Corinne followed the procession, which repaired to the temple of St Peter, then lighted only by an illuminated cross. This sign of grief, alone and shining in the august obscurity of this immense edifice, is the most beautiful image of Christianity in the midst of the darkness of life. A pale and distant light is cast on the statues which adorn the tombs. The living, who are perceived in crowds beneath these vaults, seem like pigmies, compared with the images of the dead. There is around the cross, a space which it lights up, where the Pope clad in white is seen prostrate, with all the cardinals ranged behind him. They remain there for half an hour in the most profound silence, and it is impossible not to be moved at this spectacle. We know not the subject of their prayers; we hear not their secret groanings; but they are old, they precede us in the journey to the tomb. When we in our turn pass into that terrible advance guard, may God by his grace so ennoble our age, that the decline of life may be the first days of immortality!
Corinne, also,—the young and beautiful Corinne,—was kneeling behind the train of priests, and the soft light reflected on her countenance, gave it a pale hue, without diminishing the lustre of her eyes. Oswald contemplated her as a beautiful picture—a being that inspired adoration. When her prayer was concluded she arose. Lord Nelville dared not yet approach her, respecting the religious meditation in which he thought her plunged; but she came to him first with a transport of happiness; and this sentiment pervading all her actions, she received with a most lively gaiety, all those who accosted her in St Peter's, which had become, all at once, a great public promenade, and a rendezvous to discuss topics of business or pleasure.
Oswald was astonished at this mobility which caused such opposite impressions to succeed each other; and though the gaiety of Corinne gave him pleasure, he was surprised to find in her no trace of the emotions of the day. He did not conceive how, upon so solemn, a day, they could permit this fine church to be converted into a Roman café, where people met for pleasure; and beholding Corinne in the midst of her circle, talking with so much vivacity, and not thinking on the objects that surrounded her, he conceived a sentiment of mistrust as to the levity of which she might be capable. She instantly perceived it, and quitting her company abruptly, she took the arm of Oswald to walk with him in the church, saying, "I have never held any conversation with you upon my religious sentiments—permit me to speak a little upon that subject now; perhaps I shall be able to dissipate those clouds which I perceive rising in your mind."
Chapter v.
"The difference of our religions, my dear Oswald," continued Corinne, "is the cause of that secret censure which you cannot conceal from me. Yours is serious and rigid—ours, cheerful and tender. It is generally believed that Catholicism is more rigorous than Protestantism; and that may be true in a country where a struggle has subsisted between the two religions; but we have no religious dissensions in Italy, and you have experienced much of them in England. The result of this difference is, that Catholicism in Italy has assumed a character of mildness and indulgence; and that to destroy it in England, the Reformation has armed itself with the greatest severity in principles and morals. Our religion, like that of the ancients, animates the arts, inspires the poets, and becomes a part, if I may so express it, of all the joys of our life; whilst yours, establishing itself in a country where reason predominates more than imagination, has assumed a character of moral austerity which will never leave it. Ours speaks in the name of love, and yours in the name of duty. Our principles are liberal, our dogmas are absolute; nevertheless, our despotic orthodoxy accommodates itself to particular circumstances, and your religious liberty enforces obedience to its laws without any exception. It is true that our Catholicism imposes very hard penance upon those who have embraced a monastic life. This state, freely chosen, is a mysterious relation between man and the Deity; but the religion of laymen in Italy is an habitual source of affecting emotions. Love, hope, and faith, are the principal virtues of this religion, and all these virtues announce and confer happiness. Our priests therefore, far from forbidding at any time the pure sentiment of joy, tell us that it expresses our gratitude towards the Creator. What they exact of us, is an observance of those practices which prove our respect for our worship, and our desire to please God, namely, charity for the unfortunate, and repentance for our errors. But they do not refuse absolution, when we zealously entreat it; and the attachments of the heart inspire a more indulgent pity amongst us than anywhere else. Has not Jesus Christ said of the Magdalen: Much shall be pardoned her, because she hath loved much? These words were uttered beneath a sky, beautiful as ours; this same sky implores for us the Divine mercy."
"Corinne!" answered Lord Nelville, "how can I combat words so sweet, and of which my heart stands so much in need? But I will do it, nevertheless, because it is not for a day that I love Corinne—I expect with her a long futurity of happiness and virtue. The most pure religion is that which makes a continual homage to the Supreme Being, by the sacrifice of our passions and the fulfilment of our duties. A man's morality is his worship of God; and it would be degrading the idea we form of the Creator, to suppose that He wills anything in relation with His creature, that is not worthy of His intellectual perfection. Paternal authority, that noble image of a master sovereignly good, demands nothing of its children that does not tend to make them better or happier. How then can we imagine that God would exact anything from man, which has not man himself for its object? You see also what confusion in the understandings of your people results from the practice of attaching more importance to religious ceremonies than to moral duties. It is after Holy Week, you know, that the greatest number of murders is committed at Rome. The people think, to use the expression, that they have laid in a stock during Lent, and expend in assassination the treasures of their penitence. Criminals have been seen, yet reeking with murder, who have scrupled to eat meat on a Friday; and gross minds, who have been persuaded that the greatest of crimes consists in disobeying the discipline of the church, exhaust their consciences on this head, and conceive that the Deity, like human sovereigns, esteems submission to his power more than every other virtue. This is to substitute the sycophancy of a courtier for the respect which the Creator inspires, as the source and reward of a scrupulous and delicate life. Catholicism in Italy, confining itself to external demonstrations, dispenses the soul from meditation and self-contemplation. When the spectacle is over, the emotion ceases, the duty is fulfilled, and one is not, as with us, a long time absorbed in thoughts and sentiments, which give birth to a rigid examination of one's conduct and heart."
"You are severe, my dear Oswald," replied Corinne; "it is not the first time I have remarked it. If religion consisted only in a strict observance of moral duties, in what would it be superior to reason and philosophy? And what sentiments of piety could we discover, if our principal aim were to stifle the feelings of the heart? The stoics were as enlightened as we, as to the duties and the austerity of human conduct; but that which is peculiar to Christianity is the religious enthusiasm which blends with every affection of the soul; it is the power of love and pity; it is the worship of sentiment and of indulgence, so favourable to the flights of the soul towards heaven. How are we to interpret the parable of the Prodigal Son, if not that love, sincere love, is preferred even to the most exact discharge of every duty? This son had quitted his paternal abode, and his brother had remained there; he had plunged into all the dissipation and pleasure of the world, and his brother had never deviated for a single moment from the regularity of domestic life; but he returned, full of love for his father and of repentance for his past follies, and his parent celebrated this return by a festival. Ah! can it be doubted that among the mysteries of our nature, to love and to love again is what remains to us of our celestial inheritance? Even our virtues are often too complicated with life, for us to comprehend the gradations of good, and what is the secret sentiment that governs and leads us astray: I ask of my God to teach me to adore him, and I feel the effect of my prayers in the tears that I shed. But to support this disposition of the soul, religious practices are more necessary than you think; they are a constant communication with the Deity; they are daily actions, unconnected with the interests of life and solely directed towards the invisible world. External objects are also a great help to piety; the soul falls back upon itself, if the fine arts, great monuments, and harmonic strains, do not reanimate that poetical genius, which is synonymous with religious inspiration.
"The most vulgar man, when he prays, when he suffers, and places hope in heaven, has at that moment something in him which he would express like Milton, Homer, or Tasso, if education had taught him to clothe his thoughts with words. There are only two distinct classes of men in the world; those who feel enthusiasm, and those who despise it; every other difference is the work of society. The former cannot find words to express their sentiments, and the latter know what it is necessary to say to conceal the emptiness of their heart. But the spring that bursts from the rock at the voice of heaven, that spring is the true talent, the true religion, the true love.
"The pomp of our worship; those pictures in which the kneeling saints express a continual prayer in their looks; those statues placed on the tombs as if they were one day to rise with their inhabitants; those churches and their immense domes, have an intimate connection with religious ideas. I like this splendid homage paid by men to that which promises them neither fortune nor power—to that which neither punishes nor rewards them, but by a sentiment of the heart. I then feel more proud of my being; I recognise something disinterested in man; and were even religious magnificence multiplied to an extreme, I should love that prodigality of terrestrial riches for another life, of time for eternity: enough is provided for the morrow, enough care is taken for the economy of human affairs. How I love the useless, useless if existence be only a painful toil for a miserable gain! But if on this earth we are journeying towards heaven, what can we do better than to take every means of elevating our soul, that it may feel the infinite, the invisible, and the eternal, in the midst of all the limits that surround us?