infernal dungeons called the Piombi." He makes the enquiry, "Why is it that suffering should have a spell to fix the eye, above the power of beauty or of greatness? Is it not because the Cross is a religion of suffering, a faith of suffering, a privilege of suffering, a perfection arrived at by and through suffering only? Half an hour was enough for the ducal palace. I would gaze for hours upon those dungeon holes ; gaze, and read there, as in an exhaustless volume, histories on histories of silent weary suffering, as it filed the soft heart of man away, attenuating his reason into a dull instinct, or cracked the stout heart, as you would shiver a flint. Travellers have frequent need of this lesson. There is seldom a line of glory written upon the earth's face, but a line of suffering runs parallel with it; and they who read the lustrous syllables of the one, and stop not to decypher the spotted and worn inscription of the other, get the least half of the lesson earth has to give. The power and divinity of suffering should nowhere be more consistently uppermost than in the mind of a traveller. Such a place as Venice, in such a season as passion week, would not fail to keep it fresh and strong. People do not by any means generally acknowledge the power and dignity of suffering. They misapprehend the Church and the temper of Churchmen, because they misapprehend the humiliation of the Lord, as reflected through the temper of his body, which is the Church. That humiliation is ever working, unfolding itself, and giving lustre in the temper and conduct of the Church and her sons, in all ages of the world's eventful history. "The object of the Church's worship is the Saviour suffering; yet bold, undaunted, unshaken, unhindered in his sufferingsubmission towards God, and endurance towards the world. This is the double temper and disposition and spirit, which passes into the Church, and is her life and gift and power. This is the way that the humiliation of the bridegroom works itself out upon the demeanor of the bride. This is the demeanor by which she has become universal. She has conquered by submission— she has grown by suffering-she has filled She the world, by emptying herself of all that was worldly within her. Her martyrs bowed their heads, and the earth was sown with their ashes, and made fruitful by their blood. Yet was she ever bold towards the world. She ceased not to teach or to preach for the command of any Sanhedrim or governor, or emperor; far less at the bidding of dogmatic science, profane literature, or uneasy philosophy; she rejoiced rather in that she was counted worthy to suffer. Such was she in primitive times. Later on, when she did not altogether remember her heritage of suffering, when she sat upon her high chair somewhat (it may be, God only knoweth), somewhat more lordly than beseemed her, when she wore a crown more shining and imperial than her ancient one of thorns, even in that day, she was bold towards the great, and yet the servant of the poor. kept in power, not by courting the royal and noble-not by being clad in fine linen, and dwelling in kings' courts, but by overawing kings; by keeping their pride and lust, and wrath under; by breaking thrones down with a rod of iron. Yet, even when she thus in a measure forgot herself, or at least by an Englishman will be so judged to have done, there was something unworldly! something wonderful about her. To grow to greatness by despising it; to keep kings true to her by tyrannizing over them; to have princes for her slaves through fear, and not through flattery; and yet be all the while the blessed advocate of the poor and destitute, the serf, the captive, and all the forlorn ones upon earth-the world has not seen the like before. Later on still, she has been well content in every proud and learned generation to be accounted old and obsolete, and the keeper-back of improvement. She has no novelties-she grows no wiser. Her newest creed is fourteen hundred years old. She has not improved or widened her faith since that; and where are the literatures, philosophies, sciences, and political systems, which, in every generation, have risen up to supersede this old and unimproving faith? Quietly at rest with the worm-eaten skulls of the proud wise men that gave them birth. Surely, then, they are false and coward churchmen who fear for their mother's abasement. Surely they are false and coward hearts who would not be cheered by the hope of suffering?" Mr. Faber passed the holy week in Venice; part of that solemn season is thus described. "One Maunday Thursday we went to St. Mark's, and remained there the whole of the service, which lasted about three hours. This Thursday seems to be here, as it should be, a sort of Lenten holiday, a light shining ever in the darkness of passion-week. Flags were flying on all the ships before the quay, as well as in the square before St. Mark's. The archbishop was in the cathedral. He and his clergy were magnificently habited in vestments, of what appeared to be cloth of gold, and he had a gilded mitre on his head. There was music, but not much. All the clergy, the Austrian arch-duke, who is viceroy of Milan, and thirteen aged paupers received the holy communion, the choir chanting in a low voice the whole time. After the communion, the archbishop came into the nave, accompanied by his priests and deacons, in less magnificent attire. They took off his outer robes and girded him with a towel. He then knelt down, and washed and kissed the feet of the thirteen old paupers who had communicated. I rather expected that this ceremony would have been a little undignified, and waited for it somewhat uneasily, considering I was in church, and the eucharistic sacrifice but just over. However, it was not so in the least. It was very affecting, and quite real; and the people seemed to feel that it meant something real, and to all appearance, were edified by it, as I was myself. After it was over, the patriarch standing and leaning on his crosier, made a short address to the people, explaining the symbolical character of our Lord's act, and dwelling particularly on St. Peter's wish that not his feet only should be washed, but his hands and his head. understand nothing of what is before them. A heathen might say just the same, as the Puritans did say of us, if they entered one of our cathedrals and saw us sit for the epistle, stand for the gospel, turn to the east at the creed, bow at the Lord's name, recite the litany at a faldstool between the porch and the altar, make crosses on babies' foreheads, lay hands on small squares of bread, or if they saw men in strange black dresses, with large white sleeves, walking up and down the aisles of a country church, touching the heads of boys and girls, or wetting the head and hand of our kings and queens with oil, or consecrating buildings and yards. There may, of course, be very sad mummery in Roman services, as there is very sad irreverence oftentimes in English services; such, for instance, as dressing up the altar in white cloths with the plate upon it for the holy communion, when it is not meant that there should be one, which is sometimes done in our cathedrals, where the clergy themselves are in sufficient number to communicate, and strangers who have wished to stay, have been told that it will be very inconvenient if they do so. It may be hoped there are few Roman churches where such theatrical mummery as that is practised. However, whatever be the amount of Romish mummery, the gross ignorance of ecclesiastical matters exhibited by many modern travellers, who have spoken the most confidently about it, may make us suspect their competency to be judges on the matter; when we see, that precisely the same commonplace and offensive epithets, might be applied with equal justice to us, by one who was a stranger or an enemy to our services; and whatever changes the people may wish for, the English ritual will hardly be charged with mummery. All ritual acts must, from the nature of the case, be symbolical, being either a reverential imitation of sacred acts, or the sublime inventions of antiquity, whereby the presence of God and his holy angels is recognised and preached to the people, or fit and beautiful means for affecting the imagination of the worshipper, and giving intensity to his devotions. All service, not excepting the simple and strict imi tation of our blessed Lord's action at the institution of the most solemn rite in the world, must be dumb-show to a looker-on, who knows nothing of what it sets forth and symbolizes; and this dumb-show such a looker-on, if he were pert and self-sufficient, would call 'mummery.' The existence of Romish mummery is or is not a fact, and must, of course, be so dealt with; and its extent also is or is not ascertainable as a fact. But the improbability of its being nearly so extensive as modern travellers represent it, is so monstrous considering that the Romanists are Christians, and Christians too at worship, that the vague epithets and round sentences, and the received puritan vocabulary of persons ignorant of breviaries and missals cannot be taken as evidence. Indeed, in these days, we may justifiably require beforehand that a traveller shall know so much of what external religion is, and what are its uses, that he can comprehend and subscribe to the simple philosophy comprised in Wordsworth's definition of it. Sacred Religion! Mother of form and fear, Mr. Faber goes on to say, that "it is to be regretted extremely that it is not customary with us (the Church of England) to have the holy communion on the Thursday in passion-week, as has been the practice of the Church in all ages; it being the day on which our blessed Lord instituted that holy, life-giving mystery and powerful memorial of his death. When I saw the assembly at St. Mark's receiving the eucharist on the Thursday, I could not help feeling that they, rather than ourselves, were fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah, which our own Church, not theirs, has selected for the evening lesson of this Thursday. They were literally fulfilling it. They shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd; and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them; and make them rejoice from their sorrow. And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness."" Mr. Faber puts the following language into the mouth of his "man of the middle ages," but we may say to the author of " the Sights and Thoughts," mutato nomine de te narratur. "I do not wonder you should envy the Latin service-books; for any thing more elevating and magnificent than the western ritual is not to be conceived. There is not such another glory upon the earth. It gives to men the tongues of angels-it images on its bosom the attitudes of heaven, and it catches glorious echoes from the eternal worship of the Lamb. It has a language of its own-a language of symbols more luminous, more mystical, more widely spread, than any other language on the earth. I do not wonder you should envy the Latin ritual." And again: "old Fuller says, that men unsettled in their religion, are ravished at the first Popish church they enter.' I would say the reverse of this. So far is one from being ravished at the sight,' that the service is, so far as I know, distasteful and almost offensive. Nearly the whole of my second journey on the continent, and that too amidst the ecclesiastical magnificence of Belgium, had elapsed before I became at all reconciled to it. The danger, if danger there can really be, to an intelligent and well-disciplined Anglican, is on further acquaintance and familiarity. The attraction increases in proportion to our study of the Roman servicebooks. Much, well nigh all, in them is so beautiful, so solemn, so reverently bold, so full of Catholic teaching; so fitted to the deepest devotional cravings of which we are capable, and has historically been the road and training of such eminent saints, that we return almost with a feeling of disappointment and sense of lowering to our own formularies, forgetting that we have deserved lowering much further, and that the Catholic richness of the common prayer is far above our actual condition and practice. The hold which the Breviary takes upon us is strengthened, while we allow its austere hymns to raise our affections higher than their wonted pitch, while we learn many things we know not of, from the selections of the readings, and pause over the Antiphons, where a word from one part of Scripture seems to meet another, and make a key, and open up whole mines of mystical exposition, much of it, probably, belonging to very ancient traditional treasures in the Church." Mr. Faber's short sojourn in Milan affords him one of his richest banquets of "Sights and Thoughts." We feel that we shall satisfy our readers far more effectually by quoting the words of our traveller, than by commenting upon them: they can do that at their leisure. "We have seen the far-famed cathedral of Milan, the cathedral of St. Charles Borromeo, whose praise is in all the churches. It is indeed a superb edifice, the interior is quite overpowering. It seemed, indeed, a type of the everlasting creed of the Church; for What is the long cathedral glade But faith, that in the sculptured shade "The morning mass at the tomb of St. Charles Borromeo, was just finishing when we descended into the subterranean chapel, at the entrance of the choir. We did not much regard the splendor of the tomb, for our eyes were rivetted on the coffer [why not shrine?] which stood above the altar, and contained the mortal remains of that holy saint and faithful shepherd. The longer we remained in the cathedral, the more its glory and magnificence, and colored gloom took possession of our spirits. It is an oppressive thing to be a priest in the city of St. Ambrose and St. Charles Borromeo, and yet a stranger; a gazer, a mere English looker *The Cathedral, p. 144. on, a tourist where one should be upon one's knees at home, and in that divine temple a legitimate worshipper. But where rests the blame? Alas! the sour logic of controversy may be as convincing as it usually is to men whose minds are made up, as almost all minds are, independent of it; but since Eve tempted and Adam fell, has there ever been a strife where both sides were not to blame? In a difference so broad and complicated, so many-veined and intertwisted as that between Rome and us, never was there so monstrous a faith as that which could believe that all the wrong was with Rome, and all the right with England. Yet men have been seen with the mortal eye, who had the capacity to receive this, and put trust in it. It is distressing, truly, to be in a wonderful church, like this of Milan, to feel sure that you reverence the memory of St. Ambrose, and have deep affection for the very name of Borromeo, and are not without Christian thought for SS. Gervasius and Protasius, as much as one-half of the people you see there, and yet be shut out from all Church offices,-to have no home at the altars of that one Church, at whose altars, by apostolic ordination, you are privileged to consecrate the Christian mysteries.”* "By far the most interesting thing in Milan is the Ambrosian church. The edifice itself is of the ninth century. The western doors, of old cedar wood, are said, but apparently without truth, to be the identical ones which St. Ambrose closed against Theodosius when he would have pressed into the church. But the locality is sufficient, without the identity of the doors, to awaken feelings of the deepest kind. A man truly must feel much godly emulation who is placed in the archiepiscopal chair of Milan, with two such predecessors as St. Ambrose and St. Charles. While on the stirring spot where the holy Ambrose shone forth, representing to all time the lofty character of a primitive bishop, and where Theodosius exalted his imperial dignity by sub *In another place he says: "The very bells with which Genoa was alive, seemed to sound reproachfully in our ears. There are churches enough to enter where we can say our secret prayers; for it is an evil thing to gaze and peep while others around you are kneeling and praying." mission to the holy Church,—let us pass in review some of the chapters in the very interesting history of the Lombard Church.” Mr. Faber proceeds to give a rapid but animated sketch of the portion of Church history alluded to, as well as of the discovery of the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and the miracles accompanying it. Upon the latter occur the following ob servations: "In respect to this narrative which rests on the high testimony of three witnesses, St. Augustin, St. Ambrose and Paulinus, are we not placed in the following dilemma? If the miracle did not take place, then St. Ambrose and St. Augustin, men of high name, said they had ascertained a fact which they did not ascertain, and said it in the face of enemies with an appeal to a whole city, and that continued and repeated during a quarter of a century. What instrument of refutation shall we devise against a case like this, neither so violently à priori as to supersede the apostles' testimony, nor so fastidious of evidence as to imperil Tacitus or Cæsar? On the other hand, if the miracle did take place, a certain measure of authority, more or less, surely must thereby attach to St. Ambrose, to his doctrine and life, to his ecclesiastical principles and proceedings, to the Church itself, of the fourth century, of which he is one main pillar. The miracle gives a certain sanction to three things at once:-to the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to the Church's resistance to the civil power, and to the commemoration of saints and martyrs. What alternative shall the Protestant accept? Shall we retreat, or shall we advance? shall we relapse into scepticism upon all subjects, or sacrifice our deeprooted prejudices? shall we give up our knowledge of times passed altogether, or endure to gain a knowledge which we think we have already—the knowledge of divine truth ?" In Genoa, also, Mr. Faber opens his heart to Catholic feeling. There are passages in his visit to this city which will awaken mingled emotions of pleasure and pain. Tertullian beautifully remarks that the heart of man is naturally Christian," VOL. II-No. 7. as a thousand spontaneous emotions will indicate. In the same manner we may say of Mr. Faber, that his heart is naturally Catholic, and would be habitually so, were it not for that leaven of the "new learning," the effect of which is to mar the better feeling which is continually struggling to be uppermost. Witness his reflections and conduct on the feast of the Annunciation: "I had thought," says he, "that all the feasts which fell in Lent were, by the Roman Church, postponed till afterwards. In Genoa this did not seem to hold with the feast of the Annunciation of our Lady. The city was plunged in one entire tumult of holiday. All the shops were shut, but booths of fruit and every kind of eatable crowded the streets. Lent seemed forgotten. The churches were thronged by men well dressed, and women almost gorgeously appareled. Bells ringing, chiming, and playing tunes without intermission all day. Genoa was a chaos of bells. All sounds of labor were hushed; the steamboats were stopped in the middle of their voyages, and every street was filled with heaps or rather stacks of flowers, wherewith to honor the images and altars of the Blessed Virgin. We ourselves were quite possessed with the Sunday feeling of the day; and not to be utterly without sympathy for the Genoese around us, we decorated our room with a bunch of crimson tulips, apparently the favorite flower, that we might not be without somewhat to remind us of her, "The splendid ceremonials of the day recalled strongly to my mind, a very beautiful procession which I saw at Bruges, in 1839, on the octave of the Assumption, when St. Mary's image was carried through the streets, preceded by the Host, to visit St. Mary Magdalen in her church. From the general chastity of arrangement, and strikingly graceful gestures of the little children who form a portion of it, a procession is by far the most imposing of Roman ecclesiastical pageants. I see still before me 50 |