At Christmas the Bambino is the first object of worship and adoration. This Bambino is a beautiful figure of a baby, for which (I have been told) eighty guineas were paid. This figure is laid in the manger at midnight of Christmas, amid much ritual and ceremony, after which we all formed in procession, with lighted tapers, veiled in our crimson veils, to kiss the feet of the holy Child, which adoration we also performed about nine times on Christmas Day, and every day afterwards until the octave of the Epiphany, though not so frequently as on Christmas Day.[20]
As seculars are not allowed within the precincts of the monks’ or nuns’ choir, the right reverend Lord Abbot, vested in cope and mitre, holds the baby in his lap at the grating, for the faithful laity to pay to it their adoration. If the Abbot should not be there, the Mother Superior, Mary Wereburgh (otherwise Mrs. B.⸺), represents the Virgin mother, robed in a cope of white satin or silk.
We were not taught to believe in the infallibility of the Pope. Father Ignatius had been to Rome and kissed the Pope’s toe, and was very proud of it too. There was no need to believe much in the Pope, for Father Ignatius and the Lady Prioress were practically our two infallible Popes.
Neither were we taught the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin Mary.
I think, with these two exceptions, we were identical in doctrine with the Church of Rome. And now I leave it to my readers to decide for themselves as to what is the religion of Father Ignatius.
CHAPTER XIV.
MY DEPARTURE FROM LLANTHONY.
The morning for my departure at last arrived. One of the first thoughts that came to me was, “I wonder if, after all, I am mad, as they tell me I am? Perhaps I am, and that is the reason for my leaving.” In solitude on that morning I made a cup of tea, feeling too ill to eat, but I cut a small portion of bread and butter, in case I should want it. No one came near me. I thought I should much like to say good-bye to some one, but I dared not speak, for it was a period of solemn silence. But I still had no small attachment to the “Novice-mistress,” and would have stayed in the convent had I only the assurance that I should be permitted to live in peace, for I had been a sister so long, and (strange as it may appear) the life itself had still a certain fascination for me. I did not then, as I do now, so much blame the system, but those who treated me so strangely, and often with cruelty.