The order of the Buried Alive in Rome, the Convent of the Sepolte Vivo, is a remnant of the Middle Ages in the life of to-day. The London Queen's correspondent had the privilege of an entrance within, one after another, of the five iron doors, and talking with the Mother Superior through the thick swathing of a woollen veil, but ordinary communication with the convent is carried on through the "barrel," which fills an opening in the wall. Over the barrel is written: "Who will live contented within these walls, let her leave at the gate every earthly care." You knock at the barrel, which turns slowly around till it shows a section like that of an orange from which one of the quarters has been cut.
You speak to the invisible sister, who asks your will; and she answers you in good Italian and cultivated intonation. You hear the voice quite distinctly, but as if it was far, far away. She is really separated from you by a slender slice of wood, but she is absolutely invisible. Not the smallest ray of light, nor the smallest chink is visible between you and her. Sound travels through the barrel, but sight is absolutely excluded. These nuns live on charity, keeping two Lents in the year—one from November to Christmas, the other the ordinary Lent of Catholic Christendom. Living, therefore, on charity, they may eat whatever is given to them, saving always "flesh meat" during the fasting time.
If you take them a cake or a loaf of bread, a roll of chocolate bonbons, a basket of eggs, it is all good for them. They must be absolutely without food for twenty-four hours before they may ask help from the outside world; and when they have looked starvation in the face, then they may ring a bell, which means: "Help us! we are famishing!" Perhaps you take them nothing eatable, but you place on the edge of the cut orange, by which you sit, some money, demanding in return their "cartolini," or little papers.
The barrel turns slowly round, then back again, and you find on the ledge, where you had laid your lire, a paper of "cartolini." These are very small, thin, light-printed slips, neatly folded in tiny packets, three to each packet, which, if you swallow in faith, will cure you of all disease. After your talk is ended, the barrel turns around once more and presents its face as of an immovable and impenetrable-looking barrier. One of the pretty traditions of Rome is, that each sister has her day, when she throws a flower over the convent wall as a sign to her watching friends that she is still alive. When she has been gathered to the majority, the flower is not thrown, and the veil has fallen forever.
Harvard College and the Catholic Theory of Education.
Slowly, but with unmistakable certainty, the logic of the Catholic teaching regarding true education is forcing itself upon non-Catholic minds. Day by day some prominent Protestant comes boldly to the front and declares his belief that education must be based upon religion. One of the latest accessions to this correct theory is President Eliot, of Harvard College, who declared at a recent meeting of Boston schoolteachers that,—
"The great problem is that of combining religions with secular education. This was no problem sixty or seventy years ago, for then our people were homogeneous. Now, the population is heterogeneous. Religious teaching can best be combined with secular teaching and followed in countries of heterogeneous population, like Germany, Austria, France and Belgium, where the government pays for the instruction, and the religious teachers belonging to different denominations are admitted to the public schools at fixed times. That is the only way out of the difficulty.... I see, growing up on every side, parochial schools—that is, Catholic schools—which take large numbers of children out of the public schools of the city. That is a great misfortune, and the remedy is to admit religious instructors to teach these children in the public schools. This is what is done in Europe. And all those who are strongly interested in the successful maintenance of our public school system will urge the adoption of the method I have described for religious education."
These are strong words, and coming from such a source cannot fail to have their legitimate result. The fearlessness and sincerity of President Eliot in thus stating his position on this most important subject merits the appreciation of every American, Catholic or Protestant.
We add in connection with the above, the remarks of the Christian Advocate, a Protestant paper published at San Francisco, Cal.:—