The sun was just sinking to rest as we were bringing to a close our journey of ten hours, memorable for the picturesque views that were constantly before us, the four lakes that we had skirted in our ride, the uncounted waterfalls, majestic mountains, alternate rain and sunshine, and that pleasant friendly converse which an easy-going carriage permits and encourages, when, with tastes to enjoy the beautiful world that God has made, we sit all day under the open sky and admire, wonder, and adore.
Lucerne is one of the most beautiful spots in Switzerland. We have often laughed at the guide-books for calling each and every place, castle, river, waterfall, temple, or tower, the most beautiful, the oldest, largest, most romantic, or something quite as superlative. But we get into the same habit, and readers must make allowances for the enthusiasm of travellers. Take off as much as you please, and Lucerne is very lovely.
It was my first Sabbath, on this journey, in a place almost wholly given up to Romanism. The population is about 13,000, and less than a thousand are Protestants. At nine o’clock in the morning, with two American friends, I went to the cathedral or church of St. Leger, and found it already crowded and a sermon in progress. The preacher was arrayed with so much magnificence that I supposed he must be some very distinguished personage in the church of Rome. The Papal Nuncio, or representative of the Pope of Rome, has his official residence in Lucerne, but I presume he does not officiate as a preacher. The audience filling the seats and thronging the aisles were giving devout attention, each one on entering bending his knee and crossing himself. The women occupied one half, and the men the other, of the house. I could find no seat, but a young man in a pew rose, gave me his seat, and stood up himself, a politeness not common in any Protestant church in any part of the world to which my weary steps have been directed. The preaching was in German, and more unintelligible to me than if it had been in Greek or Latin, so that I was at liberty to study the surroundings. Over the altar was a statue of Christ crucified: the body made of wood painted to the life, and life-size, suspended so low that the face, with all its expression of intense agony, was perfectly visible. The blood had settled all below the knees and the lower part of the chest, and was trickling from the spikes through the hands and feet. The altar was richly adorned with gold, and candles were burning on it. On either side of it were minor altars; over one of them was an inscription in Latin recording the sacred relics there treasured. These are to be found in all the great churches on the continent, but have lost none of their hold on the reverence of these superstitious people. The toe-nail of the prophet Jeremiah would be the fortune of any relic-hunter who should light upon it. Over another altar, called Privileged, but why I did not learn, was a representation, in full life-size, of the descent from the cross. The weeping women had very sorrowful faces, and the wound in the Saviour’s side was gaping fearfully, and the blood still oozing out. As I was looking at it, a lady elegantly dressed, leading two children, four or five years old, entered a side door, and approaching this altar knelt before it, and turning her face upward to these images of the Saviour’s death, gazed long, and I suppose was praying. The sermon was still in progress, but she gave no heed to it. Perhaps, like myself, she was not able to understand it, and had come to worship, not to hear. When she had closed her protracted devotions, she took the little boy and girl and made them both kneel, where she had been kneeling, and look up as she had done, and when they had thus performed the service which she evidently prescribed, she led them out. Others cast themselves down before this and other altars, and with no attention to the service in progress, went on with their own prayers, and then left, or joined with the rest according to their pleasure. When the sermon was ended, long, and well delivered, in a persuasive, conversational tone, without notes, and with an evident air of earnest feeling, another priest, in gorgeous apparel, came to the high altar, and, attended by two or three boys to hold up his robes and move his missal-book from place to place, as he had to change his position, he proceeded to celebrate the mass. The officiating priest was an elderly man whose face indicated great intellectual force, and his appearance was that of a student and man of learning. As he took a golden chalice and laid his hands over it, and prayed, and then lifted it up while all the people bowed themselves with profound reverence, it filled me with amazement that such a man as he seemed to be could suppose that the wine in that cup had been miraculously and instantly converted into the blood of the Son of God!!! And when he held up in the same way a bit of bread in the shape of a wafer or thin cracker, two inches or so in diameter, and again all the people bent themselves in adoration, he himself, with uplifted hands and downcast eyes and moving lips, appeared to regard the ceremony as an immediate exhibition of a present and new-born God. Then he took the cup again and drank it, and drank once more, turning it bottom upward over his face; and when this was done he took a white napkin and dried the inside thoroughly, as if no drop of the sacred blood must remain within, and the door of a golden casket or closet on the altar being opened, he placed it within, with the bread he had converted, and locked it safely there. While this ceremony was going on, a priest had emerged from behind the altar, and with a brush in hand went up and down among the people, sprinkling them with holy water. A splendid organ and a choir of singers took part in the service, which was in all its parts imposing to the senses, fitted to make a deep impression on the ignorant masses.
The cloisters that surround the church are filled with tombs and memorial paintings and inscriptions, and the windows on the south command charming views of the lake and mountains.
From this service, which was rather to be called interesting than edifying, we went to the English church service. The Protestant Germans have a new and very pretty edifice, which they permit the English-speaking residents and travellers to enjoy for two services on the Sabbath. The sermon we heard was on the nature and blessed effects of prayer. It was evangelical and useful, some passages very touching and impressive. The prayers were read by a young American clergyman, and the audience, which was quite large, filling the church, was probably one-half American.
I have never found a more romantic, more sublime, more classic and beautiful lake in the little part of the world I have seen, than the Vier-Wald-Statter See, the Four Forrest Cantons, or, as it is more often called, Lake Lucerne.
You will come to Lucerne, to the Schweitzer Hof, the best hotel in Switzerland. From the wharf in front of it steamers go five times a day the whole length of the lake and return, making the excursion in five hours.
It is the lake of William Tell. Unbelieving sceptics intimate a doubt that such a man as Tell ever lived; but the apothecary in whose house I am lodging now has his scales in the form of a cross-bow, with a gilt apple on the top, to represent the great exploit of the hero’s life, and every house has its memento of the man without whom there is no Swiss history. You might as well tell me that George Washington is a myth, and that he never hacked his father’s cherry-tree with a hatchet. I have a piece of the tree, and know it to be true. And every Swiss patriot knows that William Tell shot the apple off his son’s head, and the monster cruelty of the order that made him do it roused the fires of indignant resistance to tyranny, and resulted in the independence of the country. It is necessary to believe this, to enjoy the scenes made sacred by the story.
Monument to the Swiss Guard. (By Thorvaldsen.)