Some chambers of the catacomb had a luminarium, or light from the top; many of them were entirely dark. Father ——'s style of explanation threatening to prolong itself till midnight, impatience became general, and one of our party ventured a remonstrance, which was made and met something after the following fashion:—