Ciocci, compelled at an early age to enter the Catholic College—forced, notwithstanding his deep disgust and earnest remonstrance, to become a monk—imprisoned—deceived—the victim of priestly artifice and fraud, at length becomes a Christian. He is of course thrown into a deeper dungeon; and more exquisite anguish inflicted upon him that he may be constrained to return to the Romish faith. Of his imprisonment he says, "We traversed long corridors till we arrived at the door of an apartment which they requested me to enter, and they themselves retired. On opening the door I found myself in a close dark room, barely large enough for the little furniture it contained, which consisted of a small hard bed, hard as the conscience of an inquisitor, a little table cut all over, and a dirty ill-used chair. The window which was shut and barred with iron resisted all my efforts to open it My heart sunk within me, and I began to cogitate on the destiny in store for me." The Jesuit Giuliani entering his room, he asked that the window might be opened for the admission of light and air. Before the words were finished he exclaimed in a voice of thunder, "How! wretched youth, thou complainest of the dark, whilst thou art living in the clouds of error? Dost thou desire the light of heaven, while thou rejectest the light of the Catholic faith?"
Ciocci saw that remonstrance was useless, but he reminded his jailer that he had been sent there for three days, to receive instruction, not to be treated as a criminal.
"For three days," he resumed, counterfeiting my tone of voice, "for three days! That would be nothing. The dainty youth will not forsooth, be roughly treated; it remains to be seen whether he desires to be courteously entertained. Be converted, be converted, condemned soul! Fortunate is it for thee that thou art come to this place. THOU WILT NEVER quit it excepting with the real fruits of repentance! Among these silent shades canst thou meditate at thy leisure upon the deplorable state into which thou hast fallen. Woe unto thee, if thou refusest to listen to the voice of God, who conducts souls into solitude that he may speak with them." "So saying," he continues, "he abruptly left me. I remained alone drooping under the weight of a misfortune, which was the more severe, because totally unexpected. I stood, I know not how long, in the same position, but on recovering from this lethargy, my first idea was of flight. But this thought was at once abandoned. There was no possibility of flight. Without giving a minute account of the manner in which I passed my wearisome days and nights in this prison, let it suffice to say that they were spent in listening to sermons preached to me four times a day by the fathers Giuliani and Rossini, and in the most gloomy reflections.
"In the mean time the miseries I endured were aggravated by the heat of the season, the wretchedness of the chamber, scantiness of food, and the rough severity of those by whom I was occasionally visited. Uncertainty as to when this imprisonment would be at an end, almost drove me wild, and the first words I addressed to those who approached me were, 'Have the kindness to tell me when I shall be permitted to leave this place?' One replied, 'My son, think of hell.' I interrogated another; the answer was, 'Think my son, how terrible is the death of the sinner!' I spoke to a third, to a fourth, and one said to me, 'My son, what will be your feeling, if, on the day of judgment you find yourself on the left hand of God?' the other, 'Paradise, my son, Paradise!' No one gave me a direct answer; their object appeared to be to mistify and confound me. After the first few days, I began to feel most severely the want of a change of clothing. Accustomed to cleanliness, I found myself constrained to wear soiled apparel. * * * For the want of a comb, my hair became rough and entangled. After the fourth day my portion of food was diminished; a sign, that they were pressing the siege, that it was their intention to adopt both assault and blockade—to conquer me by arms, or induce me to capitulate through hunger. I had been shut up in this wretched place for thirteen days, when, one day, about noon, the Father Mislei, the author of all my misery, entered my cell.
"At the sight of this man, resentment overcame every other consideration, and I advanced towards him fully prepared to indulge my feelings, when he, with his usual smile, expressed in bland words his deep regret at having been the cause of my long detention in this retreat. 'Never could I have supposed,' said he, 'that my anxiety for the salvation of your soul would have brought you into so much tribulation. But rest assured the fault is not entirely mine. You have yourself, in a great degree, by your useless obstinacy, been the cause of your sufferings. Ah, well, we will yet remedy all.' Not feeling any confidence in his assurance, I burst out into bitter invectives and fierce words. He then renewed his protestations, and clothed them with such a semblance of honesty and truth, that when he ended with this tender conclusion, 'Be assured, my son, that I love you,' my anger vanished. * * * I lost sight of the Jesuit, and thought I was addressing a man, a being capable of sympathising in the distresses of others. 'Ah, well, father,' said I, 'I need some one on whom I can rely, some one towards whom I can feel kindly; I will therefore place confidence in your words.'" After some further conversation, Ciocci was asked if he wished to leave that place. "If I desire it!" he replied, "what a strange question! You might as well ask a condemned soul whether he desires to escape from hell!" At these words the Jesuit started like a goaded animal, and, forgetting his mission of deceiver, with, knit brows and compressed lips, he allowed his ferocious soul for one moment to appear; but, having grown old in deceit, he immediately had the circumspection to give this movement of rage the appearance of religious zeal, and exclaimed, "What comparisons are these? Are you not ashamed to assume the language of the Atheist? By speaking in this way you clearly manifest how little you deserve to leave this place. But since I have told you that I love you, I will give you a proof of it by thinking no more of those irreligious expressions; they shall be forgotten as though they had never been spoken. Well, the Cardinal proposes to you an easy way of returning to your monastery." "What does he propose?" "Here is the way," said he, presenting me with a paper: "copy this with your own hand; nothing more will be required of you." "I took the paper with convulsive eagerness. It was a recantation of my faith, there condemned as erroneous. * * * Upon reading this, I shuddered, and, starting to my feet, in a solemn attitude and with a firm voice, exclaimed, 'Kill me, if you please; my life is in your power; but never will I subscribe to that iniquitous formulary.' The Jesuit, after laboring in vain to persuade me to his wishes, went away in anger. I now momentarily expected to be conducted to the torture. Whenever I was taken from my room to the chapel, I feared lest some trap-door should open beneath my feet, and therefore took great care to tread in the footsteps of the Jesuit who preceded me. No one acquainted with the Inquisition will say that my precaution was needless. My imagination was so filled with the horrors of this place, that even in my short, interrupted, and feverish dreams I beheld daggers and axes glittering around me; I heard the noise of wheels, saw burning piles and heated irons, and woke in convulsive terror, only to give myself up to gloomy reflections, inspired by the reality of my situation, and the impressions left by these nocturnal visions. What tears did I shed in those dreary moments! How innumerable were the bitter wounds that lacerated my heart! My prayers seemed to me unworthy to be received by a God of charity, because, notwithstanding all my efforts to banish from my soul every feeling of resentment towards my persecutors, hatred returned with redoubled power. I often repeated the words of Christ, 'Father, forgive them, they know not what they do;' but immediately a voice would answer, 'This prayer is not intended for the Jesuits; they resemble not the crucifiers, who were blind instruments of the rage of the Jews; while these men are fully conscious of what they are doing; they are the modern Pharisees.' The reading of the Bible would have afforded me great consolation, but this was denied me." * * *
The fourteenth day of his imprisonment he was taken to the council to hear his sentence, when he was again urged to sign the form of recantation. But he refused. The Father Rossini then spoke: "You are decided; let it be, then, as you deserve. Rebellious son of the church, in the fullness of the power which she has received from Christ, you shall feel the holy rigor of her laws. She cannot permit tares to grow with the good seed. She cannot suffer you to remain among her sons and become the stumbling-block for the ruin of many. Abandon, therefore, all hope of leaving this place, and of returning to dwell among the faithful. KNOW, ALL IS FINISHED FOR YOU!"
For the conclusion of this narrative we refer the reader to the volume itself.
If any more evidence were needed to show that the spirit of Romanism is the same to-day that it has ever been, we find it in the account of a legal prosecution against ten Christians at Beldac, in France, for holding and attending a public worship not licensed by the civil authority. They had made repeated, respectful, and earnest applications to the prefect of the department of Hante-Vienne for the authorization required by law, and which, in their case, ought to have been given. It was flatly refused. They persisted in rendering to God that worship which his own command and their consciences required. For this they were arraigned as above stated, on the 10th of August, 1855. On the 26th of January, 1856, the case was decided by the "tribunal," and the three pastors and one lady, a schoolmistress, were condemned to pay a fine of one thousand francs each, and some of the others five-hundred francs each, the whole amount, together with legal expenditures, exceeding the sum of nine thousand francs.
Meantime, the converts continue to hold their worship-meetings in the woods, barns, and secret places, in order not to be surprised by the police commissioner, and to avoid new official reports.
"Thus, you see," says V. De Pressense, in a letter to the 'American and foreign Christian Union,' "that we are brought back to the religious meetings of the desert, when the Protestants of the Cevennes evinced such persevering fidelity. The only difference is, that these Christians belonged only a short time ago to that church which is now instigating persecutions against them."