The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Year in Europe, by Walter W. Moore
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
Title: A Year in Europe
Author: Walter W. Moore
Release Date: December 12, 2014 [EBook #47644]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YEAR IN EUROPE ***
Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Christian Boissonnas and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)
A YEAR IN EUROPE.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY--JERUSALEM CHAMBER TO THE RIGHT.]
A YEAR IN EUROPE.
_By_
WALTER W. MOORE, D. D., LL. D.
President of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia
THIRD EDITION
[Illustration]
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
The Presbyterian Committee of Publication
1905
COPYRIGHTED
BY
WALTER W. MOORE,
1904.
PRINTED BY
WHITTET & SHEPPERSON,
RICHMOND, VA.
TO
My Traveling Companions
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
AS A MEMENTO
OF HAPPY DAYS IN THE OLD WORLD.
FOREWORD.
The only excuse I have to offer for the publication of these desultory
and chatty letters in this more permanent form is that a number of my
friends have requested it. Many of the letters have already appeared in
the columns of _The Children's Friend_, for which they were originally
written, at the instance of the Presbyterian Committee of Publication;
but I have included in the volume several letters which were written
for other periodicals, and a considerable number which have not been
published anywhere till now. Some of them were written hastily, and, as
it were, on the wing, others with more deliberation and care. Some were
intended for young readers, others for older people. This will account
for the differences of style and subject matter which will strike every
one, and which will be particularly noticeable when the letters are
read consecutively.
In some cases I have drawn the materials, in part, from other sources
besides my own observations, the main object at times being not
originality, but accuracy and fullness of information. In such cases I
have endeavored to make full acknowledgment of my indebtedness to other
writers.
As most of the letters were written for a denominational paper, they
naturally contain a good many references to notable events in the
history of the Presbyterian Church, and to some of the differences
between that church and others in matters of doctrine, polity and forms
of worship. But I trust that in no case have I felt or expressed a
spirit of uncharitable sectarianism. If any reader should receive the
impression that I have done so in one or two instances, I request him
to suspend judgment till he has read all the references to such matters
contained in the letters. It will then be seen that if I have had
occasion to make some strictures upon the Anglican and Roman Catholic
Churches, I have not hesitated to make them upon my own church also,
when I have observed, in her worship or work, things which seemed to
argue that she was untrue in any measure to her principles; and that
if I have criticised the Anglo-Catholic and Roman Catholic systems as
erroneous, I have recognized thankfully the great evangelical truths
embedded in the heart of Anglican, and even Romish theology, though
so sadly overlaid, and have rejoiced to pay my tribute of praise to
the saintly characters that have been developed within those bodies in
spite of their errors.
RICHMOND, VA., _June 1, 1904_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
A COLD SUMMER VOYAGE.
A Pleasant Memory.--A Depressing Start.--Discomforts at
Sea.--Life on a German Steamship.--The Unification of
the World.--All's Well that Ends Well.--Arrival at Southampton, 9
CHAPTER II.
A VISIT TO THE TOWN OF DR. ISAAC WATTS.
A Sheltered Harbor with Double Tides.--Historical Interest
of Southampton: Canute, William the Conqueror, William Rufus,
Richard Lion Heart, the Pilgrim Fathers.--The Chief Distinction of
the Town.--Statue of Dr. Watts.--Sketch of the great hymn writer, 16
CHAPTER III.
SALISBURY, SARUM, AND STONEHENGE.
A Fascinating Cathedral Town.--Rural Scenery in Southern
England.--Impressiveness of Stonehenge.--Other Things of Interest
About Salisbury.--What the Bishop Said About the Presbyterian Form
of the Early Church, 21
CHAPTER IV.
WINCHESTER WORTHIES: ALFRED THE GREAT, IZAAK WALTON, THOMAS KEN.
Memorials of Kings Good and Bad.--Memorial of the Gentle
Fisherman.--Wit in Winchester College.--A Lovely Churchman.--Ken's
Defiance of James II., 28
CHAPTER V.
THE UGLINESS AND THE CHARM OF LONDON.
A Vast and Dingy Metropolis.--The Æsthetic Value of Soot.--Brick
versus Stone.--Scotch Cities' Stately, but Gloomy.--Brightness of
Paris.--Immensity and Multitude.--The Body is More than Raiment, 34
CHAPTER VI.
THE ENGLISH VIEW OF THE FOURTH OF JULY.
Ambassador Choate's Reception.--Increasing Friendliness Between
America and England.--How the English Now View the American
Revolution.--A Fair Statement of the Question and the
Conflict.--What England Learned from Fighting Against Her Own
Principles.--The Monument of Washington in St. Paul's
Cathedral.--The Possible Union of Canada and the United States, 41
CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE ENGLISH REGARD THE AMERICANS.
Former Prejudices Passing Away.--The English Admit that America
Holds the Future.--English Candor and English Inconsistency.--A
Sectarian Measure in Parliament.--What Scotchmen Think of the
Education Bill.--Passive Resistance of the Nonconformists, 49
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRITISH REPUBLIC AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
The Real Ruler of the British Empire.--The House of
Parliament.--Getting into the Lower House.--The Debate and the
Debaters.--Harcourt, Bryce, Campbell-Bannerman, Lloyd-George, John
Dillon, Arthur Balfour.--The Incongruity of a Presbyterian Prime
Minister.--English and American Oratory, 55
CHAPTER IX.
CAMBRIDGE AND HER SCHOOLS.
The Cathedral Route.--The Two University Towns.--Cambridge More
Progressive than Oxford.--The Presbyterian Element.--The Two
Most Learned Women in the World.--Westminster College.--The Same
Difficulties About Candidates for the Ministry, 63
CHAPTER X.
FROM ENGLAND TO SCOTLAND--THE EASTERN ROUTE.
The Land of the Mountain and the Flood.--Melrose, Abbotsford,
and Dryburgh.--The Wizard of the North.--Edinburgh.--Temporary
Residence in Auld Reekie.--Public Worship in Scotland.--Organ,
Choir, and Congregation.--Bibles in the Churches, 68
CHAPTER XI.
SOME ENGLISH AND SCOTCH PREACHERS.
Dean Farrar in Westminster Abbey.--Mr. Haweis and Dr.
Wace.--Spurgeon, Parker, and Hughes.--Moravian Mission
House.--General Booth.--Scottish Mind and Scottish Heart.--Dr.
Marcus Dods.--Dr. George Matheson.--Dr. Whyte and Mr.
Black.--Interview with Professor Sayce.--The Inevitable Subject, 75
CHAPTER XII.
ECHOES OF A SPICY BOOK ON SCOTLAND.
A Unique Prayer for Prince Charlie.--Church-Going in
Edinburgh.--The Bibles, the Sermons, the Prayers, the Music.--Jenny
Geddes and her Stool.--The Disruption in 1843.--A Sermon-Taster
with a Nippy Tongue.--Scottish and American Repartee, 87
CHAPTER XIII.
IS THE SCOTTISH CHARACTER DEGENERATING?
"Mine Own Romantic Town."--The Seamy Side of Edinburgh.--The
Cause of Her Wretchedness.--Not Lack of Native Ability, nor
Disregard of the Sabbath, but the Curse of Strong Drink.--Appalling
Statistics.--A Lesser Menace, 100
CHAPTER XIV.
STIRLING, THE LAKES, AND GLASGOW.
The Wallace Monument.--Memorials of the Martyrs.--Margaret
Wilson.--The Covenanters.--The Author of "The Men of the
Moss Hags."--Aberfoyle, The Trossachs, Loch Katrine, Loch
Lomond.--Lord Overtoun's Garden Party.--Rev. John McNeill.--Scotch
Humor.--Glasgow.--The Cathedral.--Lord Kelvin, 107
CHAPTER XV.
OBAN, IONA, AND STAFFA.
Rude Seas off the West Coast.--A Difficult Landing.--The Presbyter
Abbot, Columba.--The Evangelization of Scotland from Iona.--The
Burial Place of the Scottish Kings.--The Basaltic Columns of
Staffa.--Fingal's Cave.--Nature's Cathedral.--The Caledonian
Canal, 119
CHAPTER XVI.
INVERNESS AND MEMORIES OF FLORA MACDONALD.
A Clean and Comely City.--The Statue of Flora Macdonald.--The
Career of a Royal Adventurer.--A Fugitive in the Hebrides.--A
Woman to the Rescue.--Feminine Courage and Resource.--Flora
Macdonald as Prisoner.--Her Marriage.--She Entertains Dr. Johnson
and Boswell.--Moves to North Carolina.--Misfortunes in the New
World.--Her Return to Scotland and her Last Days, 124
CHAPTER XVII.
FROM SCOTLAND TO ENGLAND--WESTERN ROUTE.
In and Around Perth.--Quhele, Shoe Heel and Maxton.--Crieff and
Drumtochty.--Loch Leven.--Ayr and Robert Burns.--Dumfries,
Keswick, Skiddaw.--The English Lakes.--Chester.--Lichfield and Dr.
Samuel Johnson.--The Shakespeare Country.--The American Window at
Stratford.--The English Language as Spoken in the Birthplace of
Shakespeare and Elsewhere, 133
CHAPTER XVIII.
A VISIT TO RUGBY AND A TRAMP TO THE WHITE HORSE HILL.
Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby.--The Rugby of To-day.--Our
Expedition to Tom Brown's Birthplace.--The Highest Horse we
Ever Mounted.--The Roman Camp.--King Alfred's Defeat of the
Danes.--The Manger and the Dragon's Hill.--The Blowing Stone.--The
effect upon our Appetites.--The Tea we did not Drink.--Return to
Oxford.--London Once More, 142
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MOST INTERESTING BUILDING IN THE WORLD.
The Birthplace of the Shorter Catechism.--The Coronation
Postponed.--Westminster Abbey Still Closed.--The Assembly
of Divines.--The Two Places of Meeting.--The Two Types of
Worship.--Interior of the Jerusalem Chamber.--Exterior
of the Jerusalem Chamber.--Connection of Henry IV., Sir
Thomas More, Joseph Addison, and Sir Isaac Newton with the
Jerusalem Chamber.--Architectural Glory of Westminster
Abbey.--Its Historical Interest.--Coronations.--The Stone of
Scone.--Burials.--Monuments.--Pagan Sculptures in a Christian
Church, 151
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROYAL CHAPELS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
A Hard-Hearted Verger.--A Courteous Sub-Dean.--The Wax
Effigies.--Mutilated Monuments.--Monuments Denied to Notable
Persons.--The Objection to Milton.--General Meigs and President
Davis.--The Vindication of Cromwell.--Treatment of his Dead
Body.--History of his Head.--His Statue at Westminster, 168
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CATHEDRALS VERSUS THE GOSPEL.
Original Significance of the Cathedrals.--Their Æsthetic
Influence.--Their Romanizing Tendency.--Their Charm for the
Greatest of the Puritans.--A Half-Reformed Church.--Relics of
Romanism.--Effect of Cathedrals on Presbyterian Worship.--Superior
Impressiveness of Protestant Simplicity, 177
CHAPTER XXII.
SOME THINGS FOR HIGH CHURCHMEN TO THINK ABOUT.
The Use of Written Prayers.--The Huguenot Presbyterians in
Canterbury Cathedral.--Scuffle Between the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York.--The Concomitants of Anglican Worship.--The
Intoning.--Canon Henson at St. Margaret's.--His Remarks on Anglican
Narrowness.--What he Could See in Virginia.--Decreasing Attendance
in the Anglican Churches in London.--An Episcopalian Estimate of
Presbyterian Preaching, 186
CHAPTER XXIII.
PARIS AND MEMORIES OF THE HUGUENOTS.
The English Channel as a Health Resort.--The External Beauty of
the French Capital.--What we Did Not Like About Paris.--The Louvre
and its Treasures.--The Boer Generals.--The Huguenot Name and the
Huguenot Character.--Palissy the Potter.--Other Huguenot Heroes
and Heroines.--A Roman Catholic's Condemnation of Roman Catholic
Persecutions.--France's Loss the World's Gain.--What we Owe to the
Huguenots.--The Huguenot Strain in Virginia.--The Present Huguenot
Revival in France.--Brussels and Waterloo, 199
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE MAKING OF HOLLAND.
Unique Interest of Holland.--A Land Below Sea-Level.--Water as
an Enemy.--Dykes as Protectors.--How Dykes are Made.--Sand
Dunes.--Canals.--Wind-Mills.--Polders.--Entering Holland.--The
Scenery and the Scenes.--Rotterdam and Erasmus.--Delft and
William the Silent.--The Hague.--Rembrandt's "School of
Anatomy."--A Presbyterian Queen.--A Presbyterian Preacher as Prime
Minister.--Unpresbyterian Church Buildings.--Would the Destruction
of all the Cathedrals have been a Loss or a Gain? 212
CHAPTER XXV.
LEYDEN'S UNIVERSITY, HAARLEM'S FLOWERS, AND AMSTERDAM'S COMMERCE.
The Great Siege.--A University as a Reward of Valor.--John
Robinson and the Pilgrim Fathers.--Horse Flesh as Food.--Haarlem
and the Flower Boom.--Amsterdam's Islands and Canals.--A City
Built on Stakes.--Business of Amsterdam.--President Kruger
at Utrecht.--Queer Customs in Holland.--The Dutch Mania for
Cleanliness.--Mr. Edward Bok on "The Mother of America," 222
CHAPTER XXVI.
UP THE RHINE AND OVER THE ALPS.
Cologne and Coblentz.--The Vintage of the Rhine Valley.--Wiesbaden
and the German Woods.--The Luther Monument at Worms.--Wintry
Weather at Heidelberg.--Strasburg's Cathedral and
Clock.--Switzerland in Winter-time.--The Lion of Lucerne.--A Cold
Day on the Lake.--Over the Alps.--Snow in Italy.--Milan, 238
CHAPTER XXVII.
VENICE, BOLOGNA, FLORENCE, AND PISA.
The Queen of the Adriatic.--The Fallen Campanile.--Fra Paolo
Sarpi, the Greatest of the Venetians.--Busy Bologna.--The Leaning
Towers.--The Colonnades.--The Oldest University.--Galvani and his
Frog.--The Flower of Fair Cities.--Art Treasures of Florence.--The
Reformer Before the Reformation.--Martyrdom of Savonarola.--Pisa's
Four Monuments, 245
CHAPTER XXVIII.
SOME LITTLE ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
Letter-Writing Under Difficulties.--An Exemplary Traveller.--A
Mild Sensation in Leyden.--A German Baby-Cart out of its
Element.--Something New in Venice.--No Place for Wheels.--Gondolas
and Gondoliers.--Wonderful Dexterity with a Single Oar.--A
Scattering of Baggage on the Streets of Cologne.--Disastrous
Descent of a Baby-Cart from the Top of an Omnibus.--Extortion and
Fraud in Sacred Places, 254
CHAPTER XXIX.
RELICS IN GENERAL AND THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY IN PARTICULAR.
Mark Twain's Animadversions.--The Palladium of Venice.--The Gift
of Leo XIII. to London.--The Blood of St. Januarius.--The House of
the Virgin at Loretto.--The Wonder-Working Bones of St. Anne in
Canada.--The Iron Crown of Lombardy.--A Winter Trip to Monza.--The
Treasury of the Cathedral.--The Chapel of the Great Relic.--Why
the Crown is so Sacred.--How it was used by Charlemagne and
Napoleon.--Rome Caps the Climax.--Do American Roman Catholics
Believe in the Relics? 259
CHAPTER XXX.
ROMAN CATHOLIC RELICS AT ROME.
The Miraculous Snow in Summertime.--The Holy Cradle.--The Little
Doll that Owns a Large Carriage.--The Wealth and Power of the
Miraculous Bambino.--The Communion Table Used by Christ.--The
Holy Stairs from Pilate's Palace.--The Man who Crawled Up
and Walked Down.--The Miraculous Portrait and the Shoes of
Christ.--The Inscription on the Cross and the Finger of Thomas.--A
Bottle of the Blood of Christ.--Exclusion of Women from Holy
Places.--The Hardness of St. Peter's Knees.--The Hardness of St.
Peter's Head.--What the Head of St. Paul Did.--St. Paul's Use
of Plautilla's Veil.--The Footprints of Christ in Stone.--The
Chains of St. Peter.--The Column Against which Christ Leaned in
the Temple.--The Chair of St. Peter.--The Lance that Pierced the
Saviour's Side.--The Napkin of St. Veronica with the Miraculous
Impression of our Lord's Face.--The Head of the Apostle Andrew, 273
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LEGENDS, THE POPES, AND THE PASQUINADES.
The Manufacture of St. Philomena.--The Canonization of Buddha.--The
Courteous Spaniard.--The Miracles of St. Dominic.--Miracles
Wrought by Other Saints and Images.--How the Papal Treasury was
Filled, and How it was Emptied.--Some Ugly Passages in Papal
History.--Pasquino's View of the Pope.--What the Italians Now
Think About it.--Few Men and Many Women at the Confessional.--Lord
Macaulay, Charles Dickens, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. McCarthy and
Nathaniel Hawthorne on the Influence of Romanism.--The New Pope a
Good Man, 293
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE OLD FORCES AND THE NEW IN THE ETERNAL CITY.
An Audience with the Pope.--"Long Live the Pope-King!" The
Pope's Last Jubilee in St. Peter's.--Our Quarters on the Pincian
Hill.--The Sweep of History Seen from the Janiculum.--The Colosseum
and the Baths of Caracalla.--The Papal Passion for Terrestrial
Immortality.--The Building Boom Under the New Government.--Can the
New Government Maintain Itself Against the Priests? 315
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION IN ROME.
The Cappucin Cemetery.--Some Differences Between America and
Italy.--The Playful Inquisition.--The Relative Rank of the Deities
Worshipped in Rome.--The Fee of the Visitor More Important than
the Soul of the Worshipper.--Sensuality versus Spirituality
in Art.--The Kind of Character Produced.--The Other Type.--An
Apostolic Preacher in Rome.--A Wise and Loving Pastor, 328
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE INEXHAUSTIBLENESS OF ROME.
The Most Interesting City in the World.--The Embarrassment of
Riches.--Boundless Wealth of Materials.--The Appian Way, the
Catacombs, the Ecclesiastical Statues.--The Remains of Classical
Rome: The Arches, the Columns, the Tombs, the Statues.--The
Masterpieces of Sculpture and the Masterpieces of Painting in
Rome.--The Best Books About Rome.--Lord Mahon and Professor
Lanciani on the Last of the Stuarts.--Ave Roma Immortalis, 341
CHAPTER XXXV.
NAPLES, CAPRI, VESUVIUS, AMALFI, AND POMPEII.
Beauty and Filth.--Danger and Indifference.--Street Scenes in
Naples.--The Blue Grotto of Capri.--The Ascent of Vesuvius.--A
Stream of Liquid Fire.--Hard Climbing Through Cinders.--Driven Back
from the Crater by Sulphur Fumes.--The Most Beautiful Drive in the
World.--The Loveliness of Amalfi.--The Ruins of Pompeii.--Story of
the Catastrophe.--The Work of Exhumation.--The Return Voyage by
Gibraltar and the Azores.--There is no Place Like Home, 346
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Westminster Abbey and Jerusalem Chamber, _Frontispiece._
The House of Parliament, London, 56
Clare College and King's Chapel, Cambridge, 62
Sir Walter Scott's Seat in Melrose Abbey, 69
Drill of Highlanders, Edinburgh Castle, 88
Princes Street, Edinburgh, 101
Monument to Margaret Wilson, Stirling, 108
Statue of Flora Macdonald, Inverness, 125
Magdalen College, Oxford, 150
Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey, 164
A Stranger in Leyden, 223
The Lion of Lucerne, 242
The Doge's Palace, Venice, 247
The Bambino, 276
Scala Santa, Rome, 279
Kings of England and Italy in Rome, 319
Panorama of Naples, 346
A Windy Day on Mount Vesuvius, 350
On the Road to Amalfi, 352
Colonnade of Hotel Cappuccini, 354
Pompeii, 357
A YEAR IN EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
A COLD SUMMER VOYAGE.
SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND, _June 28, 1902_.
[Sidenote: A Pleasant Memory.]
An American traveller says that a sea voyage, compared with land
travel, is a good deal like matrimony compared with single blessedness:
either decidedly better or decidedly worse. With me, on my first voyage
to Europe a few years ago, it was, like my own venture in matrimony,
decidedly better. We sailed from New York on a brilliant day, and
nearly all the way over the weather was bright, bracing, buoyant, with
blue sky above, blue sea beneath, and just enough motion of the water
to give it all the fascination of changing beauty. Only once or twice
did even our least seasoned passengers need "some visible means of
support," on account of the rolling of the ship, and when we struck
the Gulf Stream, deep blue and warm, it was pleasant on deck even
without wraps, and I remember the captain's telling me he had seen the
temperature of the water change thirty-one degrees in two minutes,
when he would pass from the Gulf Stream into a colder current, though
we ourselves had no such experience then. Day after day we lounged on
deck restfully, or walked about comfortably, taking deep and leisurely
inhalations of the pure ocean air, and having frequent opportunity
to learn the meaning of "Cat's Paw" as applied to winds, when, under
the gentle dips of air, the placid ocean took on a pitted appearance
exactly like the tracks made by cats' feet in soft snow.
[Sidenote: A Depressing Start.]
Our present voyage has been very different, and I fear that some of
the young people with me, who are familiar with my impressions of
the former passage, have felt some disappointment with the ocean.
The circumstances of our start were depressing, notwithstanding the
animation of the scene at the North German Lloyd Pier, with its throng
of carriages, baggage wagons, trucks, trunks, tourists' agents,
passengers, and friends who had come to see them off, and who waved
their handkerchiefs and shouted farewells and sang German songs, while
the band on the _Bremen_ played inspiring airs, and her own hoarse
whistles capped the climax of the din, as the tugs pulled the great
ship out into the river, and turned her prow towards the ocean, and her
ponderous engines began to throb. It was all in vain. Nothing could
make it seem cheerful. The rain was pouring steadily and heavily from
leaden skies, and just outside the harbor we ran into an opaque fog
that shrouded all the beauty of the sea, and made it necessary for the
fog horn to sound its prolonged, mournful, ominous, and nerve-racking
blast every minute through the rest of the day and night, to avoid
collision with other vessels groping through the deep. It was a comfort
to recall the hymn we had used in the family circle the morning we
started from home--
"Let the sweet hope that thou art mine
My life and death attend,
Thy presence through my journey shine
And crown my journey's end"--
and to commit ourselves to the care of him who hath measured the waters
in the hollow of his hand, and to whom the darkness and the light are
both alike, and to whom the night shineth as the day.
[Sidenote: Discomforts at Sea.]
For several days the sea was "a gray and melancholy waste," and, when
at length the weather cleared, a cold wind--very cold and cutting
and persistent--blew hard from the northwest, making our side of
the deck intolerable, even with our heaviest winter clothing and a
great profusion of wraps, so that it was hardly a surprise to us,
when about half way over, to see in the distance what we took to be
an iceberg glistening cold against the horizon--very interesting, of
course, as compared with the steamships, sailing vessels, and schools
of porpoises, which are the usual variations of the monotony of the
waterscape--but also very uncomfortable. Moreover, the wind made the
sea so rough at times that the tables in the dining saloon were more
than once quite "sparsely settled," not a few people "wanted the
earth," and longed for _terra firma_--less terror and more firmer, as
a friend of mine once put it. One or two even of our own party, who,
though good "tar heels," are not equally good "tars," paid reluctant
tribute to Neptune. Reluctant, did I say? Yet it was done eagerly, as
though the persons in question "could not contain themselves" for joy,
or novelty, or some other emotion. I find it difficult to write of this
curious little malady, which baffles the skill of all physicians, with
sufficient plainness, and, at the same time, with sufficient reserve.
The most delicate reference to it on record was that of a Frenchman,
who, pale and miserable, was greeted by a blooming Englishman with
"Good morning, monsieur, have you breakfasted?" and replied, "No,
monsieur, I have not breakfasted. On the contrary." Three or four of
our immediate party, however, did not miss a meal on the whole voyage,
but "held their own" throughout, and were able to "navigate" every
day. Moreover, while the rude seas robbed us of the exhilaration
which I had always heretofore associated with an ocean voyage, we
had on board many bright and attractive things which went far to
counterbalance the effect of the chilly and depressing weather.
[Sidenote: Life on a German Steamship.]
The _Bremen_ is a staunch and comfortable ship; not one of the Atlantic
greyhounds, which are built slender and comparatively light in order
to great speed--but all the better for that, as her vast bulk and
heavy cargo give her a degree of steadiness unknown to the express
steamers, and her appointments are in every way equal to those of
the fastest ships afloat. She takes nine days for the trip from New
York to Southampton, and in ordinary weather that is none too long
for the average passenger. It was no fault of hers that our journey
was not a comfortable one throughout. It could not have been so in
any ship with such weather as we had the misfortune to encounter. Of
course, everything on board is German. The stewards can speak enough
English for all necessary purposes, though one of them, when asked a
question by a member of our party, made the naive reply, "I do not
hear well in English." One is soon initiated into the mysteries of
marks and pfennigs, and begins to pick up sundry guttural German words
and phrases. Being German, of course the ship has plenty of music, a
cornet band discoursing lively airs on deck about the middle of every
forenoon, and a string band playing during the dinner hour in the
saloon, while the passengers munch in unison. The catering department
is organized on the assumption that the chief occupation of people
on shipboard is eating, sandwiches and hot beef tea being served on
deck in the forenoon, and tea and biscuits of various kinds in the
afternoon, in addition to the three very elaborate set meals in the
saloon, the lavish abundance of which is provoking to the squeamish
passenger. A Teutonic bugler, with fully developed lungs, gives the
signals for the meals. On Sunday morning the passengers are wakened by
the strains of Luther's "Ein feste burg ist unser Gott." The management
of the ship throughout is characterized by German thoroughness, and the
organization and discipline are perfect.
Shuffle board, ring pitching, and other deck games, and letter-writing,
chess, and other amusements indoors, more or less innocent, serve to
while away part of the time. Ordinarily, reading is my main resource
in this way, but the cold weather and searching draughts, making it
impossible to find a reasonably comfortable spot to sit down in with a
book, reduced my reading on this trip to a minimum.
[Sidenote: The Unification of the World.]
Various nationalities were represented in our ship's company, the
Anglo-Saxon predominating. This reminds me of the fact that the
ocean has played no small part in the unification of the world as
thus far accomplished. Nothing, perhaps, distinguishes the modern
world more sharply from the ancient than its views of the ocean. To
the ancients the sea was a mystery and a terror; it was a barrier,
it separated men. To the moderns the sea is a highway, a means of
communication, it unites men. The nearest approach to a unification of
the race in ancient times was effected by the law of the Roman and the
language of the Greek. The unifying force to-day is the Anglo-Saxon,
who to the genius of the Roman for conquest and government, and to
the genius of the Greek for letters and art, has added the genius
of the Ph[oe]nician for commerce and the genius of the Hebrew for
religion. Here we touch the secret of his ascendancy. The Anglo-Saxon
civilization is _Christian_. His language is becoming the universal
language. His institutions are becoming the universal institutions.
His ships carry the passengers and produce of the world. His capital
dominates commerce. London is the clearing-house of the world. Will
this unification continue? Will it endure? It will if the religion to
which the Anglo-Saxon owes his preëminence remains preëminent in his
civilization. The brotherhood of man--how else shall it ever be fully
and permanently brought about, except through men's knowledge of the
Fatherhood of God? And how can the Fatherhood of God ever be known
except through him who taught us to say, "Our Father," and of whom the
Father said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear
ye him?" It is no accident that the nations which have most reverently
heeded this divine command, the nations which are most truly Christian,
are the nations which have hitherto stood in the forefront of the
foremost civilizations of mankind, and are the nations which now hold
the future.
"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Does his successive journeys run,
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore
Till moons shall wax and wane no more."
The force which will bind all men in a real and permanent union is no
mere knowledge of navigation, nor is it Anglo-Saxon commerce, laws, or
language; it is the Christian religion.
[Sidenote: All's Well That Ends Well.]
The latter part of our voyage was less trying than the earlier, and the
days were generally brighter, though still cold. Yet all were glad when
one night, about nine o'clock, the intermittent gleam of the lighthouse
on the Scilly Islands came into view, assuring us that the voyage would
soon be ended. Next morning we were steaming along the picturesque
south coast of England, with the white chalk cliffs and velvety green
downs in plain view through the tender blue haze, the water was quieter
and the weather warmer, and in a few hours more we entered The Solent,
passing on our right, almost within a stone's throw, "The Needles,"
three white, pointed rocks of chalk, at the western extremity of the
Isle of Wight, which rest on dark colored bases and spring abruptly
from the sea to a height of a hundred feet, and which are in striking
contrast with the vertically striped cliffs of red, yellow, green, and
grey sandstone behind them.
At last the great engines cease their throbbing for the first time in
nine days, the tender comes alongside for the passengers bound for
Great Britain, and in another half hour we set foot on the soil of
England, in the ancient city of Southampton.
CHAPTER II.
A VISIT TO THE TOWN OF DR. ISAAC WATTS.
SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND, _June 28, 1902_.
Southampton, the ancient seaport at which travellers to Europe by
the steamships of the North German Lloyd line first set foot on
British soil, is a place of considerable interest at any time, but
was especially attractive to us after a cold and uncomfortable voyage
across the Atlantic. The day of our arrival was fine, with blue sky
and genial sunshine, the water of the Solent, between the Isle of
Wight and the mainland, was free from the ocean swell, and Southampton
Water was quieter still, so we landed with thankful hearts and rising
spirits. The city, which is a place of some 70,000 inhabitants, owes
its importance to its sheltered harbor and to the phenomenon of double
tides, which prolong high water for two hours.
[Sidenote: Historical Interest of Southampton.]
This mention of the tides reminds me to say that Southampton is the
place where Canute the Dane is said to have given his famous rebuke to
his flattering courtiers. All the children who have read any English
history will recall the story.
They are familiar, too, with the hard-hearted action of William the
Conqueror in laying waste an area of one hundred and forty square
miles in this neighborhood for the purpose of making a hunting ground,
which has ever since been known as the New Forest, and which still
stretches westward from Southampton Water. It will be remembered that
the Conqueror's son and successor, William Rufus, met his death here,
being found one day in these woods with an arrow through his heart.
That arrow may have been shot by one of the many peasants who had
been driven from their homes when the New Forest was made, though most
writers attribute the deed, without sufficient proof, to a gentleman
named Walter Tyrrell. At any rate, here William Rufus was killed, and
at Winchester, thirteen miles from Southampton, he was buried under the
floor of the cathedral, "many looking on and few grieving," as the old
chronicler says.
Of still more interest to young readers, especially boys, who are
familiar with Sir Walter Scott's stories, _The Talisman_ and _Ivanhoe_,
is the fact that the Crusaders under Richard the Lion Hearted, sailed
from Southampton for the Holy Land. That was in 1189.
In the summer of 1620, however, a far more important expedition, though
far less spectacular, was fitted out at Southampton by the hiring of
a ship here called the _Mayflower_, in which shortly afterwards the
Pilgrim Fathers sailed for the New World.
It will be seen, then, that Southampton is a place of no small
historical interest, to say nothing of its associations with Edward
III., Henry V., and Charles I., or its being the birthplace of Sir
John E. Millais, the artist, or of its having fine statues of Lord
Palmerston and "Chinese" Gordon.
[Sidenote: Chief Distinction of the Town.]
But it was not on account of any of these things that we determined to
give to this place the first few hours we were to spend in England.
The special reason for our interest in Southampton is that it was the
birthplace and residence of the greatest hymn writer that ever lived,
a man of totally different physique, character, gifts, and influence
from the able, but bloody kings with whose names the earlier history of
the place is associated, a small, delicate, scholarly, Christian man,
of lovely spirit, who, by exactly antipodal methods, has established
a wider, more real, more beneficent, and more lasting reign over human
hearts than William or Richard were able to achieve--the Rev. Isaac
Watts, D. D., whose simpler pieces for children have become household
words throughout the English-speaking world, such as, "Hush, my dear,
lie still and slumber," "Let dogs delight to bark and bite," "How doth
the little busy bee improve each shining hour," etc., and who, as even
a supercilious and grudging critic like Matthew Arnold admitted, wrote
the finest hymn in the English language, "When I survey the wondrous
cross," and very many others of scarcely inferior merit.
He was the author of various able treatises on philosophy and theology,
but it was the thought of what he had done for the world by his hymns
that caused us to stop at Southampton. So, mounting the winding
stairway to the top of the "double-decker" electric tram car, much
better adapted to sightseeing than our single-story street cars in
America, we were carried smoothly and quickly up the bright and busy
High Street, gaily decorated for the Coronation, and in a few minutes
passed under the great stone arch of the Bar Gate, the most interesting
portion of the ancient city wall. The modern city, of course, stretches
far beyond the walls, street after street of clean and attractive
houses, with a profusion of brilliant flowers and neatly trimmed
greenery, shut in from the street, in many cases, by high stone walls,
over which, however, we can easily see from our elevated position.
[Sidenote: Sketch of the Great Hymn-Writer.]
Presently, in the centre of a small park, which opens on the left
with velvety grass and fine trees, we see the object of our search, a
marble statue of a very small and wizened man, of benevolent face and
venerable appearance, with a Bible in his hand, and on the pedestal
in bold letters the name, "REV. ISAAC WATTS, D.D." He was born in
1674, was devoted to books from his infancy, and began to learn Latin
when four years old. Afterwards, as a youth he became so proficient
at school that friends proposed to provide for his support at the
university (he was the eldest of nine children, and the family, while
not indigent, was not rich), but he declined the offer because he could
not conscientiously belong to the Church of England. He cast in his lot
with the Dissenters, and became one of the promoters of that mighty and
beneficent force in English religious and political life known as "the
Nonconformist Conscience." That his education did not suffer from the
choice he then made is clear from his later work. Dr. Samuel Johnson,
who was a stiff Churchman, with no love for Dissenters in general, is
constrained, in his work on _English Poets_, to pay a warm tribute to
Dr. Watts' remarkable attainments, and says it was with great propriety
that in 1728 he received from Edinburgh and Aberdeen an unsolicited
diploma, by which he became a doctor of divinity. Dr. Johnson adds
a remark, which is commended to the earnest attention of American
colleges, which have done so much to bring honorary degrees into
contempt by their promiscuous bestowment, "Academical honors would have
more value, if they were always bestowed with equal judgment." He says
further that Dr. Watts was one of the first authors that taught the
Dissenters to court attention by the graces of language. "Whatever they
had among them before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly
obscured and blunted by coarseness and inelegance of style. He showed
them that zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished
diction."
Of his talents in general the same discriminating writer says that
"perhaps there was nothing in which he would not have excelled if
he had not divided his powers to different pursuits," and of his
character, that he admired Dr. Watts' meekness of opposition and
mildness of censure in theological discussion (qualities which no one
could attribute to Dr. Johnson himself), and that it was not only
in his book, but in his mind, that _orthodoxy_ was _united_ with
_charity_. Dr. Johnson concludes his appreciation of him with this
remark, "Happy will be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his
verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his nonconformity,"
which shows both his exalted estimate of the man and his amusing
dislike of the Dissenter. But in nothing was the greatness of Dr.
Watts' character more clearly shown than in his nonconformity; and
his countrymen have continued to take his view of that matter in
ever-increasing numbers, so that now more than half of the English
people are nonconformists. But of that I shall have something to say at
another time.
CHAPTER III.
SALISBURY, SARUM, AND STONEHENGE.
SALISBURY, _June 30, 1902_.
For one who visits England as a student of history there is hardly
a better starting point than Southampton, as the most impressive of
the Druidical and Roman remains in Great Britain are less than forty
miles away, the capital city of Alfred the Great is only twelve miles
distant, the whole surrounding region is closely associated with the
Saxon, Danish, Norman and Plantagenet kings, and two of the most
interesting cathedrals in England are within easy reach by rail. One of
these cathedral towns, Salisbury, we selected as a suitable place in
which to spend quietly our first Sunday in the Old World, having landed
at Southampton Saturday afternoon. So, after we had given a few hours
to the principal sights of Southampton, we took a train for Salisbury,
twenty-nine miles distant, and, after a short and delightful journey
through the tranquil rural scenery, which is characteristic of Southern
England, reached our destination refreshed rather than wearied by our
experiences since leaving the ship.
[Sidenote: A Fascinating Cathedral Town.]
We recognized the place, even before our train stopped, by the
cathedral spire, which is 406 feet high, the loftiest in England, and
which dominates all views of the town. This richly adorned spire is one
of three things which entitles this cathedral to special attention,
the other two being, first, its lovely close, unsurpassed in size and
beauty, a glorious expanse of velvety sward, shaded by lofty trees;
and secondly, the uniformity and harmony of its architecture, making
it the most symmetrical and graceful of all English cathedrals. The
interior is less interesting, having no wealth of monuments like
Winchester, Westminster, and St. Paul's, and no profusion of stained
glass windows like York.
On Sunday we attended service in the cathedral, and found it formal,
cold and unsatisfying. I yield to no man in my admiration of the beauty
of these vast and venerable cathedrals, but they have been in some
respects a hindrance to vital religion, as I shall endeavor to show in
a later letter. This one at Salisbury was erected in the middle of the
thirteenth century, so that for six hundred and fifty years it has been
used continuously as a place of Christian worship, first Romish and now
Anglican.
But on Monday we made an excursion which took us back to a still more
remote antiquity. One mile to the north of Salisbury at Old Sarum (a
name well known to students of English politics as that of the "rotten
borough," which till 1832 had the privilege of sending two members
to Parliament, though without a single inhabitant), crowning a great
hill which commands the surrounding country for miles, stands the
vast, grass-clad earthworks of an ancient Roman fortress, the largest
entrenched camp in the kingdom. That is old, but we are bound for
something older still, and so we continue our drive northwards.
One great charm of the summer in Great Britain is the cool weather. The
English people never have to endure the withering heats to which we
are subjected in America. This year it has been much cooler even than
usual. So, as we drive on through the June day, although the sun is
shining brightly, the air is bracing and exhilarating.
[Sidenote: Rural Scenery in Southern England.]
Another marked difference between this country and most parts of
ours is the extraordinary finish of the landscape, due to scantiness
of forests, absence of undergrowth, thoroughness of tillage, and
especially the luxuriance and smoothness of the turf. The quiet beauty
of rural England has a perpetual charm. When I was here some years ago
it was May, the hawthorn hedges were in bloom, and the whole country
was robed in tender green. Before landing this time I felt some regret
that we should not see it in the same lovely attire, thinking of the
difference between early May and late June in America. But I find it
even more beautiful than when I first saw it. The farmers were cutting
the lush grass in some places, impregnating the air with the delicious
fragrance of new-mown hay. In other fields the wheat was standing
thick, with here and there a blaze of scarlet poppies, sometimes an
acre or two in extent, a solid mass of brilliant red, no green or other
color visible at all. Still prettier, if possible, are the scattered
poppy blooms in a field of half ripe grain, looking like ruby bubbles
on a gently moving, sunlit sea.
The youngsters in our party are interested to see horses hitched tandem
to the wide hay wains in the fields, and to observe that when we meet a
double team in the road, instead of being harnessed as two horses are
with us, on each side of a tongue, here each of the two horses is in
his own pair of shafts. Nor are they slow to observe that teams always
turn to the left in passing each other, instead of to the right as with
us, and the same rule is observed in the running of trains on a double
track railway.
No frame houses are to be seen in town or country. We have not seen a
wooden house since we landed. All are of brick or stone, though many
of them in the country are covered with thatch, sometimes with clay
tiles. But slate is more and more superseding these old-fashioned
materials. This does not promote the cottager's comfort. Slate roofs
are hotter in summer and colder in winter than those of straw, and, of
course, too, they are far less picturesque. I observe that many farmers
thatch even their stone and brick fences to prevent the water from
coming in and freezing, to the injury of the masonry. No wooden fences
are seen, and few of wire. They are either living hedges of thorn or
privet or the like, or they are walls of stone or brick. In short, the
improvements look more substantial than ours, the agricultural methods
more thorough, the country more finished, and, I should think, more
comfortable to live in, in the material sense. Very striking is the
universal love of flowers. Every little village yard, if but three or
four feet wide, and every cottage window, however humble, has its rows
of brilliant geraniums, and other ornamental plants.
[Sidenote: Impressiveness of Stonehenge.]
And now, after a drive of nine miles, we reach Salisbury Plain, a name
familiar to me from early boyhood from the title of a little book that
used to be read in many homes, _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain_. As
we came up, sure enough, there was a shepherd on one of the green
slopes, with his flock and his shepherd dog. We give them but a glance,
however, for our attention is instantly claimed by the object which we
have come so far to see, Stonehenge, "the most imposing megalolithic
monument in Britain," a group of great stones which seem originally to
have been arranged in two concentric circles enclosing two ellipses,
but some are now fallen. Of the outer circle, which was one hundred
feet in diameter, seventeen stones are still standing, with six of the
great cap-stones over them. The largest uprights of the whole group,
those near the centre of the circle, were twenty-two and a half feet
high, and the transverse blocks were three and a half feet thick. These
are, therefore, quite large stones, but it is not their size that gives
them their interest. The ancient Egyptians handled much larger stones
than these. It is their antiquity, and the mystery, still unsolved,
as to the purpose for which they were erected. Were they placed here
by the Druids? If so, for what purpose? The name does not help us,
_Stonehenge_ being but a corruption of the Saxon name, meaning "hanging
stones." Were they intended for a temple of the sun, or a calendar in
stone for the measurement of the solar year, or a huge gallows on which
defeated enemies were hung in honor of Woden, or a sepulchral circle
connected with the burial of the dead? No positive answer can be given,
but the last mentioned view is now regarded as the most probable,
and is confirmed by the existence in the immediate vicinity of great
turf-covered barrows, or burial places. These barrows are of the Bronze
Age, and to this same remote period Stonehenge itself is referred by
the best authorities.
The present owner of Salisbury Plain has recently enclosed Stonehenge
with a wire fence and charges an admission fee of a shilling. The
public resents this in the case of a unique and world-renowned
monument, which for ages has stood in the open, freely accessible to
all, and there was not a little satisfaction at finding that, as a sort
of road ran along within a few feet of it, and as the closing or moving
of this thoroughfare could not be permitted by the county authorities,
the fence in question had to run so close to the famous cromlech, after
all, that the proposed exclusion of the public without payment of a fee
has amounted to very little. Visitors can come so near, and can get so
good a view of all that is to be seen that but few pay the fee and go
inside the enclosure.
[Sidenote: Other Things of Interest about Salisbury.]
We return to Salisbury by a different road, which takes us for miles
through the meadows of one of those "sweet and fishful rivers," which
add so much to the quiet charm of the scenery, placid and clear,
flowing softly not only between grassy banks but over grassy beds,
the grass growing luxuriantly from the bottom, and being cut from the
stream by the hay harvesters, as though it were on the open meadow.
On reaching the town, I went to the Market Square to see the bronze
statue of a man for whom I had always felt respect and admiration since
studying his work on Political Economy when I was a student in college,
Mr. Fawcett, a talented native of this place, who, though he had the
misfortune to lose his sight early in life, by the accidental discharge
of a gun in the hands of his own father, nevertheless became a student,
a professor, an author, a man of affairs, a member of Parliament, and
Postmaster-General of Great Britain--a fine example of the triumph of
character and will over grievous limitations.
It added to the interest of our visit to Salisbury, and especially of
our walk through the lovely grounds of the Bishop's Palace, to see
this dignitary of the Church of England in his clerical garb, with
apron, knee breeches, and all, except that he was bareheaded, romping
delightedly on the lawn with a little girl, probably his granddaughter,
and to recollect that the Bishop of Salisbury, after bringing the
wealth of his undoubted scholarship to his recent book, _The Ministry
of Grace_, had declared, like Dean Stanley, Bishop Lightfoot and
Dean Milman, that "throughout the early church, even at Rome, and
Alexandria, down to the third century, the government of the church
was Presbyterian," thus going even farther than Stanley, who says that
"nothing like modern Episcopacy existed before the beginning of the
second century."
It interested us also to recall that Addison, Fielding, and Bishop
Burnet had resided here. So, considering these things, and those above
mentioned, we all left Salisbury reluctantly, declaring with one accord
that it was an exceedingly interesting place, and wondering whether
even Winchester could equal it.
CHAPTER IV.
WINCHESTER WORTHIES: ALFRED THE GREAT, IZAAK WALTON, AND THOMAS KEN.
WINCHESTER, _July 2, 1902_.
[Sidenote: Memorials of Kings, Good and Bad.]
Unquestionably the most interesting town in the south of England to
a student of history is Winchester. It was the ancient capital of
the kingdom, and teems with memories of Alfred the Great, Canute,
William the Conqueror, and many of their successors. Thorneycroft's
fine bronze statue of Alfred stands in the middle of the High Street,
and instantly catches the eye of any one looking up or down this
central thoroughfare. As we paused in front of it for a few moments,
I had the pleasure of hearing two little boys from America, who are
travelling with me, recall Alfred's diligence as a student, and his
winning of the book offered by his mother as a prize; his invention
of a candle chronometer, and of the lanthorn, as well as the familiar
incident of the scolding given him by the neatherd's wife for his
negligence in allowing her cakes to burn. The purity of his character,
his self-sacrificing labors for his people, and the righteousness and
prosperity of his reign have caused him to shine like a star in the
long succession of English kings, who have too often been selfish,
grasping, licentious or tyrannical.
For example, in Winchester Cathedral, close at hand, lie the remains of
Hardicanute, the last Danish monarch, who died of excessive drinking.
The fact that a man is buried in a cathedral argues nothing here as to
his piety. If he wore the crown, or won battles, or wrote poems, he is
given a place in God's house, regardless of his character.
But, besides men like Hardicanute or William Rufus, Winchester
Cathedral boasts the possession of mortuary chests containing the bones
of Canute, Egbert, Ethelwulf, and other kings. There is a monumental
brass on the wall in memory of Jane Austen the novelist, who is buried
under the pavement.
[Sidenote: Memorial of the Gentle Fisherman.]
But by far the most interesting thing of this kind in the cathedral,
is the floor slab which marks the resting place of Izaak Walton, the
Prince of Fishermen (1593-1683), and the author of _The Compleat
Angler_, concerning which it has been truthfully said that Walton
"hooked a much bigger fish that he angled for" when he offered
his quaint treatise to the public. There is hardly a name in our
literature, even of the first rank, whose immortality is more secure,
or whose personality is the subject of a more devoted cult. Not only
is he the _sacer vates_ of a considerable sect in the religion of
recreation, but multitudes who have never put a worm on a hook--even on
a fly-hook--have been caught and securely held by his picture of the
delights of the gentle craft and his easy, leisurely transcript of his
own simple, peaceable, loving, and amusing character." When, on the
outbreak of the civil war, he retired from business as milliner for
men in London, he went to a place in the country which he had bought,
but we are told that he spent most of his time "in the families of
the eminent clergymen of England, of whom he was much beloved." He
married twice, both wives being of distinguished clerical connection,
the second, Anne Ken, sister of Thomas Ken, afterwards Bishop of Bath
and Wells. Of Thomas Ken we shall have something in particular to
say presently. As we strolled, after supper, along the banks of the
Itchen, from whose clear and grassy waters Walton himself had drawn so
many fish, it was interesting to come upon anglers plying his beloved
vocation. By the way, long before the time of Walton, there were
people at Winchester who were fond of fish, and oysters, too. We read
that, before the Reformation, the monks of Netley Abbey, twelve miles
distant, were wont to keep their brethren at Winchester supplied during
Lent with oysters from Southampton Water, they in return receiving
forty-two flagons of ale weekly.
Enough has been said above to show that no church in Great Britain,
outside of London, is richer in monuments than Winchester Cathedral.
It has also the distinction of great size, being 556 feet long,
the longest nave in England. But the exterior is heavy, without a
suggestion of the symmetry and grace of Salisbury.
[Sidenote: Wit in Winchester College.]
The other "lion" of Winchester, also, has a very uninviting and even
forbidding exterior. This is the ancient College, a school for boys,
where Alfred himself is said to have been educated, though William of
Wykeham refounded it in 1382. The front of it looks like a prison,
but within the quadrangles, and stretching far back to the river, are
lovely grounds covered with grass as green and smooth as a velvet
carpet. The best thing I saw here was the following inscription on the
walls of a school-room, accompanied by the painted emblems which I
mention below in brackets:
_Aut disce._ [A mitre and crosier, as the expected rewards of
learning.]
_Aut discede._ [An inkhorn and sword, the emblems of the civil and
military professions.]
_Manet sors tertia caedi._ [A rod.]
Which may be freely translated, "Either learn, or depart hence, or
remain and be chastised," though the pithy, alliterative rendering in
vogue among the boys is better, "Work, or walk, or be whopped" (_h_
silent in the last word). American boys would probably have rendered
it, "Learn, or leave, or be licked."
The school has revenues of nearly $100,000 per annum. There are 420
pupils. A number of them were having their supper as we passed through
the dining-hall, eating from square beech-wood trenchers instead of
plates, talking in shrill tones, and nudging and pushing each other
just like American boys, unimpressed by the fact that the heavy, narrow
tables from which they were eating were five hundred years old. How
like boys it was to call the water pipe in the quadrangle, at which
they wash their hands and faces, "Moab," and the place where they
blacked their shoes, "Edom," because in Psalm lx. 8, it is said, "Moab
is my wash-pot, I will cast my shoe over Edom."
[Sidenote: A Lovely Churchman.]
As we walked through the ancient cloisters we came upon another
characteristically boyish thing, a name cut on one of the stone pillars
in clear, strong letters--"Tho Ken 1665"--and hardly anything in
Winchester interested me so much as this, for the boy who cut it there,
nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, became afterwards the author
of what we call "the long metre doxology," four lines which have been
sung more frequently than any other four lines in the English language,
and which for generations to come will express the praise of increasing
millions. This doxology was written by Ken as a concluding stanza to
his famous Morning, Evening and Midnight Hymns, the best known of
which, perhaps, is his evening hymn, "Glory to thee, my God, this
night."
But there are other reasons why it was a pleasure to be vividly
reminded of Ken at Winchester. He was a man of singularly modest,
sweet, and lovable disposition. Macaulay says that his character
approached, "as near as human infirmity permits, to the ideal
perfection of Christian virtue." Yet he was no weakling, and on two
notable occasions he showed that, mild and gentle as he was, he was
also firm and fearless.
When the profligate Charles II. was at Winchester, waiting for the
completion of his palace there, he requested Ken, then prebendary at
Winchester, to lend his house temporarily to the notorious Nell Gwynn,
the King's mistress. Ken refused to let such a person have his house.
Charles does not seem to have resented the affront, for he afterwards
made Ken Bishop of Bath and Wells. It is one of the abominations of
the English union of Church and State, that a thoroughly depraved man
like Charles II., if he succeeds to the throne, becomes _ipso facto_
the head of the Church of England. By the way, the altar books in black
letter in Winchester Cathedral were presented to the church by this
same graceless Charles II. Things get badly mixed under such a system
as that of the Church of England.
[Sidenote: Ken's Defiance of James II.]
The second occasion on which Ken showed that, notwithstanding the
infelicities of the national church, she does have men who will stand
for God against the King when necessity arises, was when James II.,
without calling Parliament, issued what he called a declaration for
liberty of conscience, the real aim of which was to put England again
under the yoke of Romanism, and ordered that this declaration should
be read in every cathedral and church in the kingdom. Ken and six
other bishops refused, and they were arrested, and committed to the
Tower of London. Instantly a blaze of popular indignation burst forth.
Enormous crowds assembled to see the seven bishops embark, the shore
was covered with crowds of prostrate spectators, who asked their
benediction, as did also the very soldiers sent to arrest them. The
bishops bore themselves well throughout, and, a few days after, when
they were tried in Westminster Hall, and the verdict "Not guilty" was
brought in, there was a tumultuous outburst of joy. Thus Ken bore his
bold and manly part in the revolution, which finally swept the Stuarts
from the throne, and delivered England, for the time, from the menace
of Romish domination.
Winchester, then, with her ancient cathedral and her ancient school,
with her Alfred the Great, her Izaak Walton, and her Thomas Ken, with
her wealth of heroic, and gentle and saintly memories, has given us two
of the most profitable days of our sojourn in Southern England.
CHAPTER V.
THE UGLINESS AND THE CHARM OF LONDON.
LONDON, _July 3, 1902_.
Vastness and dinginess are the two features of London which make the
deepest impression upon the visitor from America. Byron's description
is exact--
"A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amid the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tip-toe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head--and there is London town."
Up to the time of Sir Richard Whittington, in the sixteenth century,
the burning of coal in London was considered such a nuisance that it
was punished by death. A dispensation to burn coal was first made in
favor of Whittington, and this innovation on his part has affected the
great city, of which he was four times Lord Mayor, infinitely more than
the success of his celebrated venture in bringing up and selling a cat,
which enabled him to lay the foundation of other investments. Yet the
story of the cat is known to boys and girls the world over, while the
story of the coal is known to comparatively few, even of their elders.
Coal serves the same purposes in London that it does elsewhere, of
course. But, while elsewhere it warms only thousands of people,
and makes steam for only thousands of factories, locomotives, and
steamboats, here it warms and works for more than five millions.
The output of smoke from this unparalleled consumption of coal is,
of course, something enormous, and when we consider that the weather
itself is frequently, perhaps I may say generally, dull, heavy and
thick, with an amount of clouds and rain unknown to our brilliant
American climate, it is not strange that the fogs of London are the
thickest and most dangerous in the world, sometimes producing complete
darkness at midday, and necessitating the lighting of the gas, as
though it were midnight, and at other times producing a peculiar
gloom, which is so impervious to light itself that the traffic of the
streets has to be stopped for hours. Nor is it strange that the city is
begrimed to an extraordinary degree from one end to the other.
[Sidenote: The Æsthetic Value of Soot.]
I have a friend in America, whom I sometimes jestingly call an
"Anglomaniac," because he admires Great Britain and her belongings so
much. I once accused him of trying to convince me that the sky was
bluer and the grass greener in Canada than in the United States--and
who speaks of the blackness of the London buildings as "richness." It
is interesting to find that he is supported in this view by some of
the best writers on London. Hare, for instance, in speaking of St.
Paul's Cathedral, emphasizes this point, "Sublimely impressive in its
general outlines, it has a peculiar sooty dignity all its own, which,
externally, raises it immeasureably above the fresh, modern-looking St.
Peter's at Rome. G. A. Sala says, in one of his capital papers, that it
is really the better for 'all the incense which all the chimneys since
the time of Wren have offered at its shrine, and are still flinging up
every day from their foul and grimy censers.' Here and there only is
the original grey of the stone seen through the overlaying blackness."
Nathaniel Hawthorne, too, says, "It is much better than staring
white; the edifice would not be nearly so grand without this drapery
of black." By the way, the whole cost of St. Paul's, which was nearly
four million dollars, was paid by a tax on every chaldron of coal
brought into the port of London, "on which account it is said that the
cathedral has a special claim of its own to its smoky exterior."
Whatever one may think of these views, as to the æsthetic value of soot
on great stone buildings like St. Paul's, it must be admitted by all
that London, as a whole, is intensely ugly. Henry James, speaking of
one of the fashionable quarters of the city, says, "As you walk along
the streets, you look up at the brown brick house-walls, corroded
with soot and fog, pierced with their straight, stiff window-slits,
and finished, by way of cornice, with a little black line resembling
a slice of curbstone. There is not an accessory, not a touch of
architectural fancy, not the narrowest concession to beauty." In the
indictment thus brought against one quarter of the city, it will be
observed that there are other counts besides the soot, such as the
monotony and plainness of the architecture and the character of the
building materials, and in both particulars London does compare very
unfavorably with some other cities.
[Sidenote: Brick vs. Stone.]
There are, of course, some very handsome stone buildings, such as the
British Museum, the new Parliament Buildings, many of the churches,
and some of the government offices and private residences, but most of
the houses are constructed of ugly brownish yellow brick, and capped
with rigid rows of chimney pots. The same thing is true of English
towns in general, and is one of the most obvious points of inferiority
on their part to the cities and towns of Scotland. Of Glasgow as it
was in the eighteenth century, then, of course, but a small place
in comparison with its present size, Sir Walter Scott wrote, in _Rob
Roy_, "The principal street was broad and important, decorated with
public buildings of an architecture, rather striking than correct in
point of taste, and running between rows of tall houses, built of
stone; the fronts of which were occasionally richly ornamented with
mason-work--a circumstance which gave the street an imposing air of
dignity and grandeur, of which most English towns are in some measure
deprived, by the slight, unsubstantial, and perishable quality and
appearance of the bricks with which they are constructed." Of the
later Glasgow of his time, Hawthorne said, "It is the stateliest city
in the kingdom." The adjective was well chosen. Those solid, strong,
stone-built Scotch cities, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and others,
are stately, as no English cities of brick are or can be; though there
is also a suggestion of sombreness or severity about them, which seems
to belong to that dour, grey land of the North; so that, after all,
the Scottish cities do not afford the strongest contrast to London's
dingy masses of brick. To find that, we must look to some of the cities
of the Continent, especially Paris, the cleanest, brightest, and most
beautiful of all the great capitals of the world. The Parisian climate
is clearer, there is less fog and smoke, the houses are built of a
white stone that gives the city a singular fairness to the eye, quite
different from the rather gloomy greyness of the Scottish cities, and,
of course, antipodal to the brick and grime of London. Moreover, the
streets of Paris, driven this way and that through squalid tenement
districts by Baron Hausmann, in his renovation of the city thirty or
forty years ago, are broad and splendid thoroughfares, abounding in
pure air, bright sunlight and green trees, all as different as possible
from the cramped and tortuous streets and alleys of the British
metropolis. "London has had no aedile like Hausmann." Few things add so
much to the attractiveness of great cities as handsome streets along
the water fronts. In Paris, on both sides of the Seine throughout its
entire course in the city, are broad, well-paved, and well-shaded
_Quais_, flanked by noble rows of stone buildings, while in London the
Victoria Embankment is almost the only worthy improvement along the
Thames. This Embankment is unquestionably a fine work, but as one walks
along the broad stone pavement of it, the view he gets on the other
side of the river is made up principally of dirty wharves and hideous
warehouses.
In many respects, also, London is untidy. Orange peel, paper and trash
are much in evidence. Why should there not be street scavengers like
those who keep even the small towns in France and Germany quite free
from that kind of litter?
[Sidenote: Immensity and Multitude.]
Strictly speaking, London is not a city, but, as Madame de Stael called
it, "a province of brick," and it looks as though it might become a
continent, for, though there are already more people in it than in
the whole of Scotland, and more than twice as many as in the whole of
Norway, it is still growing rapidly. It has more than three thousand
miles of streets. In spreading thus, the great city has reached out to,
and absorbed, many towns that once stood around it. By the way, this
accounts, to some extent for the fact that so many streets in London
have the same name. I venture to think that the most preposterous and
vexatious system of nomenclature ever in vogue is that which has been
employed for the streets of London. Until quite recently there were 166
different streets in this city bearing the name of New, 151 Church, 129
Union, 127 York, 119 John, 109 George, and so on. Of late some part
of this infuriating ambiguity has been removed by certain changes, but
enough of it still remains to baffle and puzzle the visitor, and to
cause him the loss of much valuable time and some temper.
[Sidenote: The Body is More than Raiment.]
I have not flattered London. The picture drawn above is repulsive.
Perhaps some of my readers are ready to ask whether such a place can
be attractive. Yes. Bulwer says of it, in _Ernest Maltravers_, "The
public buildings are few, and, for the most part, mean; the monuments
of antiquity not comparable to those which the pettiest town in Italy
can boast of; the palaces are sad rubbish; the houses of our peers and
princes are shabby and shapeless heaps of bricks. But what of all this?
The spirit of London is in her thoroughfares--her population! What
wealth--what cleanliness--what order--what animation! How majestic,
and yet how vivid, is the life that runs through her myriad veins!"
Externally, Paris is incomparably more beautiful than London, but the
fundamental characteristics of the French people are not to be named
with those of the British. The charm of London is deeper than that of
Paris; it wears better; it lasts longer.
"Sir," said Dr. Johnson to Boswell, as they sat in the Mitre Tavern,
in the centre of the city, "the happiness of London is not to be
conceived, but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say
there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten
miles from where we sit than in all the rest of the kingdom." And
again, "He who is tired of London is tired of existence."
It is the history of the city and the character of the people, rather
than the shape and color of their houses, that give London her abiding
charm. And, with her vast treasures of literature, science, and art,
what a paradise the great smoky city is to all readers and students,
in spite of her wretched climate, and her oppressively dingy _tout
ensemble_!
It is only fair to add that the famous French sculptor, M. Rodin,
has recently been expressing his admiration for the smoky British
metropolis, declaring that "nothing could be more beautiful than the
rich, dark, and ruddy tones of London buildings, in the grey and golden
haze of the afternoon."
CHAPTER VI.
THE ENGLISH VIEW OF THE FOURTH OF JULY.
LONDON, _July 4, 1902_.
It is the custom of the American Ambassador to England to give a
reception every year, on the Fourth of July, to any of his countrymen
who may be sojourning in the British metropolis. Being in London
on the recurrence of that memorable date in 1902, we made it our
special business to attend this reception. It did not differ from
the conventional affair of this kind. Mr. and Mrs. Choate and their
daughter received their guests with gracious cordiality. The house
is a large one, well furnished, and worthy to be the home of the
representative of the greatest nation in the world. All the great
halls, wide stairways, and spacious parlors were thrown open as well
as the large dining-room, on the first floor, where refreshments were
served, and a wide spreading marquee on the terrace in the rear, where
lively music was discoursed and these were all filled with people, well
dressed, and, for the most part, well-bred ladies and gentlemen, the
ladies predominating a company so numerous as to give one a very strong
impression of the number of Americans visiting London in the summer.
This season may, indeed, have been exceptional, as the coronation of
the King had been expected to take place in the latter part of June.
But apart altogether from that, it would have been a large crowd, and
it is certain that, under ordinary conditions, the number of our people
visiting London steadily increases year by year, and that they feel at
home there, as among their own kith and kin, to a degree unknown in any
other of the European capitals.
[Sidenote: Increasing Friendliness between America and England.]
Speaking by and large, I believe that we like and trust the British
people, and that they like and trust us. A marked change has come over
the feelings of both peoples within the last quarter of a century. I
remember well that when I was a boy, the school histories of the United
States had the effect of making all the American boys hate the English.
They were not informed that many of the English people, including some
of their greatest statesmen, deprecated earnestly the oppressive acts
of the British government which led to the American Revolution, and
that now the people of Great Britain are practically unanimous in the
opinion that their government was wrong, and the Americans right in
that great conflict. If any reader doubts this, I beg leave to call his
attention to some statements found in a pamphlet called "Pictures from
England's Story," which I bought at a London news stand. It belongs to
a series of such works called "Books for the Bairns," which are written
by English authors for the instruction of English children, and which,
though well printed, in clear, bold type, and copiously illustrated,
are sold at the almost incredibly small price of one penny apiece.
[Sidenote: How the English now View the American Revolution.]
"Most of the pictures which you will find in this book are pictures of
English victories, but there is one picture, and that one of the most
significant of all, of an English defeat. This is the picture of the
battle of Bunker's Hill, that was fought in America. I want you to take
particular notice of that picture, because, although the English were
defeated, it was much better for them to be defeated than it would have
been for them to have been victorious. You will often be told that
you must always be glad when your country is victorious, but that is
not true, for justice and right are greater than your country. When
your country fights against justice, and against right, and against
liberty, it is fighting against God, and even if it succeeds for the
time being, it will always suffer in the long run. In the war which
began with the battle of Bunker's Hill, England was in the wrong. Every
one admits that now, but at the time when it was fought, the King and
his ministers, and most of the people of England, believed that they
were in the right, because it was the cause of England, and England was
the home of liberty, and it seemed to them quite absurd to think that
the American farmers could have right on their side. But the American
farmers were in the right. They were few, they were poor, they had
no army, they had no king, and they had no parliament, and it seemed
quite impossible to our forefathers of those days to think that such a
small people could possibly stand up against the armies and the navies
of Great Britain. But Great Britain was in the wrong. The Americans
were the English people who had gone across the sea to make new homes
for themselves in another country, where they could be free to govern
themselves in their own way, without interference from the British
government. They were good people, honest, hard-working, pious folk,
who had carried with them across the sea the English love of liberty
and self-government.
[Sidenote: A Fair Statement of the Question and the Conflict.]
"The English in England had been victorious in their war against
France. They were governed by a German king, who was much less in
sympathy with English ideas than were the Americans, and he believed,
and the majority of the English in England agreed with him at the time
that the Americans ought to be content to be governed by governors
sent out from England, and should be willing to pay the taxes, which
the English Parliament ordered them to pay. Now the English have
always maintained that no king or government has a right to compel the
people to pay any money for the support of the government unless the
people consent to pay it. Taxation without representation is tyranny,
and the Americans said, that as they had no voice in the election of
the English Parliament, which made the taxes, they were not bound
to pay them. The English said, that whether they liked it or not,
the Americans must pay them. The Americans said they would not. The
English said they would make them, and they sent an army to America
to compel the Americans to pay the taxes, and to obey the King and
Parliament. In doing this they were sinning against the first principle
of English liberty, and the Americans took up arms to defend their
liberty against the English soldiers. They met at Bunker's Hill, and,
to the astonishment of every one, the undrilled farmers, who knew how
to shoot, met and defeated the disciplined troops of England. England
sent thousands upon thousands of men across the Atlantic; they defeated
the Americans again and again; they burned their houses; they ravaged
their country; they captured all their cities; but still the Americans
went on fighting, because they were of the true English breed, and
they would rather lose their lives than give up the independence of
their country. They were not independent at first, they were British
colonists; but when they found themselves attacked by the British, they
declared their independence, and formed themselves into a republic,
without a king, or a House of Lords, or an Established Church.
[Sidenote: What England Learned from Fighting against her own
Principles.]
"The war went on for long years; it cost England a hundred millions of
money, and thousands upon thousands of brave soldiers; but the English
were fighting against their own English principles, which were defended
by George Washington and the Americans with such bravery and heroism
that at last the English, notwithstanding all their pride, and their
wealth, and their power, had to give in, and own themselves beaten....
Fortunately, we were defeated, and from our defeat we learned a great
lesson, which we did not forget for nearly a hundred years. That lesson
is that it is impossible to govern a white, freedom-loving people
except by their own consent. We took that lesson to heart so much that
for nearly a hundred years we never again attempted to compel our
colonists to do anything they did not want to do. We gave them freedom,
and let them govern themselves upon the true English principles which
George Washington fought for, and which George III. fought against.
The British Empire, of which we are so proud to-day, exists because
the principles of George III. were knocked on the head at the battle
of Bunker's Hill, and in the long war which followed it.... The United
States of America are now a great nation, which is more numerous and
more powerful than Great Britain."
This candid and manly statement, made by an English author and
published broadcast for the instruction of English children, is one of
the most interesting things I have encountered in England, and I have
thought it worth while to quote it here in the interests of a still
better understanding between the two great nations of the same stock,
and the same speech, and the same political ideals.
A slighter indication of the same English breadth of view in regard
to this question was given by the good ladies who have charge of the
pleasant boarding house, on Torrington Square, which we have made
our home on all our visits to London, and who, on the morning of the
Fourth of July, thought of it themselves, and had a tiny firecracker
lying by the plate of each young American in our party when we
came down to breakfast, besides other indications later in the day
of their readiness, though themselves staunchly British, to enter
sympathetically into the enthusiasm with which Americans celebrate the
natal day of our nation.
A movement has been started in London to erect a statue of George
Washington. It was decided that the subscriptions should be confined to
British subjects. Archdeacon Sinclair, in submitting the plan to the
(Puritan) Society, said:
"Englishmen have at last fully recognized the great qualities of
Washington. I feel assured that nothing will be more popular in this
country than such a tribute to that great man of English birth, who has
done so much for the world's history, not only for the young nation
across the sea, but for Great Britain as well."
Archdeacon Sinclair announced that he was authorized to offer a place
for the statue in St. Paul's Cathedral.
But now I find that I have become so much interested in the statement
of this reversal of British sentiment concerning the American struggle
for independence, that I have left myself no space to speak of the
burning question in England just now, in regard to which the government
has taken a position, extraordinary as this may seem, which violates
the same principles of liberty for which the Americans fought, and so I
must reserve that for another letter.
_P. S._--Since my return to America I have seen an interesting
statement by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, of London, in regard to the
steady increase of the pro-British feeling in the United States. He
says that a book has just been published by an American barrister
named Dos Passos, called _The Anglo-Saxon Century and the Unification
of the English-Speaking People_. This gentleman, although of Spanish
origin, is of American birth, and his interest in the future of his
own country had led him to examine that of ours. He believes that the
twentieth century is to be the Anglo-Saxon century, even more than the
nineteenth, and the conditions of an alliance, as advocated by him, are
as follows:
1. The Dominion of Canada voluntarily to divide itself into such
different States, geographically arranged, as its citizens desire,
in proportion to population, and each State to be admitted as a full
member of the American Union, in accordance with the conditions of the
Constitution of the United States.
2. To establish common citizenship between all citizens of the United
States and the British Empire.
3. To establish absolute freedom of commercial intercourse and
relations between the countries involved, to the same extent as that
which exists between the different States constituting the United
States of America.
4. Great Britain and the United States to coin gold, silver, nickel,
and copper money, not necessarily displaying the same devices or
mottoes, but possessing the same money value, and interchangeable
everywhere within the limits covered by the treaty, and to establish a
uniform standard of weights and measures.
5. To provide for a proper and satisfactory arbitration tribunal to
decide all questions which may arise under the treaty.
Much of this may seem chimerical and unsound, but there is certainly a
feeling in this country which is influencing things in the direction of
a better understanding, and a consciousness of a common destiny between
the British Empire and the United States. In private one is constantly
meeting with expressions of it, and I may as well add that nothing
has caused me more surprise than this one fact. One frequently hears
the hope expressed that a common citizenship may one day be possible
without any interference with the constitution of either country. This
is a new idea to me, and may be a fruitful one some day.
CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE ENGLISH REGARD THE AMERICANS.
LONDON, _July 10, 1902_.
There are many indications of a better understanding, and an increasing
confidence and regard between the two great English-speaking nations on
either side of the Atlantic. One such indication is the marked change
of tone on the part of English writers in their references to their
American cousins. The time was when, in British books and newspapers,
Americans were uniformly represented as coarse and loud. There are
still too many Americans, at home and abroad, who deserve to be so
described, but the old contemptuous tone towards Americans in general
is found only in an occasional writer who lives chiefly in the past.
For instance, Mr. Hare, the author of some of the best guide books for
reading people that have ever appeared, such as his _Walks in London_,
and his _Walks in Rome_, seems still to regard the average American
as the embodiment of bad taste and crass ignorance. In his book on
Florence, after speaking of various other hotels, and their picturesque
locations, he says, "Americans may possibly like the Savoy Hotel in the
horrible Piazza Vittorio Emanuele"; and in his book on Rome he says it
is depressing to hear Americans, when asked their opinion of the Venus
de Medici, say, "they guess they are not particularly gone on stone
gals." But Americans only smile as they read these things, remembering
that Hare is the same man who bewails the downfall of the papacy as a
temporal power, and who believes that the emancipation and unification
of Italy by Victor Immanuel was a calamity, notwithstanding the
steadily increasing prosperity of the people, and the steadily rising
financial credit of the nation, and notwithstanding the fact that every
unprejudiced observer acknowledges that the chief hindrance to still
more rapid progress is the swarm of fat priests and monks who still
infest Italy, and in the interest of the papacy oppose the new and
enlightened government at every turn.
[Sidenote: The English Admit that America Holds the Future.]
In short, Hare's view of the average American is now such an
anachronism as to entitle him fairly to be called a freak. He certainly
does not represent his countrymen of to-day in their view of the
spirit and culture of the American people. The usual tone of English
reference to them is not only not contemptuous, but respectful and
friendly, and in the case of the industrial and commercial enterprise
of the Americans there is even a tinge of fear in the tone in which
the English refer to them. For example, a very able and candid English
editor, in speaking of Mr. Andrew Carnegie's address as Rector of St.
Andrews University, last October, which he pronounces one of the most
remarkable addresses ever delivered in Great Britain, practically
admits that America has outstripped the mother country in this respect
at least. He says, "Mr. Carnegie is a personage. A man who has risen
from nothing to the summit of American finance is a man to be reckoned
with. Mr. Carnegie is also a Scotchman, and a devout lover of his
country. It is no pleasure to him to contemplate the decadence of
Great Britain. He is anxious to say the best he can for our country,
and yet the one thing to be noted in his address is his immense,
overpowering faith in America.... She has such resources, and is
increasing so rapidly that nothing can stand against her. Britain's
employers are wanting in energy and enterprise, and the employed think
too much of how little they need do, and too little of how much they
can do. Britain may maintain her present trade, but America will in
the lifetime of many people have a population equal to that of Europe
to-day, excluding Russia. America is not an armed camp, as Europe is.
It is one united whole at peace with itself, and enjoys immunity from
attack, while in machinery its position is far ahead of others....
That a man so shrewd, successful and experienced as Mr. Carnegie, and
so well disposed towards Britain, should have come reluctantly to the
conclusion that for Britain there is no future, and for America there
is the future of the world, is a fact of first-rate significance, and
we should like to see how he is to be answered." This is a remarkably
candid statement.
[Sidenote: English Candor and English Inconsistency.]
In my last letter I said that the English people now frankly
acknowledge that their forefathers were wrong in the war they waged
against the American colonies, and openly rejoice in the victory
achieved by Washington and his associates on behalf of the principle of
no taxation without representation, and I referred in closing to what
seems to be a strange inconsistency on the part of many of the English
people in upholding a policy at the present time, which involves a
violation of the same principle. The thing referred to was the new
Education Bill, perfidiously introduced into Parliament by the Tory
party, at the instigation of certain leaders of the Anglican Church,
at a time when that party had an overwhelming majority in the House of
Commons, a majority given it by the country for the specific purpose
of bringing the war in South Africa to a speedy and successful close,
and when the electors never dreamed of that majority being used to
promote sectarianism, and to oppress the consciences of a great body
of the people. The object of the bill is to tax the whole population
of England for the support of schools which are controlled, not by the
people, but by the ritualistic clergy of the Anglican Church, or, as an
evangelical clergyman of that church himself puts it, the intention of
the measure is "to hand the education of the coming generations over to
the Romanizing priesthood of the Anglican Church." The mere suggestion
of public support without public control ought to rouse the indignation
of a free people. But the bill proposes a worse thing even than this,
so far as the Nonconformists are concerned, for they are not only to be
asked to pay for the support of a religion they do not believe in, but
also to hand over their children to its teachers, in order that they
may be perverted. In other words, they are to be asked to pay for the
destruction of their own religion.
However apathetic some Englishmen may be in the face of such proposals,
that is the sort of thing that never fails to rouse liberty-loving
Scotland, and so, along with the earnest denunciations of the bill by
various organizations of English Free Churchmen, it has been heartily
condemned by all the great religious bodies of Scotland.
[Sidenote: Scotchmen and the Education Bill.]
_Saint Andrew_, as the weekly organ of the Church of Scotland is
called, says as to the origin, spirit and purpose of the measure,
"There is no real meaning in calling the party in the English Church,
which is at present the most indefatigable, the 'High Church' party.
The party is Romanist, pure and simple; and it is devoting itself to
the uprooting of the Protestantism of the young people of England....
Can we wonder at the intelligent Nonconformist revolting against
his children being brought under the fatally sinister influence
here referred to, and knowing the close connection between church
and school, resolving that he will resist, with all his might, the
perpetuation of a system in which general control of the public schools
shall be in the hands of men who openly inculcate the doctrine of the
corporeal presence, baptismal regeneration, prayers for the dead,
the duty of confession, adoration of the cross; and who beguile the
children of their schools to attend 'the sacrifice of the mass,' with
the incense and candles, and all the other paraphernalia under which
they have disguised the Lord's Supper?"
The folly of the Anglicans in this matter will hasten the fall of the
Established Church of England. And in any case the Nonconformists
will not have long to wait, for they are steadily and rapidly gaining
ground. In 1700 Dissenters were, in comparison with Churchmen, one
to twenty-two, in 1800, one to eight, and in 1900, one to one. That
shows that the day is not distant when real religious liberty shall
be established in England, and all such bigoted legislation as this
present Education Bill shall be swept from her statute books. Meantime,
it is certain that it will go on the books, notwithstanding its glaring
injustice. There is not a doubt that Mr. Balfour's government will push
the measure through, by means of the votes of its great war majority.
The consequence will be that thousands of Nonconformists will refuse
to pay the rates, then the King's officers will seize and sell some
of their property, and perhaps numbers of them will see the inside of
prison walls before all is over. But they will make history in England.
For, when men are sold out and imprisoned for the sake of conscience
and religious liberty and a historic English principle, viz., that of
public control of public funds--when these things occur, an idea will
begin to penetrate to the average English mind, the English sense of
fair play will be roused, and the English zeal for liberty kindled
anew, to say nothing of the English instinct of self-preservation--and
then the day of reckoning will have come.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRITISH REPUBLIC AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
LONDON, _July 15, 1902_.
The nominal ruler of the British Empire is His Majesty, Edward VII.
The real ruler is the House of Commons. Though I was in Great Britain
at the time of the coronation, and saw something of the pomp with
which it was celebrated, I have not thought it worth while to occupy
the time of my readers with descriptions of it, since it is only one
of those glittering fictions which the English people see fit to
preserve, notwithstanding their general good sense--a somewhat childish
observance of outworn mediæval ceremonies, a foolish and expensive
form. But certainly I ought not to quit the subject of the political
ideas suggested by a sojourn in London, and especially by repeated
visits to that most interesting portion of it, Westminster, without
some reference to the part it has played in developing the model
of all the free governments of the world. For, as a British writer
has truly said, Westminster is historically the centre of politics,
not for London and Great Britain only, but for the civilized world.
"All civilized nations, both in Europe and America, as well as all
the British colonies, have now adopted the constitution which was
here founded and developed, with a single head of the State and two
chambers; though, with regard to the headship of the State and the
upper chamber, the elective has, in the most advanced politics, been
substituted for the hereditary principle, while in the cases of the
United States and Switzerland there is a federal as well as a national
element. The Roman imposed his institutions with arms upon a conquered
world; a willing world has adopted the institutions which had their
original seat at Westminster. But the British Constitution now means
little more than the omnipotence of the House of Commons. The immense
edifice is still styled the palace; but the King who now dwells in the
palace is the sovereign people."
[Sidenote: The Houses of Parliament.]
For this reason it is more common now to speak of the Palace of
Westminster as the Houses of Parliament. It is a vast and costly
pile, one of the largest Gothic buildings in the world, erected about
fifty years ago, in the Tudor style, at an outlay of fifteen million
dollars. The extremely florid exterior is constructed of a limestone so
perishable that already it costs ten thousand dollars a year to keep
it in repair. Tastes differ as to the merit of the architecture. Some
pronounce the building majestic and imposing. Others say that at a
little distance the river front looks like a large modern cotton mill.
All agree that there is too much elaborate ornamentation.
This is true of the interior, as well as the exterior, and, as some one
has said, it is interesting to observe the attempt made to preserve a
constitutional fiction by decorating with special gorgeousness that
Chamber of the House which has been stripped of all its power, viz.,
the House of Lords. It is resplendent in the vivid red leather which
covers the seats and backs of the straight benches, rising in tiers on
the opposite sides, and in the sumptuous frescoes of the walls, the
rich stained glass of the windows, and the excessive gilding of the
ceiling. The leather on the benches in the House of Commons is black,
and there is less of magnificence in general than in the Chamber of the
Peers, though it also is a rich interior.
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON.]
Yet neither of them makes an impression of spaciousness and
grandeur, and, to one who has seen the noble halls in which our
Senate and House of Representatives sit at Washington, both of these
legislative chambers of Britain seem small and cramped. They are also
mean and uncomfortable in their arrangements as compared with those
of our Congress. At Washington each member has his own chair, and
a desk for his books and papers. But here there are no desks, only
rigid benches, upon which the members sit or loll, facing each other
across the narrow chamber, the supporters of the government on the
Speaker's right, and the opposition on his left. Worst of all is the
fact that, though the combined science of the country was employed in
the construction of these halls of session and debate, they are both
wretched failures as to ventilation and acoustics, the House of Lords
being so bad in the latter particular that it used to be said that
members went out to buy an evening paper in order to learn what the
debate was about.
[Sidenote: Getting into the Lower House.]
As the House of Commons is King, we looked forward with eager interest
to a visit to that potent body. At the instance of our good friend,
Dr. Kerr, Sir James Campbell, a Presbyterian member of the House from
Scotland, wrote us an invitation to visit the Commons in session, but,
when we reached the door, at the appointed hour, and sent in our cards
through the line of policemen and doorkeepers, there was no reply.
When we had waited some time, a gentleman in the crowd at the entrance
accosted us, and asked if we were not Americans, and if we did not wish
to get into the House, both of which polite inquiries we answered with
an eager affirmative. He said he thought he could arrange it for us,
and, handing us his card, from which we learned that he was the London
correspondent of a great American newspaper, he left us for a minute,
and soon returned, accompanied by a friend of his, one of the Irish
members of the House, to whom we were introduced, and who promptly
procured us permission to enter the visitors' gallery. At Washington,
any one who chooses can go into the visitors' gallery, and listen to
the debates, but here there is a good deal of red tape. You must even
register your name and address, besides being introduced by a member,
before you can pass the turnstile and go in.
[Sidenote: The Debate and the Debaters.]
We soon discovered that we were very fortunate in gaining admission
just when we did, as the greatest question of the whole year, and,
indeed, the greatest question that has been before the House for many
years, was up, viz., the Education Bill, the object of which is to put
the schools of England, for the support of which the whole population
is taxed, under the control, not of the representatives of the public,
but of the ritualistic clergy of the Church of England; and in the
course of this very afternoon nearly every prominent man in both of the
great political parties was drawn into the discussion. When we entered,
Sir William Vernon Harcourt, the veteran Liberal statesman, had the
floor. Among others who followed him on the same side of the House were
Mr. James Bryce, the well-known author of _The Holy Roman Empire_ and
_The American Commonwealth_, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the leader
of the Liberal party in the House, and Mr. Lloyd George, who has made
the most active and brilliant opposition to this treacherous, sectarian
measure. The Irish Roman Catholics, who, of course, have voted steadily
and solidly with the Anglican High Churchmen for this iniquitous bill,
which strikes at the root of the fundamental republican principle of
public control of public funds, were represented in the debate by John
Dillon. Of the others who spoke in support of the bill, the two who
interested me most were Lord Hugh Cecil, the special patron of the
measure, and his gifted cousin, Mr. Arthur J. Balfour, the government
leader of the House. The former, who, I believe, is the son of the
veteran Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, is a slender, pale, nervous
young man, who advocates very narrow views in very good language,
nervously pressing or wringing his slim fingers the while, and who is
the special champion of the ritualists and reactionaries. Far more able
and far more interesting in every way is his accomplished kinsman,
Mr. Balfour, who, a few days later, was appointed Prime Minister. He
is a tall, ruddy, handsome Scotchman, with a rare grace and charm of
manner, and an exceptional air of high breeding, who speaks in a manly,
straightforward way, with no trace of the bitterness, or even the heat
so common in political discussions. When one notes the clearness of his
mind, and the attractiveness of his address, it gives a keener edge
to the regret that such a man should be on the wrong side of a great
question like this. Mr. Balfour is well known to the sporting world as
a golf player, and to the reading world as the author of a thoughtful
book on _The Foundations of Religious Belief_.
It will interest the readers of this paper to know that he is a
Presbyterian, as Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the leader of the
Opposition, also is. So that the leaders of both the great parties in
the House of Commons are Scotchmen and Presbyterians.
One of the interesting consequences of Great Britain's having a
Presbyterian Prime Minister is, that under their system of the union
of church and state, a Presbyterian will appoint the bishops and
archbishops of the Church of England to the vacancies of those offices
which occur during his premiership. This must be a very bitter pill for
the extreme High Churchmen.
[Sidenote: English and American Oratory.]
The failure of our arrangement with Sir James Campbell turned out to
be the result of a misunderstanding, so he courteously renewed it for
the following day, when his friend and fellow-member, Mr. Maxwell, who
is also a Scotch Presbyterian, met us at the door, in the absence of
Sir James, and, after showing us again everything of interest about the
Houses, including the restaurant, and the wide and spacious terrace,
running nearly the whole length of the building alongside the Thames,
where the members come, on fine afternoons, to drink their tea, ushered
us into seats "under the gallery" of the House, which are regarded as
the most desirable for visitors, since there the spectator is on a
level with the speakers.
The Education Bill was still under discussion, and we heard some good
speaking, but not so good as I have heard at Washington, and in the
Constitutional Convention at Richmond. The matter was generally good,
but the manner was in most cases constrained, if not hesitating, and
nearly all the members, including Mr. Balfour himself, have a habit
of grasping the lapels of their coats, "taking themselves in hand,"
as some one has described it. In short, the speaking itself lacks the
ease, freedom, fluency and force of our better American oratory.
However, it is only fair to give, before closing, the estimate of a
Canadian writer, who is familiar with both London and Washington, and
who says:
"The average of speaking is not so high in the House of Commons as
in Congress; but the level of the best speakers is higher. American
oratory almost always savors somewhat of the school of elocution, and
has the fatal drawback of being felt to aim at effect. The greatest
of English speakers, such as John Bright, the greatest of all, or
Gladstone, create no such impression; you feel that their only aim is
to produce conviction."
One of the most striking things about the House of Commons to the view
of an American visitor is the well-groomed appearance of the members.
They are invariably attired in faultless Prince Albert coats, often
with a boutonniere on the lapel, and they all wear silk hats, which, by
the way, they are not expected to take off during the sittings, except
when addressing the House. It is said to be the best-dressed assembly
in the world, and is in sharp contrast with the more democratic and
unconventional, not to say slovenly, mode of dressing which obtains in
our House of Representatives, where the ordinary costume is a long,
loose frock coat--sometimes even a sack--and a derby or felt hat.
CHAPTER IX.
CAMBRIDGE AND HER SCHOOLS.
CAMBRIDGE, _July 21, 1902_.
The Cathedral route from London to Edinburgh takes one through an
interesting stretch of eastern England, part of which is as flat as
Holland, with fens and canals and windmills, yielding, however, in the
north to a more rolling country, vestibule, as it were, to the hills
of Scotland. As its name indicates, this route affords the opportunity
of seeing in rapid succession the great cathedrals at Ely, Lincoln,
York, and Durham, not to speak of others. But nothing on this side of
England equals in interest the university town of Cambridge, with its
twenty colleges and three thousand students, its venerable collegiate
buildings, its far-famed "backs" (that is, the lovely lawns and stately
avenues behind the colleges), its clear and placid little river, and
its memories of great men and great causes. It is an exceptionally
clean town, of some forty-five thousand inhabitants.
[Illustration: CLARE COLLEGE AND KING'S CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE.]
[Sidenote: The Two University Towns.]
Oxford, farther west, is a somewhat larger city (about fifty-three
thousand), with twenty-three colleges and about three thousand
students, contains an unparalleled collection of picturesque academic
buildings, and has some single features which are not surpassed
anywhere, such as Magdalen (pronounced Maudlen) College, "the loveliest
of all the homes of learning," Addison's Walk, The Broad Walk, and the
"streamlike windings of that glorious street," to which Wordsworth
devoted a sonnet. But Cambridge, too, has some features which cannot
be paralleled, even in Oxford. For instance, Cambridge has, in
Trinity, the largest college in England. It has, in the chapel of
King's College, a building of marvellous beauty; Oxford cannot match
it, nor can it be matched anywhere in England save by that "miracle of
the world," the Chapel of Henry VII., in Westminster Abbey. The roll
of Cambridge's alumni is illustrious to a degree, having such names as
Bacon, Erasmus, Newton, Milton, Cromwell, Macaulay, Byron, Thackeray,
Tennyson, Wordsworth, Harvey (discoverer of the circulation of the
blood), Darwin, and many, many others equally well known.
[Sidenote: Cambridge more Progressive than Oxford.]
But the chief difference between Cambridge and Oxford is in the spirit
and influence of the two upon the nation and the world, and here the
glory of Cambridge excelleth. It used to be said in the fourteenth
century, "What Oxford thinks to-day, England thinks to-morrow."
But, as a matter of fact, it is Cambridge which has represented the
true progress of England and her modern political and intellectual
development, in such men as Milton and Cromwell, Isaac Newton and
William Pitt, Darwin and Tennyson. Oxford has stood chiefly for the
reactionary ideas of the High Church Anglicans.
The difference was sharply marked in the great testing time of the
seventeenth century, when the East supported the Parliament, and the
West supported the king. London and Cambridge were the centres of the
Puritan strength, Oxford was the capital of Charles I. Cromwell's
home was but a short distance from Cambridge, and he was a student at
Sidney-Sussex College, where we had the pleasure of seeing his rooms,
and the celebrated crayon portrait of him in the college hall. Roughly,
we might say, Cambridge has stood for the Parliament and the people,
Oxford for the king and the priests. At least, there has been more of
the spirit of freedom, democracy and progress at the eastern university
town than at the western.
[Sidenote: The Presbyterian Element.]
That the same difference still exists was indicated to us by a simple
fact. When we inquired at Oxford for a Presbyterian church, the
maid-servant said, "That is Protestant, isn't it?" She was evidently
a Romanist, but it is likely that most of the Church of England
people resident in Oxford never heard of Presbyterians, though our
denomination is so much larger than theirs. Oxford is the head centre
of Anglicanism, and there is no Presbyterian church there, though the
Congregationalists and Wesleyans are represented. But at Cambridge we
found a flourishing, though not yet a very large, church of our faith
and order, under the pastoral care of a gifted and earnest man, the
Rev. G. Johnston Ross, whose addresses at the Winona Conference, in
Indiana, this summer, gave so much satisfaction. We had the pleasure
of meeting him, and many of his people, at a pleasant garden party, to
which all the Presbyterians of Cambridge were invited.
By the way, we saw a thing in that church which we had never seen
before. When the minister read the Scripture lesson from the Old
Testament, in the English Version, the two ladies in whose pew we were
sitting opened the Hebrew Bible, and followed the reading in that,
and, in like manner, when the New Testament lesson was read, they
followed in the Greek text. To these two ladies whose learning has
been recognized by the Universities of St. Andrews and Heidelberg, in
the bestowment upon them of the degree of LL. D., and whose services
to the cause of biblical learning, in the discovery and editing of
the old Sinaitic Syriac manuscripts of the New Testament, have made
them famous throughout the world of scholars,[1] we had a letter of
introduction from a relative of theirs in Virginia, who is a kind
friend of ours. And thus we had the pleasure of meeting at their table
some of the choice spirits of the University, including the professors
in Westminster College, which is the theological seminary of the
Presbyterian Church in England.
[Sidenote: Westminster College.]
It was largely through the munificence of Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson,
the two elect ladies referred to above, that this institution was
transplanted from its former undesirable location, and established in
the city of Cambridge, thus bringing the Puritan theology back to its
original home in England. The financial agent who canvassed the English
Presbyterian Churches for the supplementing of the donation of these
two large-minded and large-hearted ladies was the Rev. Dr. John Watson,
of Liverpool, better known to the general reader as "Ian Maclaren,"
author of _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_, and other popular works; and
for special reasons it was with no ordinary interest that I examined
the result of his toils in the outfit with which the institution has
been provided. It is admirable. The location, indeed, is not so good or
so beautiful as that of Union Seminary, in Richmond, with its breezy
sweeps of green campus, and the building, which is of red brick like
ours, is not nearly so imposing as the handsome group at Richmond.
Everything, in fact, is on a much smaller scale, naturally so, as the
English Presbyterian Church is a much smaller body than our Southern
Church. But, on the other hand, there are some features that are
superior, _e. g._, the stairways are of stone, not of wood as with us.
The dining-hall is spacious, comely, cool, inviting, with ornamental
windows, and walls hung with portraits of Presbyterian worthies, and
the tables are heavy and handsome, of hard wood. No seminary in our
Southern Church, or in the Northern, has a sufficiently attractive
refectory. The one at Union Seminary is better than most of them, but
it, too, is below the mark. Some benevolent person can do a great work
for our future ministry by presenting that institution with a properly
equipped refectory building.
The rooms occupied by the students at Westminster are much smaller
than ours at Union, and seem in some cases cramped, but there is a
bath-room for every four students. I fear this will seem almost a
sinful degree of cleanliness to those brethren who a few years ago were
so much opposed to the introduction of any bath-rooms and other modern
conveniences into our seminary.
There are three professors at Westminster College, Cambridge: Principal
Dykes, Dr. Gibb, and Professor Skinner; and twenty-three students, a
slightly smaller number than last year.
[Sidenote: The same Difficulties about Candidates.]
The churches here are facing the same problem that confronts those in
America as to an adequate supply of ministers. The number of candidates
is decreasing rapidly in Scotland. Some attribute this decline to
the stagnant spiritual condition of the churches throughout Europe
and America, and connect it with the spread of devitalizing critical
theories concerning the Scriptures. But the zeal and activity of the
churches do not seem to be deficient in other particulars. It is not a
question to discuss here, but it is one for Christian people to think
about and pray over.
The identity of our difficulties in America and Britain may be
seen again in the fact that here also the theological schools are
complaining that the universities are graduating men with the degree of
A. B. who have never studied Greek. How can a man without Greek master
the New Testament in the original? Is it not clear that no man can be
a thoroughly furnished minister who has not studied Greek? Yet some of
our own colleges in America, conducted under Presbyterian auspices, are
encouraging this crippling omission by offering an A. B. course without
Greek.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Of the value of this find Prof. Adolf Harnack says: "As the text is
almost completely preserved, this Syrus Sinaiticus is one of the most
important witnesses; nay, it is extremely probable that it is the most
important witness, for our gospels."
CHAPTER X.
FROM ENGLAND TO SCOTLAND--EASTERN ROUTE.
EDINBURGH, _August 23, 1902_.
[Sidenote: The Land of the Mountain and the Flood.]
Soon after leaving Newcastle-on-Tyne, the marked change in the scenery
of the country through which we were passing apprised us of the fact
that we had crossed the border, and were now in Scotland. Instead of
the level or gently undulating fields tilled like gardens, and the fine
oaks and other trees here and there, giving the country a park-like
aspect, there were bold hills on every hand, intensely green, without a
tree as far as the eye could reach, and dotted only with white sheep.
And, instead of the tame rivers, winding lazily through wide meadows,
such as we had seen everywhere in England, there were brawling brooks
dashing down the ravines with an energy that made them fit symbols of
the strenuous activity of the race whose land we were entering. Nothing
in a Scottish landscape is more striking to the American eye than the
uniform absence of trees on the hills and mountains. There are some
forest-clad mountains and ravines, The Trossachs, for instance, as
readers of Scott will remember, but in most cases there are only grass,
ferns, and heather. This has the effect of throwing the shape of the
mountains into much sharper outline to the eye than is the case with
our American mountains, with their dense forests.
If we had had the choosing of the conditions under which we should
enter Scotland, we would not have changed them in any particular.
The afternoon sun was pouring golden light over the hills. The sky
was as blue as that of Italy, save occasional masses of snow-white
clouds towards the horizon--what one of our party calls "Williams'
shaving soap clouds"--and the air, with its abundance of ozone, had an
exhilarating and tonic effect such as I have never known anywhere else
in midsummer.
[Sidenote: The Wizard of the North.]
When we left the train at Melrose, and took up our quarters in the
Abbey Hotel, we found that our good fortune continued, as our rooms
looked right down upon the lovely ruins, and, as we sat watching them,
the moon rose slowly over the Tweed, so that we had the opportunity to
obey literally the poet's counsel in the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_--
"If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight."
To one who, like myself, regards Sir Walter Scott as the greatest
novelist that ever lived, the opportunity to visit his home at
Abbotsford, and his grave at Dryburgh a second time, and to drink in
the exquisite beauty of the Tweed Valley at this point, is one to be
thankful for indeed.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT'S SEAT IN MELROSE ABBEY.]
Scott was a reactionary and a royalist, a Tory politically, and a toady
socially. He had an unreasoning reverence for kings and courts. He
never was in sympathy with his countrymen in their long and bloody,
but finally successful, struggle against the tyranny of the church
and the state. In _Old Mortality_, and elsewhere, he slandered the
heroic Covenanters, who won the freedom of Scotland. In _Woodstock_ and
elsewhere, he caricatured Cromwell and the heroic Puritans, who won
the freedom of England. But, with all this, he never wrote anything
dirty or degrading, like so much of our latter day fiction. He
uniformly exalted bravery, and purity, and honor. Nor should it ever be
forgotten that towards the close of his life, when he was overwhelmed
by the disaster that befell the publishing house with which he was
connected, and when he was thus plunged from independence and affluence
into poverty and debt, he gave the world a splendid object lesson of
personal honesty, by setting to work, in his old age, to discharge his
obligations by continuous, laborious, exhausting work with his pen.
He succeeded, but the effort cost him his life. He has given a larger
amount of innocent and wholesome pleasure to the reading world than
any other writer that ever lived. The unceasing stream of pilgrims to
his home at Abbotsford is but one of many indications of his unwaning
popularity.
[Sidenote: Temporary Residence in Auld Reekie.]
Edinburgh at last! No. 4 Atholl Crescent. It was delightful to settle
down here, in our rented apartments, after long toil at home and
long travel abroad, for a real rest, with just enough walking and
hill-climbing daily in and around the city to give us a keen appetite
for our meals. Round the bowl of yellow Scotch earthenware, in which
our oatmeal porridge was served every morning, ran these lines from
Burns:
"Some hae meat that canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it.
But we hae meat an' we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit."
And, as our appetites sharpened more and more, with the snell air of
the German Ocean, and the abundant exercise on the heath-clad hills,
and the exemption from wearing responsibilities, we entered more and
more fully into the sentiment.
By the way, the famous definition given by Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his
Dictionary, runs thus, "Oats: A grain, which in England is generally
given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." "Aye," said a
Scotchman, when he heard it, "and see what horses they have in England,
and what men we have in Scotland." Dr. Johnson, who, by the way, owes
his immortal fame to a Scotchman, affected a dislike for Scotland, and
said, among other uncomplimentary things, that the only good road in
Scotland was the road that led to England.
Our feeling is exactly contrary to that, and we are so charmed with
what a good friend of mine calls "God's country north of the Tweed,"
its wonderful beauty, its matchless romance, its heroic history,
the thronging memories of its unsurpassed services to the causes of
religion, liberty, and letters, that we shall find it difficult to tear
ourselves away, and take the road to England at all.
But before undertaking to say anything of the vast and fascinating
themes just mentioned, let me set down, in the remaining space of this
letter, my impressions of certain features of the present-day customs
of the Scottish people in their public worship.
[Sidenote: Public Worship in Scotland.]
In a number of particulars the church usages among Presbyterians in
England and Scotland differ from ours in America. It is the universal
custom, when entering a pew at the beginning of the service, to
bow for a moment or so in silent prayer. Likewise, at the close of
the service, when the minister pronounces the benediction upon the
standing congregation, all the people bow again in silent prayer before
leaving the church. They then rise, and withdraw in a quieter and
more reverential manner than is usual with us. In America it is not
infrequently the case that the moment the minister says "Amen," at the
close of the benediction, the organist pulls out all the stops of his
instrument, sweeps the keyboard with might and main, and fills the
building with a crashing tempest of sound, apparently a very lively
march, not to say a waltz, to the jubilant strains of which the people
move down the aisles, while, instead of the subdued greetings that seem
more suitable to the sanctuary, they are straining their voices to make
themselves heard over the uproar of the music.
[Sidenote: Organ, Choir and Congregation.]
Even in Scotland, however, the custom of a rather lively postlude
from the organ as the people are retiring is growing, as in Free
St. Georges, Edinburgh, which has the best organist I have heard in
Great Britain, Mr. Hollins. He is blind, but I have never heard a man
pour such melody from an organ, or lead a singing congregation more
judiciously and effectively with an instrument. At times he leaves
the organ quite silent in the midst of the hymn, beating time with
his hand, and throwing out the voices of the people themselves. The
organ, as he uses it, is not a crutch for a lame congregation to lean
on, but a vaulting pole for an active one to spring with. And the
singing is magnificent. Happy the church with two ministers such as
Dr. Alexander Whyte and the Rev. Hugh Black, and an organist such as
Mr. Hollins! Little wonder that the great building is crowded to the
doors at every service, and that if one wishes to be sure of a seat he
must come a half hour before the time for the service to begin. This
is quite easy for us to do, as the apartments which we have occupied
for a month are but a few doors above the church. The church music
in Scotland is generally far superior to ours in America. Solos and
quartettes are almost unknown. The choirs are large, and sit in front
of the congregation, just under the pulpit, and regard it as their
business, not so much to display their talents in rendering difficult
choir pieces as to lead the congregation in this important part of the
worship of God. And the people sing, generally and heartily, rolling
up to heaven a great volume of praise. I am struck with the fact
that the Scotch Presbyterians have continued to use some of the most
majestic and uplifting of the ancient hymns, such as the Te Deum, which
we in America have in many places ceased to use, substituting for these
great hymns of the ages the ephemeral jingles which make up too large a
part of our so-called "Gospel Hymns." There is more both of dignity and
variety of the right sort in the Scottish church music, secured by the
free use of close metrical versions of the Psalms, paraphrases of other
parts of Scripture, and anthems of the best type--all sung, mark you,
by the whole congregation, and not by the choir only.
[Sidenote: Bibles in The Churches.]
There is another thing about the Scotch churches that I would like to
see introduced into every church in America, and that is the use of
the Bible by the people. A book-board is affixed to the back of every
pew, running the whole length of it, and on this are laid a sufficient
number of hymn-books and Bibles for all the people in the pew behind.
When the preacher is about to read his Scripture lesson (there are
always two at the morning service, one from the Old Testament, and one
from the New), he announces the book and chapter, then pauses a minute
while the people turn to the place, and, as he reads, they follow. So,
too, when he announces his text. It is an excellent custom. It would be
difficult to overstate the value of it. It is not unconnected with the
fact that the Scotch people, as a whole, know more about the Bible than
any other people in the world.
The International System of Sunday-school Lessons has done more
to promote knowledge of the Bible than any other system ever
generally used since the modern Sunday-school came into existence,
notwithstanding the sweeping and indiscriminating strictures made
upon it by some good brethren of late. But that system is certainly
capable of improvement. One of the unfortunate results charged to the
use of the lesson sheets of the International series is the neglect of
the Bible itself. The children, it is said, do not bring their Bibles
with them, and do not become familiar with them, as a whole, in the
Sunday-school. It is too true in many cases. But are not their seniors
equally indifferent about having Bibles in the regular service? How
can ministers expect to bring about the desired revival of expository
preaching unless they can get Bibles into the hands of the people
during the service? Suppose that, like the Scotch, we had an adequate
supply of Bibles as a regular part of the equipment of our churches
and Sunday-schools, would not this difficulty about the neglect of
the Bible, which so many charge to the use of the lesson leaves, be
effectually met? Why should there not be at least as good a supply of
Bibles in a church as of hymn-books? Never were Bibles so cheap as now.
CHAPTER XI.
SOME ENGLISH AND SCOTCH PREACHERS.
EDINBURGH, _August 25, 1902_.
[Sidenote: London Preachers.]
I once received a letter from the late Rev. Dr. William S. Lacy,
saying that he had been trying to make use of a certain work in one of
the departments of theological study, and asking if I could suggest
something "less fearfully jejune," an expression which I have ever
since regarded as a masterpiece of characterization. The first sermon
I heard in Europe, preached in a cathedral, in 1896, by a clergyman
of the English Church, reminded me of it, for it gave me an intense
craving for something "less fearfully jejune." One of my ministerial
companions remarked that it was about such a discourse as one would
expect from a member of the junior class in Union Seminary, which I
thought was rather hard on the juniors. The other five sermons that
I heard from ministers of the Church of England that year, preached
respectively by Canon Holland, Dean Farrar, Dr. Wace, Rev. H. R.
Haweis, and Mr. Gray, of Heidelberg, were certainly not jejune,
whatever else may be said of them. At Heidelberg we had the good
fortune to meet Prof. Gildersleeve, of Baltimore, who is quite at home
in the German university towns, and who was very kind to us in every
way. He took us to the English Church there. Mr. Gray is a quiet,
thoughtful, and edifying preacher--the right kind of man, I should
say, for a community of that sort. Canon Holland--a man of far more
freshness and vigor--preached in St. Paul's, and, though powerfully
built, and with a resonant and well-managed voice, could be heard by
only a small portion of the large congregation. It is said that the
late Canon Liddon, the foremost preacher of the English Church in his
time, broke himself down prematurely by the extraordinary exertions
he made to project his voice to the limits of the great crowds which
gathered in that vast building to hear him. I have an eccentric friend
in New England who calls the cathedrals "Gothic devils," because they
hinder the preaching of the gospel. St. Paul's is not Gothic, of
course, but it is worse, perhaps, in point of acoustics than any Gothic
church whatsoever.
[Sidenote: Dean Farrar.]
We had the singular good fortune, in 1896, to hear Dean Farrar one
evening in Westminster Abbey in a discourse which displayed, to the
best possible advantage, the exceeding opulence of his rhetoric. He
was trying to raise money for the restoration of Canterbury Cathedral
in a manner worthy of its approaching thirteen hundredth anniversary,
and his discourse was a review of the work of the English Church and
the English nation during these thirteen centuries. What a combination
of man and subject and place that was! The most rhetorical eminent
preacher of the day, discussing with all the exuberance of his splendid
diction such a subject as "England," ecclesiastical and civil, for the
last thirteen hundred years, in such a place as Westminster Abbey,
surrounded by the tombs and statues of England's mighty dead, the
wearers of her crown, and the possessors of her genius, her soldiers,
and sailors, and statesmen, her painters, and poets, and philosophers,
and preachers--
"Those dead but sceptered sovereigns
Whose spirits still rule us from their urns."
The rich music, the soft light, the dim arches, the white statues, the
stirring theme, the sympathetic voice, the luxuriant rhetoric--as the
preacher referred, for instance, to "the sea which England has turned
from an estranging barrier into an azure marriage ring for the union of
the nations"--all conspired to make a unique impression. Dean Farrar's
ornate style cloys on the taste sometimes when one reads his books, but
when listening to his sermons it was not so. He was a very effective
preacher, and, in the notable discourse to which I have just referred,
he did not once overlay his thought too thickly with glittering
verbiage. As for the other parts of the service I have only to say
again that it is an unspeakable pity that a noble service like that of
the Church of England (in which, as to its essence, all evangelical
people can heartily unite) should be so commonly made a mere matter of
mechanical routine, and artificial and absurd recitation.
[Sidenote: Mr. Haweis and Dr. Wace.]
Mr. Haweis looked like a small edition of the late Henry Ward
Beecher--long hair, smooth face, large mouth, but with a peculiar,
penetrating voice, and an abrupt, jerky manner. He was unconventional
and racy to the last degree, and cut a good many "monkey shines" in
the pulpit, which were all the more startling because of his elaborate
white clerical vestments--such as resting his elbow on the desk, with
his chin in his hand, for the space of five minutes, talking all the
time as fast as Phillips Brooks, except for the peculiar "ah! ah!"
which he interjected between sentences from time to time, as if unable
to find the word he wanted--then letting himself down, and hanging over
the pulpit on his armpits, with his arms in front and his body behind.
His sermon didn't have anything to do with his text, so far as I could
see. He was a Broad Churchman, as broad as Dean Stanley. In fact, he
was like the dog of which the train man said, in answer to an inquiry
as to the dog's destination, "I don't know, an' 'ee don't know, an'
nobody don't know. 'Ee's et his tag."
Dr. Wace, in whom I was interested as one of the stoutest knights who
have recently measured lances with the agnostics, preached a well
written sermon, in a dull and lifeless way, to a handful of people at
Lincoln's Inn Chapel. But we should not forget that there are many
Presbyterian ministers who, as one of our secretaries of foreign
missions once said, "carry a load of dogmatic theology into the pulpit,
and dump it on the people, laboring all the time under the delusion
that in so doing they are preaching the gospel."
[Sidenote: Spurgeon, Parker and Hughes.]
Some years ago a child was asked, "Who is the Prime Minister of
England?" and replied, not unnaturally, "Mr. Spurgeon." That Spurgeon
has been called up still higher, but in the great Metropolitan
Tabernacle, which he built in London, thousands of people still
gather Sunday after Sunday to hear the gospel preached by his son and
successor, the Rev. Thomas Spurgeon. Of course, he cannot bend the
bow of Ulysses. But, for that matter, there is no preacher living who
can. Still he is a clear, earnest, effective preacher. We were at the
opposite end of the church from him, but heard every word distinctly.
Another dissenting minister, who continues to draw great crowds in
London, is Dr. Joseph Parker, and he is probably the ablest preacher
in the city, though on the day I first heard him, in 1896, he was so
indistinct in his utterances at times that I found it almost impossible
to follow him. There was an air of self-importance about him which I
trust was only apparent. We heard him again the other day, when he
occupied his pulpit for the first time after a long illness. He was
quite feeble, and there were only occasional brief flashes of the
volcanic fires which used to flame and thunder through his preaching.
I heard the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes also, the leading Methodist preacher
of London, in a faithful and striking exposition of Haggai, an
excellent expository sermon, just what I did not expect from him, as he
has at times been charged with sensationalism.
The Moravians, as is well known, lead the whole Christian world in
zeal and liberality in the cause of Foreign Missions. At the Moravian
chapel in Fetter Lane we heard a clear and helpful sermon from Mr.
Waugh, the minister in charge. After the service he kindly showed us
all through the Mission House, the centre of that unique propaganda
which, with comparatively small resources, has given the pure gospel to
so many remote and needy portions of the globe, and set the pace for
all the churches in the work of carrying out the Great Commission. This
chapel has some associations with John Wesley; and, remembering the
obligations under which he lay to these earnest, evangelical Christians
of the Unitas Fratrum, and the part since played by the great Methodist
Church in the evangelization of the world, we felt that the Moravian
Mission House was an appropriate place in which to recall the character
and services of that rightly venerated epoch-maker and man of God who
said, "My parish is the world."
I heard a number of rich sermons from Dr. John Hunter, Gipsy Smith, Dr.
Thornton, Rev. R. J. Campbell, and Mr. Connell. But the strongest, most
spiritual and most comforting sermon I heard in London was preached by
the Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D. D., pastor of St. John's Wood Presbyterian
Church. That also was an expository sermon, as the best preaching so
often is.
[Sidenote: General Booth.]
The only other man of mark whom I heard in the metropolis was General
Booth, organizer, leader, and absolute monarch of the Salvation Army,
an old man of spare frame, with shaggy, grisled hair and beard. His
voice is not a good one, but he commands perfect attention, and his
sermon, which was evidently well thought out, and which, if I remember
aright, had but one undignified remark in it, showed the true nature
of sin, and laid hold of the conscience with power. When we entered
Exeter Hall, which was already nearly full of people, we saw on the
platform a band of sixty musicians, in scarlet uniforms, leading the
multitude with violins, cornets and drums, in a hymn sung lustily to
the tune of "Auld Lang Syne." When the General came on the platform
a few minutes later, they received him with a cheer. His sermon was
followed by the usual uproarious proceedings. With these, of course, I
have no sympathy, nor with the absolute despotism of General Booth, but
the Salvation Army has done a vast deal of good among "the submerged
tenth." The census taken this year by the _London News_ shows, however,
that the Salvation Army is on the decline in that city, and the reason
assigned for it is the lack of a body of trained preachers.
But Scotland is the land of preachers. The greatest Scotchman that ever
lived was a preacher, and to him, John Knox, Scotland is more indebted
for what she is to-day than to any other man.
[Sidenote: What Sir Walter Said.]
"The Scotch, it is well known, are more remarkable for the exercise
of their intellectual powers than for the keenness of their feelings;
they are, therefore, more moved by logic than by rhetoric, and more
attracted by acute and argumentative reasoning on doctrinal points
than influenced by the enthusiastic appeals to the heart and to the
passions, by which the popular preachers in other countries win the
favor of their hearers." So wrote Sir Walter Scott, and no doubt there
is truth in it; but we must not underestimate the quickness and depth
of their feelings. It was an apparently hard-natured Scotchman of our
own day who wrote the following more balanced estimate, "It's a God's
mercy I was born a Scotchman, for I do not see how I could ever have
been contented to be anything else. The little, plucky, dour nation,
set in her own ways, and getting them, too, level-headed and shrewd,
and yet so lovingly weak, so fond, so led away by song or story, so
easily touched to fine issues, so real, so true." Carlyle said Burns
was the æolian harp of nature against which the rude winds of adversity
blew, only to be transmuted in their passage into heavenly music. But
no people without tender and strong feelings could have produced or
appreciated such a poet as Burns. (By the way, I was astonished to
discover, in 1896, that there were more than thirty thousand visitors
annually to the birthplace of Burns, as against only twenty thousand to
the birthplace of Shakespeare.) Moreover, no people without the right
kind of feeling, and plenty of it--aye, and of enthusiasm, too--could
have accomplished what Scotland has done. With a rigorous climate and
a small country, much of it wild and untillable mountain and moor, and
with fewer people in the whole country than in the city of London,
Scotland--
"On with toil of heart and knees and hand,
Through the long gorge to the far light hath won
Her path upward and prevailed,"
and to-day she wields an influence in the world out of all proportion
to her population and resources. In fact, the Scotch are in many
respects the greatest people of modern times.
[Sidenote: Dr. Marcus Dods.]
But I have wandered from my subject, which was Scotch preaching and
preachers. I heard four eminent men in Edinburgh, on my first visit
there six years ago--Prof. A. B. Davidson, Prof. Marcus Dods, Dr.
Alexander Whyte, and Dr. George Matheson. Prof. Davidson's voice,
manner and style were much better adapted to a small class-room,
with its detailed linguistic and exegetical methods, than to popular
preaching in a large church. But if there was some disappointment
in regard to the preaching of the learned and famous author of the
Hebrew grammars, and the father of the whole liberal, not to say
radical, movement in Biblical Criticism, which has swept all Scotland
into its vortex, there was none in regard to that of his brilliant
colleague, Dr. Dods. Many of my readers are familiar with the late Dr.
Henry C. Alexander's high estimate of Dr. Dods' work on New Testament
Introduction, which he used as a textbook in Union Seminary, and with
the general excellence of his luminous and suggestive commentaries,
though some of them are unfortunately marred by the obtrusion of views
which are not altogether satisfactory. But probably few readers, even
of his best books, would have expected from him a sermon so sane, and
sound, and spiritual as that which I heard from him. It was fully
written, and very quietly read, with absolutely no action, and with
a modest and even diffident manner, but before he had uttered half
a dozen sentences, the originality and power of the thought, and
the freshness and vigor of the language, laid the hearer under the
spell of a master, and, as he proceeded, first with keen analysis and
irrefutable argument, and then with those considerations which can
never be adduced save by a man who has had _experience_, who knows sin,
and struggle, and salvation, your sense of the preacher's power was
succeeded, or rather accompanied, by a sense of his sympathy, and you
were ready to accompany him to his high practical conclusion, and left
the church assured that he had, under God, given you a real and abiding
spiritual uplift.
[Sidenote: Dr. George Matheson.]
The only other man who impressed me deeply, on my former visit to
Edinburgh, was Dr. Matheson. He is antipodal to Prof. Dods in his
style of preaching. He is blind, as you know, and was led in from
the vestry to the pulpit, a large man, with gray hair and beard, and
a ruddy and radiant face, despite his sightless eyes, as though he
walked continually in the white vision of the Invisible. His short,
fervent, pointed prayers seemed to put every earnest hearer into
sensible communion with the Father of our spirits, and his sermon on
the great disappointments and mysteries of life was most satisfying
and comforting, and was delivered with rare animation and unction,
the rich fancy and glowing language justifying the remark made to me
afterwards by an eminent Scotchman, that Matheson was a poet as well
as a preacher. I must add that some of my friends who went to hear
him afterwards, on the ground of my enthusiastic recommendation, were
disappointed, saying that his exegesis was illegitimate, and that he
treated his text after the manner of Origen and the Allegorizers. But
we must remember that even Spurgeon was often guilty of that. This does
not excuse it, of course. It only shows that a man may sometimes do it,
and yet be a great preacher.
[Sidenote: Dr. Whyte and Mr. Black.]
Dr. Whyte, of Free St. George's, is reckoned by many the ablest
preacher in Edinburgh. I was in his church on my former visit to
Scotland, when he preached a deeply moving sermon in connection with
a communion service. Unfortunately for us, he was absent from the
city during the whole of our stay this time. But his brilliant young
associate, the Rev. Hugh Black, leaves one no ground for complaint as
to the quality of the preaching in Edinburgh in the summer. He is a
very highly cultivated man, and an original and suggestive preacher,
but with no special advantages of manner. He is slender, pallid,
nervous, with a rather pleasing voice in its lower tones, but of
limited range, breaking if he attempts to raise it. This shuts him
out from some of the best oratorical effects. But what he lacks in
voice and manner he makes up in richness of matter, and finish of
style. He is well known as the author of _Friendship_ and _Culture and
Restraint_, two books which have had a wide circulation in America. We
have made his church our regular place of worship, and have been drawn
away from it only occasionally by the desire to hear such well-known
veterans as Dr. McGregor, of St. Cuthbert's Established Church, and Dr.
Hood Wilson, the retiring pastor of Barclay Free Church. This last, by
the way, is a curious, but rather striking stone building, with the
most hideous interior I have ever seen. It is a night-mare of bad taste.
We have heard at other times Prof. Orr, author of various works of
value in the department of Dogmatic Theology, the Rev. P. Carnegie
Simpson, of Glasgow, author of _The Fact of Christ_, and the Rev.
Thomas Burns, F. R. S. E., author of a unique and sumptuous work on
_Old Scottish Communion Plate_.
[Sidenote: The Inevitable Subject.]
To Mr. Burns I am indebted for an introduction to Prof. Sayce, of
Oxford, and for a delightful hour at tea with the famous archæologist
and author in his house at Edinburgh, where he spends most of the
summer. He generally lives on a houseboat on the Nile in winter, and
the weather in Edinburgh this summer has been such as to make him long
for that houseboat, and that soft Egyptian climate more than ever.
When we reached the city a month ago, we found much the same kind of
weather that greeted Mary Queen of Scots on her return from France,
and of which John Knox wrote as follows, "The very face of heaven did
manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this country with hir--to
wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness and all impiety--for in the memorie of
man never was seen more dolorous face of the heavens than was at her
arryvall ... the myst was so thick that skairse micht onie man espy
another; and the sun was not seyn to shyne two days befoir nor two days
after." We had mists a plenty, but it was the cold weather and the
rain that interfered most with our plans. It actually did rain nearly
every day, and often four or five times a day, not mere showers, but
drenching rains. In fact, the kind of weather we had nearly all the
time, not only in Edinburgh, but throughout Scotland and England, gave
us a keen appreciation of the following story of the London weather
which we find in the Manchester _Guardian_:
"The scene was a Strand omnibus. A leaden sky was overhead, the
rain poured down uncompromisingly, mud was underfoot. A red-capped
Parsee, who had been sitting near the dripping driver, got down as
the conductor came up. 'What sort o' chap is that,' asked the driver.
'Don't yer know that,' answered the conductor. 'Why, that's one o' them
Indians that worship the sun!' 'Worships the sun?' said the shivering
driver. 'I suppose 'e's come over 'ere to 'ave a rest!'
"This recalls the reply given on one occasion by an Eastern potentate
to Queen Victoria, who asked him whether his people did not worship
the sun. 'Yes, your Majesty,' said the Oriental, 'and if you saw him
you would worship him also.'"
However, if I begin to write about Scotch weather, I shall never get
back to my proper subject, which is Scotch preaching.
CHAPTER XII.
ECHOES OF A SPICY BOOK ON SCOTLAND.
EDINBURGH, _August 26, 1902_.
[Sidenote: Unique Prayer for Prince Charlie.]
The mention of St. Cuthbert's, where we heard an excellent coronation
sermon by Dr. McGregor, reminds me of the prayer offered in St.
Cuthbert's by the Rev. Neill McVicar, in 1745, just after the Young
Pretender had won the battle of Prestonpans. A message was sent to the
Edinburgh ministers, in the name of "Charles Prince Regent," desiring
them to open their churches next day as usual. McVicar preached to a
large congregation, many of whom were armed Highlanders, and prayed
for George II., the reigning monarch, and also for Charles Edward, the
Young Pretender, in the following terms, "Bless the king! Thou knowest
what king I mean. May the crown sit long upon his head! As for that
young man who has come among us to seek an earthly crown, we beseech
thee to take him to thyself, and give him a crown of glory!"
One of our pleasant excursions, of which we have made many since
coming to Edinburgh, was to the field of Prestonpans, where the Young
Pretender won his delusive victory, a field made familiar to many by
the vivid description in _Waverley_. An aged tree, now supported and
braced by iron rods and wires, is pointed out as that under which the
Pretender stood during part of the engagement. Under this tree, in the
tall wheat, overlooking the peaceful fields and the shining sea, our
photographers insisted that a picture should be taken of some of the
party, weary and dusty, and I fear untidy as we were. Half a mile
away, and within a few feet of the railway, stands the monument to Col.
Gardiner, who was killed in this battle, and of whom Scott gives such a
striking account in the first of his immortal romances.
[Sidenote: Church-going in Edinburgh.]
But there I go again, instead of finishing the subject of church
services. In Kate Douglas Wiggin's sparkling volume, entitled
_Penelope's Progress_, there is an amusing description of the
perplexity of a young woman from America, on noticing from her
window the great crowds of people on the streets of Edinburgh on
Sunday morning, her speculations as to the cause--"Do you suppose
it is a fire?"--and her amazement at discovering that they were all
going to church. And truly the Scotch people are great church-goers.
Nothing like it is ever seen on our side of the ocean, except in the
predominantly Scotch cities of Canada.
"I have never seen such attention, such concentration, as in these
great congregations of the Edinburgh churches. As nearly as I can
judge, it is intellectual rather than emotional; but it is not a
tribute paid to eloquence alone, it is habitual and universal, and is
yielded loyally to insufferable dullness when occasion demands.
[Sidenote: The Bibles.]
"When the text is announced, there is an indescribable rhythmic
movement forward, followed by a concerted rustle of Bible leaves; not
the rustle of a few Bibles in a few pious pews, but the rustle of all
of them in all the pews--and there are more Bibles in an Edinburgh
Presbyterian Church than one ever sees anywhere else, unless it be in
the warehouses of the Bible Societies.
[Illustration: DRILL OF HIGHLANDERS, EDINBURGH CASTLE.]
"The text is read twice clearly, and another rhythmical movement
follows, when the books are replaced on the shelves. Then there is a
delightful settling back of the entire congregation, a snuggling
comfortably into corners, and a fitting of shoulders to the pews--not
to sleep, however; an older generation may have done that under the
strain of a two-hour 'wearifu' dreich' sermon, but these church-goers
are not to be caught napping. They wear, on the contrary, a keen,
expectant, critical look, which must be inexpressibly encouraging to
the minister, if he has anything to say. If he has not (and this is a
possibility in Edinburgh, as it is everywhere else), then I am sure it
is wisdom for the beadle to lock him in (the pulpit) lest he flee when
he meets those searching eyes.
[Sidenote: The Sermon.]
"The Edinburgh sermon, though doubtless softened in outline in these
later years, is still a more carefully built discourse than one
ordinarily hears outside of Scotland, being constructed on conventional
lines of doctrine, exposition, logical inference, and practical
application. Though modern preachers do not announce the division of
their subject into heads and subheads, firstlies and secondlies and
finallies my brethren, there seems to be the old framework underneath
the sermon, and every one recognizes it as moving silently below the
surface; at least, I always fancy that as the minister finishes one
point and attacks another the younger folk fix their eagle eyes on him
afresh, and the whole congregation sits up straighter and listens more
intently, as if making mental notes. They do not listen so much as
if they were enthralled, though they often are, and have good reason
to be, but as if they were to pass an examination on the subject
afterwards; and I have no doubt that this is the fact.
[Sidenote: The Prayers.]
"The prayers are many, and are divided, apparently, like those of the
liturgies, into petitions, confessions, and aspirations, not forgetting
the all-embracing one with which we are perfectly familiar in our
native land, in which the preacher commends to the Fatherly care every
animate and inanimate thing not mentioned specifically in the foregoing
supplications. It was in the middle of this compendious petition, 'the
lang prayer,' that rheumatic old Scotch dames used to make a practice
of 'cheengin' the fit,' as they stood devoutly through it. 'When the
meenister comes to the "ingatherin' o' the Gentiles," I ken weel it's
time to change legs, for then the prayer is jist half dune,' said a
good sermon-taster of Fife.
[Sidenote: The Music.]
"The organ is finding its way rapidly into the Scottish kirks (how can
the shade of John Knox endure a 'kist o' whistles' in good St. Giles?),
but it is not used yet in some of those we attend most frequently.
There is a certain quaint solemnity, a beautiful austerity, in the
unaccompanied singing of hymns, that touches me profoundly. I am often
carried very high on the waves of splendid church music, when the
organ's thunder rolls 'through vaulted aisles,' and the angelic voices
of a trained choir chant the aspirations of my soul for me; but when an
Edinburgh congregation stands, and the precentor leads in that noble
paraphrase--
"God of our fathers, be the God
Of their succeeding race,"
there is a certain ascetic fervor in it that seems to me the perfection
of worship. It may be that my Puritan ancestors are mainly responsible
for this feeling, or perhaps my recently adopted Jenny Geddes is
a factor in it; of course, if she were in the habit of flinging
fauldstules at Deans, she was probably the friend of truth and the foe
of beauty, so far as it was in her power to separate them."
[Sidenote: Jenny Geddes and her Stool.]
Ah! yes. Jenny Geddes. Of course, we made a point of attending service
frequently in St. Giles, where that redoubtable assailant of "the
papists and their apists" hurled her memorable missile. I trust the
story is well known to many of my readers, especially our young people,
but perhaps all are not familiar with the extremely racy version of it
written by the late Professor Stuart Blackie, one of the most brilliant
and versatile men of the age, and given to me by a kinswoman of his,
whose charming hospitality I once had the privilege of enjoying for two
weeks; so I will embody that version of it in my letter.
THE SONG OF MISTRESS JENNY GEDDES.
_Tune_: "_The British Grenadiers_."
Some praise the fair Queen Mary, and some the good Queen Bess,
And some the wise Aspasia beloved by Pericles;
But o'er all the world's brave women, there's one that bears the
rule,
The valiant Jenny Geddes that flung the three-legged stool.
CHORUS: With a row dow, at them now--
Jenny, fling the stool!
'Twas the 23rd of July in the 1637,
On Sabbath morn, from high St. Giles the solemn peal was given;
King Charles had sworn that Scottish men should pray by printed
rule,
He sent a book, but never dreamt of danger from a stool.
CHORUS: With a row dow, yes I trow,
There's danger in a stool.
The Council and the Judges, with ermined pomp elate,
The Provost and the Bailies, in gold and crimson state,
Fair silken vested ladies, grave Doctors of the School,
Were there to please the king and learn the virtue of a stool.
CHORUS: With a row dow, yes I trow,
There's virtue in a stool.
The Bishop and the Dean cam' in, wi' mickle gravity,
Right smooth and sleek, but lordly pride was lurking in their e'e,
Their full lawn sleeves were blown and big like seals in briny pool,
They bare a book, but little thought they soon would feel a stool.
CHORUS: With a row dow, yes I trow,
They'll feel a three-legged stool.
The Dean, he to the Altar went, and with a solemn look,
He cast his eyes to heaven and read the curious printed book;
In Jenny's heart the blood upwelled, with bitter anguish full,
Sudden she started to her legs, and stoutly grasped the stool.
CHORUS: With a row dow, at them now--
Firmly grasp the stool!
As when a mountain wildcat springs on a rabbit small,
So Jenny on the Dean springs with gush of holy gall--
"Wilt thou say mass at my lug, ye popish-puling fool?
Ho! no!" she said, and at his head she flung the three-legged stool.
CHORUS: With a row dow, at them now--
Jenny, fling the stool!
A bump! a thump! a smash! a crash! Now, gentlefolks beware!
Stool after stool, like rattling hail, came tirling thro' the air,
With "Well done, Jenny! Bravo, Jenny! That's the proper tool!
When the Deil will out and shows his snout, just meet him with a
stool."
CHORUS: With a row dow, at them now--
There's nothing like a stool.
The Council and the Judges were smitten with strange fear,
The ladies and the Bailies their seats did deftly clear,
The Bishop and the Dean went in sorrow and in dool,
And all the popish flummery fled when Jenny showed the stool.
CHORUS: With a row dow, at them now--
Jenny, fling the stool!
And thus a radiant deed was done by Jenny's valiant hand,
Black prelacy and popery she drove from Scottish land,
King Charles, he was a shuffling knave, Priest Laud a meddling fool,
But Jenny was a woman wise, who beat them with a stool.
CHORUS: With a row dow, yes I trow,
She beat them with a stool.
[Sidenote: The Disruption in 1843.]
Of course, too, we visited St. Andrew's Church, in the newer part of
the city, on the other side of the great, picturesque ravine which
divides the old town from the new, because it was the scene of another
epoch-making event in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland, viz.,
the Disruption of 1843. Unable to abolish the patronage of livings,
by which certain heritors or patrons could appoint any minister they
wished to a vacant pastorate, without the consent of the congregation,
Dr. Chalmers and his party decided to take a very bold step in order
to preserve the freedom of the church. When the Assembly met in St.
Andrew's Church, in the presence of a great body of spectators, while a
vast throng outside awaited the result with almost breathless interest,
though not really believing that any large number of the ministers
would relinquish their homes and salaries for the sake of a "fantastic
principle," all expectations were surpassed when the Moderator, after
reading a formal protest signed by one hundred and twenty ministers
and seventy-two elders, left his place, and was followed first by Dr.
Chalmers, and then by four hundred and seventy men, who marched in a
body to Tanfield Hall, and there organized the General Assembly of
the Free Church of Scotland. When Lord Jeffrey was told of it an hour
later, he exclaimed, "Thank God for Scotland! There is not another
country on earth where such a deed could be done!" Well might the
Scottish minister remind his American visitor of Lord Macaulay's remark
that the Scots had made sacrifices for the sake of religious opinion
for which there was no parallel in the annals of England. Many of my
readers are familiar with the exceedingly impressive appearance of this
Disruption Assembly, from the well-known engraving, a copy of which
hangs in the Reading Room of the Spence Library, at Union Theological
Seminary, Richmond.
[Sidenote: A Sermon-taster with a Nippy Tongue.]
It would never do, when speaking of church matters in Edinburgh, to
omit Penelope's account of her landlady's breezy comments on the
different preachers.
"It is to Mrs. McCollop that we owe our chief insight into technical
church matters, although we seldom agree with her 'opeenions' after
we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on
a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does
she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but
roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life,
often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly
indigestible 'stane.'
"She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is
making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and
impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the 'meenistry'
creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster
a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is
truth itself.
"'Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?' suggested Mrs. McCollop,
spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. 'Wha did he hear
the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A.? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been
there for fifteen years and mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon--_off an' on!'_
with an emphasis showing clearly that in her estimation the times
when he is 'off' outnumber those when he is 'on.' ... 'Ye have na heard
auld Dr. B. yet?' (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the
foot.) 'He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B., forbye he's growin'
maist awfu' dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome
a body canna heed him withoot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's
nane the less, at seventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant.
Div ye ken the new asseestant? He's a wee bit finger-fed mannie, ower
sma' maist to wear a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit
words, explainin' and expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come
oot! The auld doctor's nae kirk-filler, but he gi'es us fu' measure,
pressed down an' rinnin' over, nae bit pickin's like the haverin'
asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no sound, wi' his parleyvoos and his
clishmaclavers!... Mr. C.?' (Now comes the shaking and straightening
and smoothing of the first blanket.) 'Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind
ance he prayed for our Free Assembly, an' then he turned roun' an'
prayed for the Established, maist in the same breath--he's a broad,
leeberal mon, is Mr. C.!... Mr. D.? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be
waur, though he's ower fond o' the kittle pairts o' the Old Testament;
but he reads his sermon from the paper, an' it's an auld sayin', If
a meenister canna mind [remember] his ain discoors, nae mair can the
congregation be expectit to mind it.... Mr. E.? He's my ain meenister.'
(She has a pillow in her mouth now, but though she is shaking it as a
terrier would a rat, and drawing on the linen slip at the same time,
she is still intelligible between the jerks.) 'Susanna says his sermon
is like claith made o' soond 'oo [wool] wi' a' gude twined thread,
an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine. Susanna kens her Bible weel, but
she's never gaed forrit.' (To 'gang forrit' is to take the communion.)
'Dr. F.? I ca' him the greetin' doctor. He's aye dingin' the dust oot
o' the poopit cushions, an' greetin' ower the sins o' the human race,
an' eespecial'y of his ain congregation. He's waur syne his last wife
sickened an' slippit awa'. 'T was a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice
afore, but he grat nane the less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the
third Mistress F.! E'nbro could 'a' better spared the greetin' doctor
than her, I'm thinkin'.
'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away according to his good will
and pleasure,' I ventured piously, as Mrs. McCollop beat the bolster
and laid it in place.
'Ou ay,' responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over
the pillows in the way I particularly dislike; 'ou ay, but whiles I
think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!'"
[Sidenote: Scottish and American Repartee.]
Finally, I cannot refrain from quoting Francesca's account of the
peppery conversation she had with the young Scottish minister with whom
she was destined to fall in love. She returned from the dinner, at
which she had met him, all out of sorts:
"How did you get on with your delightful minister?" inquired
Salemina.... "He was quite the handsomest man in the room; who is he?"
"He is the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, and the most disagreeable,
condescending, ill-tempered prig I ever met!"
"Why, Francesca!" I exclaimed. "Lady Baird speaks of him as her
favorite nephew, and says he is full of charm."
"He is just as full of charm as he was when I met him," returned the
girl nonchalantly; "that is, he parted with none of it this evening. He
was incorrigibly stiff and rude, and oh! so Scotch! I believe if one
punctured him with a hat pin, oatmeal would fly into the air!"
"Doubtless you acquainted him, early in the evening, with the
immeasurable advantages of our sleeping-car system, the superiority of
our fast-running elevators, and the height of our buildings?" observed
Salemina.
"I mentioned them," Francesca answered evasively.
"You naturally inveighed against the Scotch climate?"
"Oh! I alluded to it; but only when he had said that our hot summers
must be insufferable."
"I suppose you repeated the remark you made at luncheon, that the
ladies you had seen in Princes Street were excessively plain?"
"Yes, I did," she replied hotly; "but that was because he said that
American girls generally looked bloodless and frail. He asked if it
were really true that they ate chalk and slate pencils. Was'n't that
unendurable? I answered that those were the chief solid articles of
food, but that after their complexions were established, so to speak,
their parents often allowed them pickles and native claret to vary the
diet."
"What did he say to that?" I asked.
"'Oh!' he said, 'quite so, quite so'; that was his invariable response
to all my witticisms. Then, when I told him casually that the shops
looked very small and dark and stuffy here, and that there were not as
many tartans and plaids in the windows as we had expected, he remarked,
that as to the latter point, the American season had not opened yet!
Presently, he asserted that no royal city in Europe could boast ten
centuries of such glorious and stirring history as Edinburgh. I said
it did not appear to be stirring much at present, and that everything
in Scotland seemed a little slow to an American; that he could have no
idea of push or enterprise until he visited a city like Chicago. He
retorted that, happily, Edinburgh was peculiarly free from the taint of
the ledger and the counting-house; that it was Weimar without a Goethe,
Boston without its twang!"
"Incredible!" cried Salemina, deeply wounded in her local pride. "He
never could have said 'twang' unless you had tried him beyond measure!"
"I dare say I did; he is easily tried," returned Francesca. "I asked
him, sarcastically, if he had ever been in Boston. 'No,' he said,
'it is not necessary to go there! And while we are discussing these
matters,' he went on, 'how is your American dyspepsia these days--have
you decided what is the cause of it?'"
"'Yes, we have,' said I, as quick as a flash; 'we have always taken in
more foreigners than we could assimilate!' I wanted to tell him that
one Scotsman of his type would upset the national digestion anywhere,
but I restrained myself."
"I am glad you did restrain yourself--once," exclaimed Salemina.
And so on, with Francesca's characterization of the Forth Bridge as the
national idol, her inability to tell which way to turn a drawing of it
so as to make the bridge right side up, his asking her if doughnuts
resembled peanuts, and his telling her he had heard that the ministers'
salaries in America were sometimes paid in pork and potatoes, his
comments on international marriages, and her conclusion, as she retired
that night, "I doubt if I can sleep for thinking what a pity it is that
such an egotistic, bumptious, pugnacious, prejudiced, insular, bigoted
person should be so handsome!"
That is an excellent little volume to give one an idea of the kind
of international clashes that are continually occurring in Edinburgh
nowadays. But we, being more intent upon getting into the more ancient
atmosphere of Scotland, give most of our evenings to the reading aloud,
in the family circle, of _Rob Roy_, and the like, in preparation for
our proposed tour of the Highlands, while the older members of the
party acquaint themselves afresh with the _Heart of Midlothian_, _The
Monastery_, _The Abbot_, and the other works of the Wizard of the
North, whose scenes are laid at or near "Edina, Scotia's darling seat."
CHAPTER XIII.
IS THE SCOTTISH CHARACTER DEGENERATING?
EDINBURGH, _August 27, 1902_.
[Sidenote: "Mine Own Romantic Town."]
Our stay in Edinburgh has come to an end. It has been a delightful
month in spite of the weather. Claudius Clear says, "Edinburgh is so
beautiful that, for love of her face, she is forgiven her bitter east
winds," adding that "there is a keenness, a rawness, a chilliness in
the air, which you do not find in South Britain." So there is, and yet
we have been out of doors a great deal, and have threaded her streets
and closes, and climbed her heights in every direction--Arthur's
Seat, Salisbury Crags, Calton Hill, The Castle, Corstorphine, The
Braid Hills, The Pentlands--and made excursions to the Forth Bridge,
Hawthornden, Rosslyn, Duddingston (where the minister most kindly
showed us, between showers, everything of interest in and around the
little church in which Sir Walter Scott was once an elder), Craigmillar
Castle, Musselburgh, North Berwick, Bass Rock (the dungeons of which
were once filled with Covenanters, whose only offence was adhering to
the form of religion which the king had bound himself by his coronation
oath to maintain), Tantallon Castle, with its memories of _Marmion_,
and Rullion Green, with its memories of the Martyrs, and, of course,
within the city, Greyfriars Churchyard, The Grassmarket, Holyrood and
the rest. What a wealth of beauty and history and romance!
[Sidenote: The Seamy Side of Edinburgh.]
Yet there are some very criticizable things about Edinburgh, such as
the unseemly billing and cooing of lovers of the servant class in
public places, for instance the Princes Street Gardens, where they
may be seen at almost any hour of the day embracing each other in the
most unblushing manner, apparently oblivious of the passing multitude.
There may be just as much of this going on in the parks of other
cities, but the peculiar position of these lovely gardens in the great,
green hollow in the very centre of the city, in plain view of the most
crowded streets, and the most popular hotels, makes this impropriety
more obtrusive here than it is anywhere else.
[Illustration: PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH.]
But worse than this are the ever-present proofs of the poverty,
wretchedness and degradation of great numbers of the people. The slums
of Edinburgh are more constantly in evidence than those of any other
city in the world. The reason for this is not that the slums are more
populous or worse than those of other cities, but that the parts of
Edinburgh which are of the greatest interest to visitors, viz., the
High Street, from the Castle to Holyrood, and the adjacent districts,
where the great families once lived, and where the most memorable
events of the city's history occurred, the parts made familiar to
all readers by the writings of Sir Walter Scott and the historians
of Scotland, have long since been abandoned by the better classes,
and are now occupied by the poorest and most degraded. So that every
reading person who visits Edinburgh is brought face to face, day after
day, with all this squalor and misery; and it is so different from
what one naturally expects to find in Scotland, and especially in this
ancient and wealthy seat of learning, that it makes a very strong
impression upon the imagination--an impression so strong that it is
scarcely counterbalanced, even by long sojourn in the scrupulously
clean residential sections, on either side of this filthy and festering
centre.
[Sidenote: Cause of her Wretchedness.]
Why should there be such a plague spot in the heart of Edinburgh?
The explanation cannot be found in any lack of native ability on the
part of Scotchmen to overcome the conditions that bring about abject
poverty. It is universally conceded that in the qualities which make
for success in life the Scots are well-nigh unrivalled. Mr. Andrew
Carnegie is a pre-eminent example, but the thrift of Scotchmen in
general is a proverb.[2]
Nor can the explanation of the dire poverty and wretchedness seen in
Scotch cities be found in their disregard of the Sabbath rest and
the Sabbath worship, as in the case of some other European peoples,
though there seems to be of late some relaxation of their rigid
sabbatarianism. Their strictness in this matter has been the subject
of many a good story. One is told of a little girl in Aberdeen, who
brought a basket of strawberries to the minister's, very early Monday
morning.
"Thank you, my little girl, they are very nice,", said the minister;
"but I hope you did not pick them yesterday, for it was Sunday, you
know."
"No, sir," replied the child, "but," she added, with some dismay, "they
were growing all day yesterday."
A devout Scottish minister once stopped at a country inn, in the
northern part of his native land, to pass the Sunday. The day was rainy
and close, and toward night, as he sat in the little parlor of the inn,
he suggested to his landlady that it would be desirable to have one of
the windows raised, so that they might have some fresh air in the room.
"Mon," said the old woman, with stern disapproval written plainly on
her rugged face, "dinna ye ken that ye can hae no fresh air in this
hoose on the Sawbath?"
Another is related by Dr. Thomas Guthrie, in his autobiography. It
was Sunday morning, and Guthrie was preaching, away from home. After
breakfast, he asked his host for a cup of hot water to shave with.
"Whist, whist," was the response; "if ye wanted hot water for your
toddy, 'twould be all right; but if this congregation kenned that ye
called for water to shave with, there wad nae be a soul in the kirk to
hear ye."
[Sidenote: The Curse of Strong Drink.]
This last incident brings us in sight of the true explanation of
Edinburgh's misery. The great curse of Scotland is drunkenness. The
real cause of the deplorable change that seems to be taking place in
the character of her people is intemperance. Mr. Charles E. Price, of
the well-known firm of McVittie & Price, who is the prospective Liberal
candidate for the Central Division of Edinburgh, in a recent address,
made after a visit to our country, says he was struck with the general
sobriety of the American people. He did not see eight persons drunk
on the streets during his three months' tour, and he contrasts this
showing with the gross drunkenness seen on the streets of Edinburgh. He
quotes the startling figures in the letter of Lord Balfour of Burleigh,
to the Lord Provost of Glasgow, taken from the annual report of the
Commissioners of Prisons, according to which the number of commitments
during the twelve months, 1900-1901, was, for England, 571 per hundred
thousand of the population, and for Ireland, 793, and for Scotland,
1,402! That is, nearly twice as many for Scotland as for Ireland, and
nearly three times as many for Scotland as for England. "Ah!" I said
to myself sorrowfully, "whiskey again." Such was the comment of Mr.
John A. Steuart, the Scottish author and social reformer, when this
shocking official statement appeared in the newspapers; and, referring
to Lord Balfour of Burleigh's declaration, that the time has come when
it is necessary to consider whether a large new prison should not be
erected, he adds, "That is the commentary of your Secretary of State on
the morality of the countrymen of John Knox." Mr. Steuart goes on to
show that the national drink bill, direct and indirect, amounts to the
enormous sum of £300,000,000. "Three hundred millions sterling and one
hundred thousand human lives, that is the yearly expense of maintaining
the publican. The South African war cost us altogether 20,000 lives;
during the period it lasted the drink traffic cost us upwards of
250,000, that is to say, for every soldier who died in South Africa,
from wounds or disease, twelve men and women in Britain perished
miserably from strong drink. Let Christian people think of it....
Nothing is more certain than this, that religion and the drink traffic
cannot flourish together, and one of them is flourishing terribly
now.... If the church does not gird herself promptly and vigorously
to dispose of the drink traffic, the drink traffic will assuredly
dispose of the church." In an American journal I find the statement
that, in writing to Dr. T. L. Cuyler recently, sending him a generous
contribution to the National Temperance Society, Mr. Andrew Carnegie,
after expressing his deep interest in the temperance cause, added, "The
best temperance lecture I have delivered lately was my offer of ten per
cent. premium on their wages to all employees on my Scottish estates
who will abstain from intoxicating liquors."
[Sidenote: What Mr. Carnegie Thinks.]
Speaking still more recently, at an entertainment at Govan, Scotland,
Mr. Carnegie said "he wished his countrymen would take to their
hearts that the one blot upon the people of Scotland was that they
often fell from true manhood through the use of intoxicating liquor.
There was a saying in America that a totally abstaining Scotsman could
not be beaten, and wherever a Scot has fallen, it was, in ninety-nine
cases out of the hundred, the result of intemperance. Every Scotsman
at home or abroad had in his keeping part of the honor of Scotland,
and Scotland having so much more honor per man than other lands, it
followed that every Scot carried a greater load of honor than the man
of other lands. He wished that every word of his to workmen in Scotland
would cause them to reflect upon that, and to resolve that henceforth
they would never disgrace either themselves or the land that gave them
birth. The only defect of the Scot, compared with the man of other
lands, was that of intemperance, which, however, he rejoiced to know,
was steadily decreasing."
[Sidenote: A Lesser Menace.]
One other ominous feature of present day conditions in Scotland I find
referred to in the following clipping from a British journal:
"In Edinburgh of late the Jesuits have been showing unwonted activity.
Owing partly to the unsettling effect of Biblical criticism upon the
average mind, and partly to some utterances by some of the leading
ministers in the Scottish churches, the Society has evidently deemed
the moment opportune for pressing the claims of Rome upon the Scottish
people. In their spokesman, Father Power, who addresses a great
gathering every Sabbath evening in the open, they have an instrument
well fitted for their purpose. Of fine presence, manifest learning, and
no mean orator, he is bound to make an impression on some minds. Here
is one sentence from his last lecture. After referring to the utterance
of a noted Scottish divine in the General Assembly, reflecting on
some passage in the Confession of Faith, he said, 'So that fundamental
basis being removed (the Confession), the Presbyterian Church collapsed
like a house of cards. And hence I say that the Catholic Church has an
opportunity, let us hope a God-given one, for entering the field once
occupied by our late lamented sister.'"
But he would be a sanguine man, indeed, who could believe that the
people of Scotland generally would ever become Roman Catholics. For one
thing, there is too much printing there. For the Vicar of Croyden was
a true prophet when he said, in the early days of the Reformation, "We
must root out printing, or printing will root out us."
FOOTNOTE:
[2] _December, 1903._--The Prime Minister of the British Empire is a
Scotchman. The leaders of both parties in the House of Commons are
Scotchmen. The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York, the
two heads of the Church of England, are Scotchmen. These are specimen
facts.
CHAPTER XIV.
STIRLING, THE LAKES, AND GLASGOW.
GLASGOW, _September 1, 1902_.
From Stirling Castle we revelled in the view which many consider the
finest in Scotland, embracing, as it does, both Lowland and Highland
scenery. We drove to the towering, but rather top-heavy Wallace
Monument, on Abbey Crag, and climbed its winding stone stairway, for
the sake of another look at that smiling landscape, and a nearer view
of the scene of Wallace's victory over Surrey at Stirling Bridge, in
1297. In one of the rooms of this great monument we gazed reverently
on the hero's sword with a thrill of our boyhood enthusiasm over
_Scottish Chiefs_, remembering that "the sword which looked heavy for
an archangel to wield was light in his terrible hand." The statue of
Wallace in front of the building looked like an old friend, because of
our familiarity with the replica of it in Druid Hill Park, presented
to the city of Baltimore by Mr. William Wallace Spence. Of course, we
drove, too, to "Cambuskenneth's fane," and the field of Bannockburn,
where the "bore stone" may still be seen.
[Sidenote: Memorials of the Martyrs.]
But the place that interested us most at Stirling was the Old
Greyfriars Churchyard, adjoining the Castle, with its monuments of
John Knox, Alexander Henderson, Andrew Melville, and especially James
Renwick and Margaret Wilson. During our stay in Edinburgh we had read
and talked much of the martyrs of Scotland, those glorious men and
women who had died for Christ's crown and covenant in "the killing
time,"--those heroic ministers, nobles, and peasants, male and
female, who to the number of eighteen thousand had laid down their
lives rather than submit to the tyranny and popery of the Stuarts. We
had visited repeatedly Greyfriars Churchyard at Edinburgh, where the
Covenant was signed, and where many of the martyrs who were beheaded
in the adjoining Grassmarket are buried. The last of those who "kissed
the Red Maiden" here was the youthful and gifted James Renwick. His
statue at Stirling represents a mere stripling indeed. Not far from
Renwick's statue stands the most beautiful of all the monuments of the
Covenanters, the snow white group of Margaret and Agnes Wilson, and the
figure of an angel standing by them. The inscription is as follows:
MARGARET,
Virgin Martyr of the ocean wave, with her
likeminded sister,
AGNES.
Love many waters cannot quench.
God saves His chaste impearled one in Covenant true.
O Scotia's daughters! earnest scan the page,
And prize this flower of grace--blood-bought for you.
PSALM ix: 19.
Through faith Margaret Wilson, a youthful maiden, chose rather
to depart and be with Christ than to disown His holy Cause and
Covenant, to own Erastian usurpation, and conform to prelacy
enforced by cruel laws. Bound to a stake within flood mark of the
Solway tide, she died a martyr's death on 11th May, 1685.
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO MARGARET WILSON, STIRLING.]
I had had the satisfaction, on my former visit to Scotland, of seeing
many of the places around which the heroism of the Covenanters has
thrown imperishable renown, Bothwell Bridge, Drumclog, Ayrsmoss,
Wigtown (where a noble monument to Margaret Wilson and Margaret
McLachlan crowns the highest hill and overlooks the sad sands of
Wigtown, which all readers of _The Men of the Moss Hags_ will
remember), also the little Duchrae (where, by the way, Mr. S. R.
Crockett was born), and Earlstoun Castle on Ken Water, and Sanquhar.
At Dumfries one morning, I had eaten my breakfast in the room where
Charles Edward, the Pretender, the last of the Stuarts to curse and
trouble the united kingdom, had dined with his staff, the night before
his final withdrawal northward; and at Sanquhar, in the afternoon of
the same day, I had eaten my dinner close to the granite shaft which
marks the spot where Richard Cameron and the other twenty heroes
sat their horses on that memorable day, when they unfurled the blue
silken banner, with its inscription in letters of gold "For Christ's
Crown and Covenant," and flashed their swords in the sunlit air,
and declared themselves independent of the tyrannical and perjured
house of Stuart--one of the sublimest actions in the history of human
freedom--and the twenty men won, though they themselves perished in the
conflict. As I thought of it all, and how much it meant for the civil
and religious liberty of our own country, I had taken off my hat, and,
standing there in the street, had silently thanked God for the gift
to Scotland and the world of such men as Richard Cameron and William
Gordon and James Renwick.
I had a very pleasant note the other day from Mr. S. R. Crockett, the
novelist, in which he was kind enough to say, "If you are in Galloway,
I shall be glad indeed to see you," and in which he expressed a lively
interest in the work of the "Covenanters" in our church. In speaking of
_The Men of the Moss Hags_, he says, "I put a great deal of faithful
work into it, but that very quality somewhat marred the dramatic
element. I think of trying again with a book on _Peden_--a red-hot one
this time--not trying to hold the balance, but going straight for all
persecutors and sitters-at-ease in the Covenant Zion."
[Sidenote: The Lake Scenery of Scotland.]
Those who go to The Trossachs by way of Callander, as most tourists
do, and as I did on my former visit, miss the finest scenery of this
region. Readers of _The Lady of the Lake_ naturally wish to go by
Coilantogle Ford, Clan-Alpine's out-most bound, but by doing so they
miss not only the finest mountain views of the district, but also the
scenes of _Rob Roy_, on the upper waters of the Forth. So this time
we went by rail from Stirling to Aberfoyle, spent the night at the
delightful Bailie Nicol Jarvie Hotel, antipodal in every respect to the
wretched inn of the clachan described by Sir Walter, and took the coach
over the mountains next morning for the Trossachs and Loch Katrine.
The beauty of the mountains, seen in this way, with their rocks and
ferns and heather all around us, and the glittering lakes far below
us, was a revelation even to one who had been through the district on
the other route. At the Loch Katrine pier we took the little steamer
_Sir Walter Scott_, and passing Ellen's Isle, were soon favored with
another memorable view. Surely Ben Venue was never lovelier than it
was that day, with the sunlight and shadow alternating on its rugged
sides. The Stronachlachar Hotel, at the foot of the lake, is another
excellent place of entertainment. We could not tear ourselves away at
once, so after luncheon we rowed on the lake, and climbed on the rocks,
and gathered the heather till late in the afternoon. Then we took coach
for Inversnaid. We thought we had seen it rain in Scotland. We had not.
Those downpours which had so often drenched us in and around Edinburgh
were mere showers compared to the floods which fell upon us on that
drive to Inversnaid. The best opportunity I ever had to observe, in
perfect comfort, the effect of a heavy rain on Highland scenery was on
a steamboat ride up Loch Tay some years ago. From the windows of the
saloon we could see everything on both sides. All the trickling burns,
swollen by the rain, had become full and foaming streams, and, dashing
down the mossy mountains, gave them the appearance of immense slopes of
green velvet, striped from top to bottom with ribbons of silver. But on
this drive from Stronachlachar to Inversnaid we were too busy trying
to keep ourselves dry to take account of the effect of the rain on the
scenery. We were much more concerned about its effect upon ourselves.
But on reaching the hotel we hung up our dripping wraps, and were quite
comfortable again in a few minutes. Next morning was fine. We walked to
Rob Roy's cave in the tumbled rocks overlooking the water. We climbed
the hills above Inversnaid Falls. Some of the party rowed across the
lake to the Arrochar mountains. From every point of view we were
enchanted with the loveliness of Loch Lomond. It is the largest and
most beautiful of the Scottish lakes. We left Inversnaid reluctantly,
after a too brief stay of a day and a half, and steamed down to
Balloch. Taking the cars there for Glasgow, we soon came in sight of
the gray stone mansion of Lord Overtoun, standing high and clear to the
view on our left. The sight of it rendered the senior member of the
party reminiscent again, and he told the others of the garden party
given there to the Pan-Presbyterian Council in 1896.
About 850 people had come by rail from Glasgow to Dumbarton on a
specially chartered train, and were conveyed the two or three miles
from there to Overtoun in breaks, thirty-five in number. Over the
door of the mansion ran the chiselled words, "Let everything that
hath breath praise the Lord." The host and Lady Overtoun received the
delegates in the hall. After passing through the elegant apartments on
the first floor, they dispersed over the beautiful grounds where ices
were served at various places, and ten pipers of the celebrated Black
Watch, in their picturesque Highland costume, marched up and down the
lawn, playing their national instrument, one which, with its "tangled
squeaking," as Hawthorne calls it, has always seemed to me more
picturesque than musical. At four o'clock the guests, to the number of
nearly one thousand, all assembled in the great marquee which had been
erected on the lawn, and were seated at tables for refreshments, after
which they were welcomed by Lord Overtoun in a most cordial speech, to
which responses were made by Dr. Roberts, Dr. Blaikie, Dr. Hoge, Rev.
John McNeill and others, and at about six o'clock we all went back to
Glasgow, fully agreed that this was far and away the most elaborate and
elegant entertainment we had ever seen.
One of the raciest men I met at Glasgow, on that occasion, was the
Rev. John McNeill. I had the good fortune, with some other friends,
to travel in the same compartment with him the day we went to Lord
Overtoun's Garden Party. Noticing the river through the car window,
he began to speak of the filth of the Clyde below Glasgow, and then
naturally enough of the Chicago river, which is probably the filthiest
ditch on this planet, and quoted the remark he had made while there,
that Peter could have walked on the Chicago river without faith. This
led him to speak of exaggerations in general, one especially in which
a local Scotch orator indulged when offering the congratulations of
his community to the owner of three or four small coasting vessels
when he was about launching another one. After "disporting himself in
the empyrean," as Dr. Alexander used to say of such sky-scrapers, this
bailie wound up with the statement that "the sails of your ships whiten
the universal seas." The local minister was the next speaker, but
after such a burst of eloquence as the foregoing, his remarks were, of
course, very tame, so much so that the bailie who had covered himself
with glory turned to another bailie sitting next to him, and said,
"Bailie, mon, some o' them that have never been to college can make a
better speech than them that have been through _the hale corrycolium_!"
Another example of unconscious Scotch humor, related, I think, in
Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, was that of the pastor of the small islands
of Cumbrae, near the mouth of the Clyde, who was accustomed to pray
that the Lord would "bless Great Cumbrae and Little Cumbrae and _the
adjacent islands_ of Great Britain and Ireland." Still another was that
of the simple Highlanders on the estates of the great Presbyterian
nobleman, the Duke of Argyll, who when the Duke's son, the Marquis of
Lorne, married the daughter of Queen Victoria, said, "The Queen must be
a great woman if her daughter could marry the son of McCallum More."
[Sidenote: The City of Glasgow.]
"Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word." From time
immemorial that has been the motto of this stately city, now the
second in size in Great Britain, numbering some nine hundred thousand
souls. It should, therefore, be no surprise that there are _two
hundred and seventy-five_ Presbyterian churches here. "Glasgow is the
largest Presbyterian city in the world, whether it be measured by the
number of churches, of communicants, or of aggressive work done in
the cause of Christ." It was in Glasgow that the first missionary
society, to send the gospel to the heathen world, was formed in
Scotland. Glasgow was also the principal scene of the great home
mission enterprise of Dr. Chalmers. Thus, as Prof. Lindsay says,
Glasgow has taken the lead in the two greatest characteristics of
modern evangelical Presbyterianism--missions to the heathen, and to the
lapsed and drifting population at home. Besides what is raised by the
churches of the city, Glasgow spends annually more than seven hundred
thousand dollars in the support of various charitable institutions.
For instance, over nine hundred orphan children are cared for in the
"homes," all the money for buildings and daily bread being sent in, in
answer to prayer. Eighty-eight services are held on Sabbath forenoons
for non-churchgoing lads and girls, superintended by two thousand
monitors and workers. The Boys' Brigade took its rise in Glasgow.
There are ten thousand young men enrolled as members of the Young
Men's Christian Association. These bare statements will give some idea
of the religious activities of this great Presbyterian city, and of
its suitableness as a rallying centre, in 1896, for the three hundred
representatives of that vast army of more than twenty million people of
God, who, in every nation under heaven, march under the blue banner,
constituting the largest Protestant Church in the world.
Glasgow is, moreover, an ancient seat of learning, and a great centre
of commerce. For five hundred years its University has shed light over
Scotland, and other countries as well. As for primary education, the
official report says, "it is a rare thing now to find a child in the
city, over ten or eleven years of age, who cannot read and write. Its
art galleries, museums, music, lectures, its magnificent municipal
buildings erected at a cost of two million six hundred thousand
dollars, its sanitary arrangements, under the influence of which the
rate of mortality is steadily decreasing, its water system, which, at a
cost of seventeen million five hundred dollars, has brought an abundant
supply of pure water from Loch Katrine through thirty-five miles of
mountainous country--all are worthy of the second city of the kingdom.
And, as everybody knows, Glasgow is the place where "the stately ocean
greyhounds" are built. Fifty-five million dollars have been expended in
"turning what was once a little salmon stream into one of the greatest
navigable highways of the world." In 1768, the Clyde, at low water, was
one foot deep, where now it is twenty-four feet. What is it that has
given this venerable Presbyterian city this proud position, next to
London? "Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the word."
[Sidenote: The Old Cathedral.]
It is said that the word "Glasgow" comes from "Glescu," gray mist. It
deserved its name when we arrived there on the 30th of August, 1902,
and it continued to deserve it throughout our stay. The fog was so
heavy and dense that one felt almost as if it could be sawn into slabs.
I can testify further that the city deserved its name also on the 17th
of June, 1896, when the delegates to the Sixth General Council of the
Reformed Churches Throughout the World Holding the Presbyterian System,
gathered in the Barony Church, and marched through a cold rain, across
the wide paved square, to the ancient cathedral, where the opening
sermon was to be preached. This majestic building, now more than
seven hundred years old, is thus described by Sir Walter Scott in the
nineteenth chapter of _Rob Roy_, "The pile is of a gloomy and massive,
rather than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture; but its
peculiar character is so strongly preserved, and so well suited with
the accompaniments which surround it, that the impression of the first
view was solemn and awful in the extreme." As Andrew Fairservice said
to the hero of that stirring story, whom Scott represents as addressed
by Rob Roy from behind one of the pillars in the crypt, "It's a brave
kirk--nane o' yer whigmalieries and curliewurlies and opensteek hems
about it--a solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as long
as the world, keep hands and gunpowder aff it." And, indeed, it looks
as if it would. On the crest of the hill, in the adjacent necropolis,
stands a splendid Doric column surmounted by a statue of John Knox.
[Sidenote: The Most Eminent Citizen of Glasgow.]
The Preëminence of Scotland in Theology, Philosophy, and Medicine has
long been recognized the world over. But it may not be known to all
of my readers that the most eminent scientist now living is also a
resident of this country, a citizen of Glasgow--Lord Kelvin.
In the Regalia Room of Edinburgh Castle, on my way to Glasgow in 1896,
I had the pleasure of meeting, for the first time, one of the most
intellectual young men that the South has produced since the war,
Professor Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, a former fellow
student at Davidson College of one of my fellow-travellers at that
time. He told us he was on his way to Glasgow, too, for the purpose of
representing Princeton in the celebration of Lord Kelvin's jubilee.
This veteran professor, who thus completed fifty years of service as a
teacher in the University of Glasgow, and who, by the way, like so many
other epoch-makers, is a Scotch-Irishman, has long been recognized as
one of the most eminent scientists of modern times, and the greatest
of all electricians. As Professor William Thomson, he first won renown
by the wonder which he wrought in annihilating space by enabling us
to telegraph across the Atlantic ocean, for it was he who solved the
difficulty which, in 1856, threatened to defeat all the plans of the
late Cyrus W. Field just as he seemed about to realize his gigantic
dream of uniting two continents. The signals passing through a long
submarine cable were found to "drag" so much as to make it practically
useless. Thomson discovered the law governing the retardation,
and invented the "mirror instrument," by which all the delicate
fluctuations of the varying current could be interpreted. "So sensitive
is the arrangement that on one occasion a signal was sent to America
and back through two Atlantic cables with the current from a toy
battery, made in a silver thimble with a drop of acidulated water and
a grain of zinc." By means of Thomson's magical apparatus, on August
17, 1858, this message was flashed from shore to shore, "Europe and
America are united by telegraph: Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good will toward men." For this success he was knighted.
In 1892, after many other successes, he was raised to the peerage. The
submarine telegraph is not the only invention which connects his name
with the sea. By substituting piano-forte wire for the old-fashioned
rope, he made it possible to measure quickly and accurately the depth
of water at any spot under a moving ship. When Dr. Toule was visiting
Prof. Thomson, he noticed a bundle of this piano-forte wire, and,
inquiring what it was for, was informed by Thomson that he intended
using it for "sounding purposes." "What note?" innocently inquired
Toule, to which Thomson promptly replied, "The deep C." But Lord
Kelvin's most valuable aid to navigation is the adjustable compass,
which bears his name, and which is now used on every first-class ship
in the world.
So numerous and useful are his inventions that there is an
establishment at Glasgow devoted solely to the manufacture of his
patents, and employing nearly two hundred highly skilled workmen,
and a staff of electricians. His home, in the precincts of Glasgow
University, was the first house in the world to be lighted with
electricity. It is not strange, then, that we found the whole city
doing him honor on our arrival in 1896, and scores of scholars convened
to offer the congratulations of other institutions in every part of the
world.
Yesterday we had the pleasure of hearing a very thoughtful and striking
sermon from the Rev. P. Carnegie Simpson, author of _The Fact of
Christ_, a book which in a very short time has gained a deservedly
wide circulation. I am constrained to believe that, generally
speaking, Scottish ministers have more intellectual ability and better
theological furnishing than those in America.
CHAPTER XV.
OBAN, IONA, AND STAFFA.
"For Oban is a dainty place;
In distant lands or nigh lands,
No town delights the tourist race
Like Oban in the Highlands."
CALEDONIAN CANAL, _September 3, 1902_.
The fog was so thick the morning we steamed down the ill-smelling
Clyde, and out through the Kyles of Bute, that we could see nothing
whatever, and had to content ourselves as best we could with the
tantalizing recollections of one member of the party, who on a former
occasion had made an excursion with some five hundred other persons,
delegates to the Glasgow Council and their friends, on the elegant
steamer, _Duchess of Hamilton_, up Loch Long, Loch Goil, and the Kyles
of Bute, with alternating showers and sunshine, getting charming views
of the lovely scenery that abounds about the Firth of Clyde. But the
atmosphere lightened somewhat as we steamed through the Crinan Canal,
and as we approached Oban it cleared completely, and gave us full
opportunity to enjoy the glorious scenery on every hand.
Situated near the southern terminus of the Caledonian Canal, and
also not far from the western isles, and being the starting point of
all excursions through this, the wildest and most romantic region of
Scotland, Oban is called "the Charing Cross of the Highlands."
[Sidenote: Rude Seas off the West Coast.]
The first excursion undertaken by our party from Oban was the famous
one to Staffa and Iona, and in this we were so fortunate that we
almost forgot our disappointment at the Kyles of Bute. Frequently the
sea is so rough in this windy region that passengers cannot be landed
on the islands. It was so on the day before our trip, and also on the
day after it. It seemed to us rough enough on the day we made the trip,
and the captain was doubtful about landing us until the very last.
But the boats from shore put out and came alongside, swinging on the
waves five or six feet up, and then quickly down again, so that it was
necessary for us to step in promptly, one by one, just at the moment
when they rose to the highest point. It looked dangerous, but nobody
backed out. It looked still more dangerous after we were in the tossing
boats, with the great green waves running high all around us. I think
several of the party had doubts whether they would ever again set foot
on land, and there were thankful hearts and deep sighs of relief when,
after the visit to Staffa, we all got safe back on the steamer. The
danger, however, was more apparent than real. The boats were staunch,
strongly manned, and handled with consummate skill.
[Sidenote: Iona and Columba.]
We visited Iona first, a small island and homely, but sacred and
memorable forever as the place where the presbyter abbot, Columba, the
Apostle of Caledonia, and his twelve companions from Ireland, landed
in A. D. 563, to begin that series of toilsome, but marvellously
successful campaigns, which resulted in the evangelization of a large
part of Scotland. The tomb of Columba is still shown in the ancient
cathedral. For centuries Iona was a part of the domain of the Duke of
Argyll, but three or four years ago the late Duke, the author of _The
Reign of Law_, presented the property to the Church of Scotland. Since
that time the cathedral has been re-roofed and otherwise restored, so
that now it presents a less desolate appearance than it did on my
first visit a few years ago. Iona was the burial place of the ancient
Scottish kings. More than fifty of them lie in the cemetery, hard
by the cathedral, in graves marked, for the most part, by ancient
tombstones, with interesting inscriptions. The last of these kings
to be laid here was Duncan I., who was murdered by Macbeth about the
middle of the eleventh century. Not far away stands Maclean's Cross,
supposed to be the oldest in Scotland. It is one of three hundred and
sixty Iona crosses which are said to have once stood on the island.
[Sidenote: Staffa and Fingal's Cave.]
Half an hour from Iona by the steamer is Staffa. Staffa means the "isle
of columns." It is of the same columnar basaltic formation as the
Giant's Causeway in the north of Ireland, and was produced by the same
outpouring of lava that formed the Irish Causeway. We climbed along
the irregular floor of perfectly formed polygonal columns, which fit
each other with absolute exactness, though no two are alike. We stopped
for a moment to sit down in Fingal's Wishing Chair, and then pushed
on to see the most impressive of all these natural wonders--Fingal's
Cave--which penetrates the volcanic columns for a distance of two
hundred and twenty-seven feet.
This stupendous basaltic grotto in the lonely Isle of Staffa remained,
singularly enough, unknown to the outer world until visited by Sir
Joseph Banks in 1772. As the visitors' boat glides under its vast
portal, the mighty octagonal columns of lava, which form the sides
of the cavern--the depth and strength of the tide which rolls its
deep and heavy swell into the extremity of the vault unseen amid its
vague uncertainty--the variety of tints formed by the white, crimson,
and yellow stalactites which occupy the base of the broken pillars
that form the roof, and intersect them with a rich and variegated
chasing--the corresponding variety of tint below water, where the ocean
rolls over a dark red or violet-colored rock, from which the basaltic
columns rise--the tremendous noise of the swelling tide mingling with
the deep-toned echoes of the vault that stretches far into the bowels
of the isle--form a combination of effects without a parallel in the
world!
Sir Walter Scott's lines express the sentiment most proper to the place:
"The shores of Mull on the eastward lay,
And Ulva dark, and Colonsay,
And all the group of islets gay
That guard famed Staffa round.
Then all unknown its columns rose,
Where dark and undisturbed repose
The cormorant had found,
And the shy seal had quiet home,
And welter'd in that wondrous dome,
Where, as to shame the temples deck'd
By skill of earthly architect,
Nature herself, it seem'd, would raise
A minster to her Maker's praise!
Not for a meaner use ascend
Her columns, or her arches bend;
Nor of a theme less solemn tells
That mighty surge that ebbs and swells,
And still, between each awful pause,
From the high vault an answer draws,
In varied tone, prolong'd and high,
That mocks the organ's melody.
Nor doth its entrance front in vain
To old Iona's holy fane,
That Nature's voice might seem to say,
'Well hast thou done, frail child of clay;
Thy humble powers that stately shrine
Task'd high and hard--but witness mine!'"
[Sidenote: The Great Canal.]
The trip from Oban to Inverness, through the Caledonian Canal, with its
alternating locks and lochs, and its mountain walls on either side, is
one of the finest in the world in point of scenery. It was something
of a surprise to us to find at Fort Augustus, half way up the canal,
the Benedictine Order established in a magnificent group of buildings,
which had been erected at a cost of four hundred thousand dollars, but
we presently remembered that there had always been a Roman Catholic
element in the Highlands, that this element had ardently supported the
pretensions of Charles Edward Stuart to the British crown, and that
Lord Lovat, the leading Roman Catholic nobleman of the region, had been
executed for the treasonable part he took in that affair. In the Tower
of London we had seen the block on which he was beheaded, with the
print of the axe showing plainly in the wood. In 1876 the Lord Lovat
of that time presented this splendid property to the Benedictines. Of
Prince Charlie's career in this part of Scotland we shall have more to
say in our next letter.
CHAPTER XVI.
INVERNESS AND MEMORIES OF FLORA MACDONALD.
PERTH, _September 6, 1902_.
Our farthest north on our European tour was Inverness, the capital of
the Highlands, which we reached from Oban by way of the magnificent
route through the Caledonian Canal, and which we left by way of the
railroad that runs southwards through the battlefield of Culloden,
where the Young Pretender was defeated, and the cause of the Stuarts
finally overthrown in 1746. The town has twenty thousand people,
is well built of substantial materials, a fresh-looking pink stone
predominating, and is the cleanest city we have seen in Great Britain.
It has a fine situation, its business portion occupying the more
level ground on both sides of its broad, clear river, while handsome
villas stretch along the terrace which rises above the valley. At a
short distance from the town there rises, from the level plain on the
riverside, a strikingly beautiful wooded hill, on the summit and sides
of which the people of Inverness have made their cemetery, one of the
loveliest of all the lovely cities of the dead.
[Illustration: STATUE OF FLORA MACDONALD--INVERNESS.]
From elevated points, and especially from the Castle Hill in the midst
of the town, one gets a very fine view of richly diversified scenery,
comprising, besides river and firth and valley, a wealth of hills, some
wooded and others gay with purple heather and green ferns. This central
hill, on which the handsome castellated county buildings now stand, was
the site of Macbeth's Castle, concerning which Shakespeare represents
King Duncan as saying, "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses." Just in
front of the buildings which now occupy this celebrated site stands
a graceful statue of Flora Macdonald. She is represented as a comely
young woman, with her left hand lightly holding her dress skirt, and
her right raised as though shading her eyes, while she gazes intently
across the water. A very finely executed Scotch collie at her side
looks up into her face.[3]
[Sidenote: The Career of a Royal Adventurer.]
Being a native of North Carolina, and having most pleasant memories of
the Highland Scotch communities of the Cape Fear country, and the fine
old town of Fayetteville, where Flora Macdonald lived during a portion
of her maturer life, I was delighted to be thus reminded that I was now
so near the scenes connected with the romantic incidents of her younger
days, when, at the peril of her own life, she saved the worthless life
of Prince Charles Stuart, the Young Pretender to the British throne.
Students of that period of English history, or readers of _Waverly_,
that immortal romance, which, as the first venture of its then unknown
author in this line of literature, gave its name to the whole series of
those unrivalled historical romances which were put forth thereafter in
rapid succession by Sir Walter Scott, and which have given a greater
amount of wholesome pleasure to the world of readers in general
than any other series of books that were ever written--students of
history and readers of _Waverly_, I say, will remember, that after the
Pretender's delusive victory at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh,
and his disappointment at the failure of the Roman Catholic population
of western England to rise in support of his cause, he fell back to the
northern part of Scotland, and there, on the desolate moor of Culloden,
four miles from Inverness, he was overwhelmingly defeated by the Duke
of Cumberland, and his army of devoted Highlanders cut to pieces. Over
that bloody field the star of the Stuarts, a race which had so long
been a curse to Great Britain, sank to rise no more, and the Protestant
succession has never since been seriously called in question.
[Sidenote: A Fugitive in the Hebrides.]
The Pretender, with a few faithful friends, fled through the wild
country to the southwest, and, after many hardships and hairbreadth
escapes, reached the Outer Hebrides, and was concealed in a cave there,
on the wet and windy island of Benbecula. But the fact that he was on
this island soon became known to the government, and then his position
became perilous in the extreme. By sea and land every precaution was
taken to prevent his escape, every road, pass and landing place being
guarded, and the whole coast being patrolled by government vessels in
such numbers that no craft, however small, could approach or leave the
island unobserved, except perhaps under cover of darkness by special
good fortune, while some two thousand soldiers made diligent search on
shore; in addition to which a prize of one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars was offered for his capture. In this crisis of his affairs it
was agreed that a final attempt for his rescue should be made through
the agency of a young lady of the neighborhood, Miss Flora Macdonald,
then twenty-four years of age, two years younger than the Prince
himself, but whose selection for his perilous office argues a prudence
and strength of character far beyond her years.
[Sidenote: A woman to the Rescue.]
This remarkable young woman was well born, being the granddaughter of
the Rev. Angus Macdonald, known throughout the Isles as "the strong
minister," on account of his extraordinary physical strength. She
was also well bred, and well educated, having enjoyed not only the
advantages of her own home, and of the other respectable families of
her native island, but also the benefit of long residence in the home
of her kinsman, Sir Alexander Macdonald, of Monkstadt, in the Island
of Skye, and of three years in the Ladies' Seminary of Miss Henderson,
at Edinburgh. Sir Alexander was loyal to the house of Hanover, and
had refused to take any part in supporting the pretensions of Prince
Charles. Flora also was indifferent to the claim of the Stuarts, and
saved the Pretender's life out of pure compassion. Indeed, afterwards,
when she had been released from her imprisonment at London on the
charge of treason, and the Prince of Wales called on her and asked her,
half jocularly, how she dared to assist a rebel against his father's
throne, she answered with characteristic simplicity and firmness that
she would have done the same thing for him had she found him in like
distress.
[Sidenote: Feminine Courage and Resource.]
The plan adopted, and successfully carried out, for the escape of
the Pretender from Benbecula to Skye was this: Our heroine, having
expressed a strong desire to visit her mother, then living in Skye,
procured a passport for herself and two servants from her stepfather,
Captain Hugh Macdonald, who, though in command of a body of the King's
militia on Benbecula, shared the general compassion for the beaten
Prince, and the general desire that he might escape with his life.
One of these servants was Neil Macdonald, a faithful, intelligent,
and pretty well educated youth, who had spent several years in Paris,
and, therefore, spoke French fluently, and who, after the adventures
with which we are here concerned, followed the Pretender to France,
and became the father of the celebrated Marshal Macdonald, Duke of
Tarentum, one of Napoleon's great generals. The other, ostensibly
an awkward and overgrown Irish girl, was in reality Prince Charles
himself. With the principal member of the party thus disguised, and
armed with the passport for use in case of need, these three, with
a picked boat crew of six, set out on a dark night when the rain
was falling in torrents, and, after an exceedingly tempestuous and
perilous voyage, arrived safely in Skye, where the coolness, courage
and resourcefulness of Flora Macdonald baffled the King's officers,
overcame all difficulties, and eventually accomplished the desired
end of getting the Pretender to the mainland, whence, after three
months more of severe hardships, he got aboard of a French vessel, and
so reached the continent. That he was utterly unworthy of the great
service rendered him, is clearly shown by the fact, that though he
lived for more than forty-two years after he parted with her on the
beach of Portree, he never acknowledged, by letter or otherwise, the
dangers to which she exposed herself in order to save his life. At his
death his body was appropriately laid in St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome
with the rest of his Romish kindred.
[Sidenote: Flora Macdonald as Prisoner.]
Flora Macdonald's part in the escape of the young Pretender could not
long be concealed. As soon as it became known she was arrested, and
taken on board one of the King's vessels, and by General Campbell sent
to Dunstaffnage Castle, on Loch Etive, his note to the governor of the
castle referring to her as "a very pretty young rebel." After ten days
of imprisonment there, she was taken to Leith, the port of Edinburgh,
and placed on board the _Bridgewater_, where she was detained for
nearly three months, being lionized the while by the aristocracy and
professional men of the Scottish metropolis in a way that would have
turned a weaker head. An Episcopal clergyman of the place wrote of her
as follows:
"Although she was easy and cheerful, yet she had a certain mixture of
gravity in all her behavior, which became her situation exceedingly
well, and set her off to great advantage. She is of a low stature, of a
fair complexion, and well enough shaped. One would not discern by her
conversation that she had spent all her former days in the Highlands,
for she talks English easily, and not at all through the Erse tone. She
has a sweet voice, and sings well; and no lady, Edinburgh-bred, can
acquit herself better at the tea-table, than what she did when in Leith
Roads. Her wise conduct, in one of the most perplexing scenes that can
happen in life--her fortitude and good sense--are memorable instances
of the strength of a female mind, even in those years that are tender
and inexperienced."
In November, 1746, the _Bridgewater_ sailed, with our heroine and
others, to London, where they were to stand trial on charges of
treason. Her popularity, however, was so great, and public sentiment
so strongly opposed to the infliction of any stern penalty upon a
young and attractive woman for the performance of a self-sacrificing
act of humanity, that, after a short confinement in the gloomy Tower
of London, whose walls have enclosed so many heavy hearts in the
course of the centuries, she was turned over to friends, who became
responsible to the government for her appearance when demanded, and,
after remaining a state prisoner in this mitigated manner for some
twelve months, she was set at liberty, under the Act of Indemnity
of 1747. The first use she made of her freedom was to solicit as a
special favor that her fellow-prisoners from the Isles should be given
the same liberty as herself, and the request was granted, one of those
thus released being her future father-in-law, Macdonald of Kingsburgh.
[Sidenote: Her Marriage.]
Some three years after her return to her native islands, she was
married, in 1750, to Allan Macdonald. Boswell, in his _Journal of a
Tour to the Hebrides_, thus describes the man to whom our heroine
yielded her heart and hand:
"He was completely the figure of a gallant Highlander, exhibiting the
graceful mien and manly looks which our popular Scotch song has justly
attributed to that character. He had his tartan plaid thrown around
him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a cockade,
a brown short coat, a tartan waistcoat with gold buttons, a bluish
philibeg, and tartan hose. He had jet-black hair, tied behind, and was
a large, stately man, with a steady, sensible countenance."
[Sidenote: She Entertains Dr. Johnson and Boswell.]
It was in 1773 that Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson were entertained at
the hospitable home of Allan Macdonald and his famous wife. The great
lexicographer and moralist was delighted with his hostess and describes
her as "a woman of middle stature, soft features, gentle manners, and
elegant presence." He asked her, as a special favor, to let him sleep
in the bed which had been occupied by the unfortunate Prince, a request
which she readily granted, adding, to his immense gratification, that
she would also furnish him with the identical sheets on which the
Prince had lain, and which, by the way, she kept till the end of her
days, taking them with her to North Carolina and back, and in which, at
her own request, her body was wrapped after her death. Before leaving
the house next morning, Dr. Johnson laid on his toilet table a slip
of paper containing the pencilled words, _Quantum cedat virtutibus
aurum_, which Boswell renders, "With virtue weighed, what worthless
trash is gold."
[Sidenote: She Moves to North Carolina.]
Through no mismanagement or extravagance of his own, but in consequence
of losses incurred by his father, by the part he had taken in the
Pretender's cause, Allan Macdonald had become seriously embarrassed,
and so, in the hope of mending his fortune, he determined to emigrate
to North Carolina, where many other families from Skye had already
settled. Accordingly, in 1774, with his wife and their nine children,
he sailed for Wilmington, and, after receiving various attentions
there, whither the fame of his wife had preceded them, they went up the
Cape Fear River to Cross Creek, now called Fayetteville, and after some
months in Cumberland county, where they were regular worshippers in the
Presbyterian Church, purchased a place on the borders of Richmond and
Montgomery counties, which they named Killiegray.
[Sidenote: Misfortunes in the New World.]
Their life in America was a sad one. Two of their children died,
a bereavement made the more trying to the mother because of the
absence of her husband, whose duties as a military officer required
his presence elsewhere. The Revolutionary War was on the point of
breaking out, and Governor Martin, seeing the honor paid to Allan
Macdonald by the Highlanders, made him brigadier-general of a command
of his countrymen, which became a part of the ill-fated army that was
defeated by the American patriots at the battle of Moore's Creek. He
was captured and committed to Halifax jail, Virginia, as a prisoner of
war. With misfortunes thickening around her, her husband in prison,
her five sons away from home in the service of the King, her youngest
daughter enfeebled by a dangerous attack of typhus fever, and her
adopted country in the throes of war, Flora Macdonald resolved, on the
recommendation of her imprisoned husband, to return to Scotland, and,
having obtained a passport through the kind offices of Captain Ingram,
of the American army, she went to Wilmington, and later to Charleston,
whence she sailed in 1779.
[Sidenote: Her Return to Scotland and her Last Days.]
During this voyage she had the last of her notable adventures, in
a sharp action between the vessel on which she sailed and a French
privateer. She characteristically refused to take shelter below during
the engagement, but appeared on deck, and encouraged the sailors,
assuring them of success. She had an arm broken in this battle, and was
accustomed to say afterwards that she had fought both for the house of
Stuart and the house of Hanover, but had been worsted in the service of
both.
When peace was restored between Britain and America, her husband was
released from his long imprisonment, and returned as speedily as
possible to Skye, where they continued to live comfortably and happily
for eight or nine years. She died on the 5th of March, 1790, and was
buried in the churchyard of Kilmuir, in the north end of Skye, her
funeral being more numerously attended than any other that has ever
taken place in the Western Isles.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Three or four months after our visit to Inverness, I had the
pleasure of meeting the sculptor of this striking statue, Mr. Alexander
Davidson, of Rome, and of talking with him at large about the heroine
of the Highlands.
CHAPTER XVII.
FROM SCOTLAND TO ENGLAND--WESTERN ROUTE.
STRATFORD-ON-AVON, _September 13, 1902_.
The finest expanses of heather that we saw in Scotland were on the
great moors through which our train ran southwards from Inverness, a
rolling sea of pinkish purple bloom, stretching for miles and miles
on every hand. Farther down we enjoyed the picturesqueness of the
Pass of Killiecrankie, but it was the history here rather than the
scenery which interested us, for it was here that Claverhouse, the
stony-hearted persecutor of the Covenanters, fought and won his last
battle, but lost his own life. Still farther south, at Dunkeld, we were
reminded of the heroic and successful resistance made by the staunch
men of Galloway to the hitherto victorious Highlanders, well described
in Mr. Crockett's _Lochinvar_, which, as many of my young readers know,
is a sort of sequel to _The Men of the Moss Hags_.
[Sidenote: In and around Perth.]
The Tay at Perth is a noble stream. It is said that when the Romans
came in sight of it, they exclaimed, "Ecce Tiber! Ecce campus Martius!"
The scornful resentment which Scotchmen feel at this comparison
of their beautiful river to the more famous Italian stream, which
Hawthorne somewhere describes as "a mud puddle in strenuous motion," is
expressed in the lines which Sir Walter Scott has placed at the head of
the first chapter of his _Fair Maid of Perth_:
"'Behold the Tiber!' the vain Roman cried,
Viewing the ample Tay from Baiglie's side;
But where's the Scot that would the vaunt repay,
And hail the puny Tiber for the Tay?"
It has been whimsically said that Perth is the smallest city in the
world, because it is situated between two inches. Inch was the old
Scottish word denoting an island or meadow. We were most interested, of
course, in the North Inch, where the judicial combat took place between
the two clans, and in which Henry Wynd and Conachar were engaged. The
name of one of these clans, the Clan Quhele, reminded me of the thrifty
little town built up by the Highland Scotch element in eastern North
Carolina. They called the town "Quhele." But the other native elements
of the population, not appreciating Scotch tradition and what seemed
to them an outlandish name, changed it in common use to "Shoe Heel,"
and this undignified designation of their town so completely ousted the
other that the people by act of legislature had the name changed to
"Maxton," that is, Mac's Town, for nine-tenths of the people in that
region are Macs, and mighty good people they are, too. We visited the
Fair Maid's House, and in the evening read the Magician's romance about
her. Through the great kindness of relatives and boyhood companions
of friends of ours in Richmond, who had the good fortune to be born
and brought up in Perth, we were given every opportunity to see the
interesting old city from every point of view, and both those of us
who climbed to the top of Kinnoul Hill, which an old traveller once
called "the glory of Scotland," and those of us who drove with the kind
friends above mentioned to Scone Palace, whence the ancient crowning
stone now in Westminster Abbey was taken, were fully agreed that the
place richly deserved its affectionate name of "The Fair City." One
member of our party made an excursion one day from Perth to Kirriemuir,
the "Thrums" of Mr. Barrie's stories, while two others devoted the day
to an excursion in the other direction to the beautifully situated
town of Crieff, world renowned as a health resort. Here we were most
pleasantly entertained by the kind friends in whose delightful home I
was a guest at Glasgow in 1896. Any one of the drives about Crieff on
a perfect day, such as we had, will give one a new impression of the
loveliness of Perthshire, the district of Scotland to which Sir Walter
awards the palm for beauty.
On my former visit, I had made a detour from Perth, in this same
direction, for the purpose of seeing Logiealmond, the "Drumtochty" of
Ian Maclaren, which is only a few miles from Crieff, and had visited
the Free Church, in which the young pastor of the _Bonnie Brier Bush_
stories preached "his mother's sermon," and "spoke a gude word for
Jesus Christ"; and the Established Church, where, under a big elm, the
nippy tongue of Jamie Soutar was wont to wag on Sunday mornings; and
the farm of Burnbrae, and other places in the glen which has now become
so famous. I am sorry to say that Dr. John Watson's later development,
both theological and literary, has not been so satisfactory as was once
expected.
[Sidenote: Southwest Scotland and the English Lakes.]
On our way down to Edinburgh we had a glimpse from the car windows of
Loch Leven, and the island castle in which Mary Queen of Scots was
confined to keep her out of mischief, and in connection therewith
recalled what we could of _The Monastery_ and _The Abbot_, the former
one of the least successful, and the latter one of the most successful
of Scott's romances. We had a glimpse also of Dunfermline, the
birthplace of Andrew Carnegie, to say nothing of its ancient renown,
crossed the Forth Bridge once more, made a brief stay in Edinburgh, and
pushed on to Ayr, passing the battlefield of Ayrsmoss and other points
of interest in connection with the Covenanters. We could give only two
days to Ayr, but saw the birthplace of Burns, Auld Alloway Kirk, Bonnie
Doon, and the various memorials of the poet; then went to Dumfries
principally to see the Burns monuments there, passing reluctantly
through the Covenanter country without stopping. From Dumfries we
crossed the border, passing the original Gretna Green, where for more
than a hundred years the runaway couples from England were married, and
went direct to Keswick, at the head of Derwentwater, for the purpose
of seeing something of the English Lake District. Skiddaw is a noble
and satisfying mountain. We were interested also in the memorials of
Southey at Crossthwaite Church. But Southey is responsible for the
severest disappointment that comes to travellers in the Lake District.
By his artificial and jingling lines on "How the water comes down at
Lodore," he has raised expectations which the poor little falls at the
foot of Derwentwater cannot realize. The American who came there and
sat down on a rock and watched the falls for a while, and then declared
that there was at least a gill of water coming down, was hardly guilty
of a greater exaggeration in one direction than Southey in the other.
But there is no other disappointment about the scenery of the English
Lakes. It is lovely. It is said that a famous classical scholar,
preaching to a small congregation of rustics in the Lake District,
said to them, "In this beautiful country, my brethren, you have an
apotheosis of nature and an apodeikneusis of theocratic omnipotence!"
We trust that the sentiment which he tried to express was all right,
notwithstanding the insufferably pedantic form of it. Of course we
took the coach from Keswick to Windermere, stopping for the night at
Ambleside, and visiting the grave of Wordsworth hard by the clear and
placid stream, an ideal resting-place for the poet of nature.
[Sidenote: Chester and Lichfield.]
Chester, with its quaint Rows, and red sandstone cathedral, and its
high promenade on top of the walls encircling the old part of the
town, and especially its Roman remains--for Chester is fundamentally a
Roman town, as its name indicates (it was the Castra of the Twentieth
Legion)--interested us, as did also Eaton Hall, the magnificent seat of
the Duke of Westminster, three miles distant; but we had rain, rain,
rain, and besides, we had lingered so long in the fascinating "land
of the mountain and the flood" that we were anxious to push on to
places of still more interest to us. So we did not tarry there long.
We treated Coventry, Kenilworth, Leamington, and even Lichfield, in
the same touch-and-go fashion. We could not bring ourselves to omit
Lichfield altogether, partly because of its lovely cathedral, but
chiefly because it was the town of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the greatest
man of books that ever lived. Therefore, we stopped there long enough
to go through the rich collection of Johnson relics in the house where
he was brought up, to study the monument to him in the marketplace in
front, and to inspect the cathedral. Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ is
the best biography in the English language. The careful reading of it
is a pretty thorough education in literature. I fear it is not read as
much as it used to be. People are too much occupied with the ephemeral
effusions of contemporary mediocrities to read the great books.
Our visit to this town reminded me of a story that I had read years ago
of a certain bishop of Lichfield who had a reputation for repartee and
ready replies to difficult questions. In a crowded room one evening,
when it was not known that the bishop was present, the conversation
turned to this aptness of his, and a man said, "I should like to meet
that bishop of Lichfield; I'd put a question to him that would puzzle
him."
"Very well," said a voice from another corner, "now is your time, for I
am the bishop."
The first speaker was somewhat taken aback, but recovered himself
sufficiently to say, "Well, my lord, can you tell me the way to heaven?"
"Nothing easier," answered the bishop, "you have only to turn to the
right and go straight ahead."
[Sidenote: The Shakespeare Country.]
And now we are off for the Shakespeare country, not far away. Very
different from the bold scenery of Scotland is that of this part of
England. Here one sees--
"The ground's most gentle dimplement
(As if God's finger touched, but did not press,
In making England)--such an up and down
Of verdure; nothing too much up and down,
A ripple of land, such little hills the sky
Can stoop to tenderly and the wheat fields climb."
The most striking feature of an English landscape to an American eye
is the _extraordinary finish_--lawns, fields, fences, houses, roads,
are all such as can belong only to an old and prosperous country. An
Oxford man, when asked how they managed to get such perfect sward in
the college lawns, replied: "It is the simplest thing in the world; you
have only to mow and roll regularly _for about four hundred years_."
At Stratford-on-Avon we stayed at the Red Horse Inn, Washington
Irving's hotel when here. We visited Anne Hathaway's cottage, the
school of the poet's boyhood, the ugly and staring Shakespeare
memorial, and the other points of interest. It is familiar ground to
most readers, and I shall refer to only two things.
[Sidenote: The American Window at Stratford.]
In the church where Shakespeare is buried there is an American window,
not yet finished when I first saw it, and there was a box hard by to
receive the donations of American visitors. The rich stained glass
represents the infant Christ in his mother's arms, and on either
side English and American worthies in attitudes of adoration. On one
side are Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus and William Penn,
representative pious _Americans_, and on the other Bishop Egwin of
Worcester, "King Charles the Martyr and Archbishop Laud!" The fact that
more than two thousand dollars have been contributed for this window
is conclusive proof of the humiliating fact that a large number of the
Americans who visit Stratford are ninnies. I venture the assertion
that their admiration for Shakespeare is humbug, that they have not
sufficient intelligence to appreciate his real worth, and that they
could stand about as good an examination on the immortal plays as that
King George who, after vain attempts to read Shakespeare, gave it up
with the remark that it was very dull stuff. He was "clever just like
a donkey," as one of our European guides said when we asked him about
the intellectual grade of certain monks, and these citizens of a free
country who give money for a monument to Charles I. and Archbishop
Laud are equally clever. I was speaking of this window to one of the
most interesting men I met in Scotland, my host, the learned and
distinguished Dr. W. G. Blackie, and he put the whole thing into "the
husk o' a hazel" with the remark that "Charles the First was one of the
most incorrigible liars that ever lived." He was, and he was moreover
the inveterate foe of every principle represented by the American
Government. And yet Americans are contributing to a memorial window of
him and Laud!
[Sidenote: English in England.]
As one wanders about the streets of the quaint English town he is beset
from time to time by groups of children, who in a kind of humming or
chanting chorus recite the leading facts in the life of Shakespeare,
for which they expect, of course, to receive a small fee. The substance
and sound of this curious monotone have been represented approximately
as follows: "William Shykespeare, the gryte poet, was born in
Stratford-on-Avon in 1564--the 'ouse in which he dwelt may still be
seen--'is father in the gryte poet's boyhood was 'igh bailiff of the
plyce--one who shykes a spear is the meaning of 'is nyme," and so on.
In like manner the London newsboys say, "Pipers, sir?" As a friend of
mine puts it, they do not "label your trunks" here, but "libel your
boxes," and they call the Tate Gallery "Tight." That reminds me of the
queer pronunciation of many proper names in Great Britain. Of course
you know that Thames is pronounced Temz, and Greenwich Grinij, and
Beauchamp Beecham, and Gloucester Gloster, and Brougham Broom. But
did you know that Kirkcudbright was pronounced Kirk-coó-bree, that at
Cambridge they call Caius College Keys College, and that at Oxford they
call Magdalen College Maudlen College? The Cockburn Hotel at which we
stopped in Edinburgh is called Coburn. So Colquhoun is Cohoon, Wemyss
is Weems, Glamis is Glams, Charteris is Charters, Methuen is Methven,
Cholmondeley is Chumley, Marjoribanks is Marchbanks, Ruthven is Riven,
DeBelvoir is De Beever and Menzies is Mingis. Worse yet, Bethune is
Beeten, Levison-Gower is Luson-Gore, Colclough is Coatley, St. John is
Sinjun, St. Leger is Silleger, and Uttoxeter is Uxeter. But, then, we
have in Virginia the name Enroughty pronounced Darby. High Holborn in
London is 'I 'Obun. Some of their contractions are remarkable. The
name of Bunhill Fields, the great Nonconformist burying-ground, is
short for Bone Hill. The famous charity school, where the boys wear
blue coats, is called "The Blukkit School," instead of the Blue Coat
School. Rotten Row, the fashionable track for horseback riders in Hyde
Park, is an ugly contraction of the French words _route de roi_, the
king's road, because there was a time when only the king was allowed to
use it. I cannot leave this subject without telling you that the name
of Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, who afforded you so much amusement
when you were reading _The Legend of Montrose_, is called in Scotland
Diggety instead of Dalgetty.
Other things of interest in this connection are that shoes are not
shoes in England, they are boots. If you ask for shoes they will give
you slippers. There are no overshoes, only galoches. No shirtwaists,
nothing but blouses. You can't get a spool of thread, but a reel of
cotton. Locomotive engineers are called "drivers," and conductors are
called "guards." In Scotland all the church notices are "intimations."
CHAPTER XVIII.
A VISIT TO RUGBY AND A TRAMP TO THE WHITE HORSE HILL.
LONDON, _September 20, 1902_.
[Sidenote: Tom Brown's School-days at Rugby.]
One would think at first view that it would be as easy to write a good
book for boys about school life as to write a good story about any
other subject. But it does not seem to be so. At any rate, many gifted
and practised authors have attempted it, with only moderate success.
Archdeacon Farrar, one of the most versatile writers of our time, has
given us a pretty good story of school life in his _St. Winifred's_,
but the work is marred by its too constant appeal to morbid emotion.
Mr. Rudyard Kipling, too, has tried his hand on a book for boys,
and has only given us what Dr. Robertson Nicoll justly calls "that
detestable thing," _Stalky & Co_. The less boys have to do with that
kind of books the better. High hopes were raised by the announcement
that the Rev. John Watson, D. D., of Liverpool, better known as "Ian
Maclaren," author of _Beside the Bonny Brier Bush_, and many other
exceedingly popular volumes, was to publish a book on school-boy life.
It was known that he had the requisite talent, sympathy and humor,
that he was a scholarly and high-minded man, and that he had sons of
his own. Surely these are just the qualifications that a man ought to
have in order to write an ideal book for boys. But Dr. Watson's book,
_Young Barbarians_, was a disappointment. It has many true and bright
and laughable things in it, and it glorifies manliness and pluck, but
it often ridicules the good boys of the school, the boys who give the
teacher no trouble and perform their tasks faithfully, and it makes the
most mischievous and lawless boy in school its hero. Besides, it is not
one continuous story, but a group of sketches.
In short, I know only one book of this class having the first order of
merit, and that is _Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby_. In my judgment,
that is the best book for boys that has yet been written, the most
natural, the most interesting, the most wholesome. It has an abiding
charm. I read it as a boy, and I have read it again and again since I
was grown. It is one of the books whose scenes I have always wished
to visit. The opportunity came a few days ago while I was travelling
through Central England with several youngsters, ranging from eleven
years to fifteen, to whom I had read _Tom Brown_, and who wished to
visit Rugby.
[Sidenote: The Rugby of to-day.]
The place is now an important railway junction, with a wilderness of
tracks, and trains flying in and out in every direction. What a change
in the mode of travel since the days of the Pig and Whistle which
brought Tom down to Rugby! The school itself, however, is much the
same--the venerable buildings and quadrangles; the doctor's house,
with its wealth of vines; the wide sweep of green playground, where
Tom had his memorable first experience at football, and "the island,"
as the mound on one side was called. On the bulletin board was an
announcement about "hare and hounds," so that this splendid game, so
finely described in the book, is evidently still a favorite. One marked
innovation since Tom's time is the introduction of the military feature
into the school. The boys are now regularly drilled, and in passing
through the buildings one sees the rows of rifles neatly ranged along
the walls. It is one of many indications of England's effort to keep
up a full stream of recruits for her army.
In the library we are shown the long gilt hand from the old clock in
the school tower, the very hand on which Tom and East scratched their
names as a suitable conclusion to a certain series of exploits; and,
looking closely, we see the name "Thomas Hughes." He was the original
of Tom Brown, and to him we are indebted for this unrivalled story
of life at school. Just in front of the library building stands a
singularly fit and vital bronze statue of Judge Hughes, represented
as wearing a sack coat, informal, manly, keenly intelligent, kind and
true--the very thing to appeal to boys.
I spoke above of the generally unchanged appearance of the buildings.
But the library just mentioned is an exception, being new; and another
exception is the very large and handsome new chapel of variegated
brick, so that we no longer see it just as it was when Tom, on
revisiting Rugby, knelt before Dr. Arnold's tomb, and lifted a subdued
and thankful heart to God. But the remains of the great head-master
still lie there, and on one side of the chapel is a good recumbent
statue of Arnold, and just below it a similar one of his favorite
pupil, Stanley, afterwards the celebrated dean of Westminster.
[Sidenote: Our Expedition to Tom Brown's Birthplace.]
We left Rugby regretfully, but we were not through with the scenes
connected with Tom Brown, by any means, for, a few days later, while
sojourning at Oxford, I proposed one evening to our young people
that we should make an expedition to the White Horse Vale, where
Tom was born, and where, moreover, we could see that most ancient,
most striking, and most durable of Saxon monuments, the huge figure
of a galloping horse, three hundred and seventy feet long, cut in
the hillside by removing the turf to the depth of a foot or two and
exposing the white chalk beneath, made by King Alfred's soldiers to
commemorate his great victory over the Danes at this place--to say
nothing of a great fortified Roman camp on top of the same hill. The
suggestion was agreed to with alacrity, and next morning, after an
early breakfast, we took a train from Oxford down the Thames Valley,
but at Didcot turned westward, and soon came to Wantage, the birthplace
of Alfred the Great, of whom there is a statue in the marketplace,
the native town also of Bishop Butler, the author of the immortal
_Analogy_, and the residence at present of the notorious leader of
Tammany Hall, New York, Richard Croker, who has his racing stables here.
The country through which we are passing is as flat as a Western
prairie, but since leaving Didcot we have come in sight of a range
of chalk hills covered with the greenest of grass, running parallel
with the railway on our left, and distant some two or three miles. The
highest point in this range is the White Horse Hill--our destination.
At Uffington Station we leave the train and begin our tramp, first of
two miles to Uffington village, where, as we pass the parish school,
we have the good fortune to see the children all out at play, as in
the time when Harry Winburn taught Tom Brown that valuable trick
in wrestling, and when Tom and Jacob Doodlecalf were caught by the
wheelwright while performing in the porch in a manner not conducive to
the gravity and order of the school.
[Sidenote: The Highest Horse we ever Mounted.]
The ground has been level thus far, but for the next mile or so it
rises gently, the great white figure on the hill before us becoming
more distinct as we come around in front of it somewhat, and then when
we come to the foot of the hill itself we find a sharp climb before
us, and are presently going almost straight up. Up, up we go. Let us
pause for a rest. Up again. Another pause. Now look back. What a lovely
view! One more pull for the top, and here we are at last, standing
on the broad tail of the White Horse, mopping our brows with our
handkerchiefs, and panting with the exertion, while the wind blows a
stiff gale from the west. But we yield the floor for a few moments to
the man who first told us about this place:
What a hill is the White Horse Hill! There it stands right up above all
the rest, nine hundred feet above the sea, the boldest, bravest shape
for a chalk hill that you ever saw. Let us go up to the top of him, and
see what is to be found there. Ay, you may well wonder and think it odd
you never heard of this before....
[Sidenote: The Roman Camp.]
Yes, it's a magnificent Roman camp, and no mistake, with gates and
ditch and mounds, all as complete as it was twenty years after the
strong old rogues had left it. Here, right up on the highest point,
from which they say you can see eleven counties, they trenched round
all the tableland, some twelve or fourteen acres, as was their custom,
for they couldn't bear anybody to overlook them, and made their eyrie.
The ground falls away rapidly on all sides. Was there ever such turf
in the whole world? You sink up to your ankles at every step, and yet
the spring of it is delicious. There is always a breeze in the "camp,"
as it is called; and here it lies, just as the Romans left it.... It
is altogether a place that you won't forget,--a place to open a man's
soul and make him prophesy, as he looks down on that great vale spread
out as the garden of the Lord before him, and wave on wave of the
mysterious downs behind; and to the right and left the chalk hills
running away into the distance, along which he can trace for miles the
old Roman road, "the Ridgeway" ("the Rudge," as the country folk call
it), keeping straight along the highest back of the hills;--such a
place as Balak brought Balaam to and told him to prophesy against the
people in the valley beneath. And he could not, neither shall you, for
they are a people of the Lord who abide there.
[Sidenote: King Alfred's Defeat of the Danes.]
And now we leave the camp, and descend towards the west and are on the
Ash-down. We are treading on heroes. For this is the actual place where
our Alfred won his great battle, the battle of Ash-down, which broke
the Danish power, and made England a Christian land. The Danes held the
camp and the slope where we are standing--the whole crown of the hill,
in fact. "The heathen had beforehand seized the higher ground," as old
Asser says, having wasted everything behind them from London, and being
just ready to burst down on the fair Vale, Alfred's own birthplace and
heritage. And up the heights came the Saxons, "and there the battle was
joined with a mighty shout, and the pagans were defeated with great
slaughter." After which crowning mercy the pious king, that there might
never be wanting a sign and a memorial to the countryside, carved out
on the northern side of the chalk hill, under the camp, where it is
almost precipitous, the great Saxon white horse, which he who will may
see from the railway, and which gives its name to the vale, over which
it has looked these thousand years and more.
[Sidenote: The Manger and the Dragon's Hill.]
Right down below the White Horse is a curious deep and broad gully,
called "the manger" [because it is right under the mouth of the White
Horse], into one side of which the hills fall with a series of the
most lovely sweeping curves, known as "the Giant's Stairs"; they are
not a bit like stairs, but I never saw anything like them anywhere
else, with their short, green turf, and tender bluebells, and gossamer
and thistle-down gleaming in the sun, and the sheep paths running along
their sides like ruled lines.
The other side of the Manger is formed by the Dragon's Hill, a curious
little round self-confident fellow, thrown forward from the range,
utterly unlike everything round him. On this hill some deliverer of
mankind--St. George, the country folk used to tell me--killed a dragon.
Whether it were St. George I cannot say; but surely a dragon was killed
there, for you may see the marks yet where his blood ran down, and
more by token the place where it ran down is the easiest way up the
hillside. So far Thomas Hughes.
As a truthful chronicler, I must record that some of our party, tempted
by the precipitous slope covered with luxuriant grass, slid down the
hill from the White Horse into the Manger, sitting down on the turf and
letting themselves go, with the result of wrecking a pair of trousers
or so, and carrying away some portion of the fertile soil of Berks to
Oxford.
[Sidenote: The Blowing Stone.]
Passing along the ridgeway to the west for about a mile, we may come
to Wayland Smith's forge, a cave familiar to readers of _Kenilworth_,
but we content ourselves with a distant view, and, descending the hill,
turn to the east, and, after a brisk walk of three or four miles,
we halt under a fine old tree in front of a cottage door, to see
another object described in _Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby_, the
celebrated Blowing Stone, "a square lump of stone, some three feet and
a half high, perforated with two or three queer holes, like petrified
antediluvian rat holes." It is chained to the tree and secured with a
padlock. Instead of the innkeeper, for whom Mr. Hughes was so fearful
lest he should burst or have apoplexy when he blew the stone, a very
comely matron came out of the cottage and blew it for us--then we
all blew it in turn. The sound is described exactly in the book: "a
grewsome sound, between a moan and a roar, spreads itself away over
the valley, and up the hillside, and into the woods at the back of the
house, a ghost-like, awful voice." This stone is said to have been used
in old times to give warning and summons in time of war.
In his other book, on _The Scouring of the White Horse_, that is, the
scraping away of the accumulated sand and grass, which is the occasion
every year for the gathering of the whole countryside for games and
festivities, Judge Hughes gives the following ballad in the country
dialect, which contains a reference to this use of the stone:
"The owed White Horse wants zettin to rights,
And the 'Squire hev promised good cheer,
Zo we'll gee un a scrape to kip un in zhape,
An a'll last for many a year.
"A was made a lang, lang time ago,
Wi a good dale o' labor and pains,
By King Alfred the Great when he spwiled their consate
And caddled[4] they wosbirds,[5] the Danes.
"The Bleawin' Stwun in days gone by
Wur King Alfred's bugle harn,
And the tharnin' tree you med plainly zee
As is called King Alfred's tharn."
[Sidenote: The Effect upon our Appetite.]
But the sun is now sinking westward, and we have still a long walk
before us to the railroad, and in order to catch our train it must
be a rapid walk as well. We have been so much interested that we did
not think of anything to eat until now, but the vigorous exercise has
given us keen appetites, and we begin to inquire for food. None to be
had. So we set out hungry on our forced march to the station, and by
steady toil reach it a few minutes before the arrival of our train,
having tramped thirteen long miles up hill and down dale since leaving
the train there that morning. In the compartment which we entered were
a couple of English ladies, who presently opened a small case of tea
things, lighted a spirit lamp, and brewed their tea. Then _they_ drank
it. That was the best tea I ever--smelled. The delicious aroma of it
tantalized and tormented our weary and hungry pedestrians for miles,
and put an edge on our appetites that made obedience to the tenth
commandment an utter impossibility.
It may seem incredible, but it is a fact that our friend, Mr. Bird,
and two of the youngsters in the party, did four miles more on foot
at Wantage later on in the same day. You may be sure there was hearty
eating and sound sleeping when we all got back to our quarters at
Oxford that night, well satisfied with our memorable visit to the White
Horse and the Blowing Stone.
Our sojourn at Oxford, with her wealth of mellow architecture and her
inspiring historical and literary associations,--our visits to Windsor
Castle, Eton College, and Stoke Pogis, where Gray wrote his immortal
"Elegy,"--and our excursions to Hampton Court, with its wonderful grape
vine and its crowding memories of Wolsey, Cromwell, and William III.,
and to Kingston, Richmond Hill, Kew Gardens, Kensington and the Crystal
Palace,--were all full of interest, but must be passed over here, as
there are subjects of greater importance connected with London which
will occupy all the remaining space that we can give to England.
[Illustration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD.]
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Caddled, worried.
[5] Wosbird, bird of woe, of evil omen.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MOST INTERESTING BUILDING IN THE WORLD.
LONDON, _October 2, 1902_.
[Sidenote: The Birthplace of the Shorter Catechism.]
Some months ago, when the kind urgency of my friends made it plain to
me that I should go abroad for a while, and when it was decided that
certain young students of the Shorter Catechism in my family should go
with me, I promised them a visit to the birthplace of that marvellous
compendium of biblical doctrine, which for two hundred and fifty
years has been such a weariness to the flesh of Presbyterian children
throughout the English-speaking world, especially on Sunday afternoons,
and which is such a priceless possession of their adult years when once
thoroughly acquired in youth; but I told them that the condition on
which alone I could take them with a clear conscience to the spot where
that matchless little book was written, was that they should memorize
it perfectly beforehand, and I had the satisfaction before leaving
home of hearing them all recite it without a mistake; and, in order to
retain with ease what was thus acquired with toil, they have continued
to recite it regularly from beginning to end every Sunday afternoon.
This is, of course, nothing more than hundreds of other children have
done, and I do not mention it as anything remarkable, but only as
suggesting one reason for the eager interest with which we were looking
forward to our visit to a certain part of Westminster Abbey. And so, on
the very first morning after our first arrival in London, as soon as
we had finished breakfast, we hurried down to the gray old minster,
where, in the midst of the roaring city, so many of the restless makers
of the world's history, literature and art are now quietly sleeping;
for we intended, after seeing where the Westminster Assembly sat, to
give a full morning to the other historical memorials of the Abbey.
[Sidenote: The Coronation Postponed.]
Imagine, then, our disappointment, on reaching the place, to find the
Abbey closed, and to learn from the policeman at the door that no one
knew when it would be opened again, certainly not for several weeks.
You see, the building had been elaborately decorated for the coronation
of King Edward VII., for this is where all the Kings of England have
been crowned, from the time of William the Conqueror down; and while we
were crossing the ocean King Edward became very ill and had to undergo
a surgical operation, as we learned on landing at Southampton, and so
the great ceremonies planned for June 26th had to be postponed. But
the costly draperies used in the decorations were still in position,
and had to remain till it should be seen whether the King would be
well enough in a few weeks to receive the crown; and of course the
public could not be admitted to the Abbey till these sumptuous fabrics
had either served their original purpose or been removed. Happily the
King did recover in a few weeks, to the great joy of his subjects,
who, chastened and subdued by their sovereign's sickness at a time so
critical, came to the coronation on the second date appointed, August
9th, in a more thankful, if less jubilant, temper.
[Sidenote: The Abbey still Closed.]
Meantime, however, we had gone on to Scotland, after three weeks in
London, feeling sure that on our return there would be nothing to
prevent our seeing the great Abbey to our hearts' content. But no;
after two full months in Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands and
the west of England, we found the Abbey still closed. The work of
removing the temporary structures and hangings used at the coronation
was still going on, a fact which suggests forcibly the extent of
these preparations, and, perhaps, also the leisureliness of English
workmen, who are probably not accustomed to doing things as rapidly as
Americans. But we had no idea of being deprived altogether of a sight
of the interior of the Abbey by their slowness. London is a place of
endless interest to visitors; and so, though we had already given three
weeks to the principal sights of the city, we contentedly settled
down for two weeks more there, till the work in the Abbey should be
finished. At last it was all done, and on October 1st the building was
again opened. We were among the first on the ground, and gave two full
days to as thorough an examination of the building and its unparalleled
contents as was practicable within that time.
[Sidenote: The Assembly of Divines.]
Of this inspection of the Abbey and its monuments in general we shall
have something to say after a while, but for the present let us turn
our attention to those parts of the building which are associated with
the work of the famous Assembly of ministers and other scholars who met
here in 1643 by ordinance of Parliament "to establish a new platform
of worship and discipline to this nation for all time to come," and to
whose pious and learned labors, extending through more than five years
and a half, and occupying one thousand one hundred and sixty-three
sessions, the world is indebted for the Larger and Shorter Catechisms
and that great Confession of Faith "which, alone within these islands,
was imposed by law on the whole kingdom," and which, by its fidelity
to Scripture, its logical coherence, and the majesty and fervor of its
style, still commands the adherence of a multitude of the clearest and
strongest minds in Christendom.
[Sidenote: The Two Places of Meeting.]
The two parts of the Abbey especially connected with the work of the
Assembly are at the two opposite ends of the building: the Chapel
of Henry VII. at the eastern end, and the Jerusalem Chamber at the
western; the one the most beautiful chapel in the world, the other a
plain but comfortable rectangular room. Immediately after the service
with which the Assembly was opened, and in which both houses of
Parliament took part, and which was probably held in the choir of the
Abbey, where the regular daily services now take place, the members
appointed to the Assembly ascended the steps to the Chapel of Henry
VII., and there the enrollment was made and the earlier sessions held.
That was in summer, but when the weather became colder the Assembly
gladly forsook the architectural magnificence of this chapel, called
by Leland "the miracle of the world," for the comfortable warmth of
the homely room at the other end of the Abbey; for, as Robert Baillie,
"the Boswell of the Assembly," says in his delightful account of the
proceedings, the Jerusalem Chamber "has a good fyre, which is some
dainties at London."
[Sidenote: The Two Types of Worship.]
In this removal of the historic Assembly from the cold splendor of
the finest perpendicular building in England to the plain comfort
and common-sense arrangements of the little rectangular room where
they were to reason together through so many months concerning the
teachings of Scripture, one may see a parable of the Assembly's action
in rejecting the ritualistic type of worship, with its predominating
appeal to the æsthetic sensibilities through elaborate ceremonies, and
its adoption of the New Testament type, with its predominating appeal
to the mind through the oral teaching of truth. They were convinced
that the spiritual life can be really nourished and developed only
by the intelligent apprehension of the truth. Their own statement
of the matter, drawn up in this very room, is that "the Spirit of
God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an
effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building
them up in holiness and comfort, through faith unto salvation." And
so those churches which have adopted the standards then framed by the
Westminster divines have steadily magnified the didactic element of
public worship, accentuating the teaching function of the minister to
the extinction of the priestly.
[Sidenote: Interior of the Jerusalem Chamber.]
We pass from the nave of the Abbey through a door on the south side
into the ancient cloisters, and, turning to the right, ring at the door
of the janitor. A cherry-cheeked woman appears, and, when we state
that we wish to see the Jerusalem Chamber, she brings a key, turns
with us again to the right, which brings us to the southwest corner
of the Abbey, and ushers us through an ante-room into the celebrated
meeting-place of the great Assembly, a rectangular room, running north
and south, about forty feet in length by twenty in breadth, with a
large double window in the western side opposite the spacious fireplace
referred to by Baillie, and another fine window in the northern end,
which, by the way, contains the finest stained glass in the whole Abbey.
A long table, covered with a plain green cloth, occupies the centre of
the room, with chairs around it ready for convocation; for the room is
still regularly used for the meetings of ecclesiastical functionaries,
occasionally also for special gatherings of wider interest, the most
notable of which, since the Westminster Assembly, was the series of
sessions held here by the company of scholars who had been appointed to
revise the common English version of the Scriptures, and who, in 1885,
brought that immensely difficult and important work to a successful
conclusion by their publication of the Revised Version of the Old
Testament.
This room has been the scene of many other memorable events, as we
shall presently see, but none of them, nor all of them, can equal in
interest and importance the work of that great Assembly which two
hundred and fifty years ago formulated that lofty ideal of human life
so familiar to us in the answer to the first question of the Shorter
Catechism: What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify
God and to enjoy him forever--a statement which has probably had a
deeper and wider influence for good in the Anglo-Saxon world than any
other twelve words ever written by uninspired men.
[Sidenote: Exterior of the Jerusalem Chamber.]
The Jerusalem Chamber, in which the Westminster Assembly of divines
held its long sessions and did its immortal work, is a low building
which runs along the southern half of the front of the Abbey, and is
easily seen to the right of the main door in any picture of the great
western facade. It strikes one at first as an architectural blunder,
except as a foil to the lofty front of the main structure, but it has
served many great practical uses. It was built about five hundred years
ago, in the old days of monastery, as a guest chamber for the Abbot's
house. I may pause here a moment to remind my younger readers of the
fact that the word "minster," as in "Westminster," is equivalent to
monastery, from the Latin _monasterium_, and the still more curious
fact that the word has been preserved more nearly in its Latin form
in the Monster Tavern and the Monster Omnibuses, well known in the
immediate neighborhood of the Abbey, which derive their name from the
same ancient monastery now known as Westminster.
[Sidenote: Origin of its Name.]
The name, Jerusalem Chamber, seems to have been derived from the
tapestries with which the walls were originally hung, and which
portrayed different scenes in the history of Jerusalem. Before the
meeting of the Westminster Assembly, however, these had been replaced
by another series of pictures representing the planets, and it is to
these that Baillie refers when he tells us that the room was "well
hung." To the same keen observer, whom nothing escaped, we are indebted
for the information that the light from the great window was softened
by "curtains of pale thread with red roses." But the curtains and
tapestries that Baillie saw have in turn given place to those which
the visitor now sees on the walls, and which do not call for special
notice here.
[Sidenote: Death of Henry IV.]
The first tapestries, however, those which gave the room
its name, are connected with one of the most memorable events that
ever occurred in this historic apartment, the death of Henry IV.,
in fulfillment, as the King thought, of the prophecy that he should
die in Jerusalem. In his old age Henry projected a visit to the Holy
Sepulchre at Jerusalem, by way of penance for his usurpation, and when
the galleys were already in port to bear him on his journey, he came
to pay his parting devotions at the shrine of Edward the Confessor in
Westminster Abbey. There he was seized with a chill, and, as the old
chronicler says, "became so sick that such as were about him feared
that he would have died right there; wherefore they, for his comfort,
bare him into the Abbot's place, and lodged him in a chamber, and there
upon a pallet laid him before the fire, where he lay in great agony a
certain time." When borne to the bed, which had meantime been prepared
for him in another room, the scene occurred which is so graphically
described by Shakespeare:
"_King Henry._--Doth any name particular belong
Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?
_Warwick._--'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.
_King Henry._--Laud be to God!--even there my life must end,
It hath been prophesied to me many years
I should not die but in Jerusalem;
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land:
But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die."
[Sidenote: Imprisonment of Sir Thomas More.]
But Henry IV. was not the only man who looked death in the face in
this room. Many years later, when Henry VIII. was just beginning
that infamous career of divorcing and beheading wives, and burning
Protestants as heretics, and hanging Romanists as traitors for saying
that the Pope was superior to the King in matters of religion--a career
which has made his name one of the most detestable in history--Sir
Thomas More, the noblest Englishman of his time, was arrested for his
refusal to swear that Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn was lawful,
and on his way to the Tower of London was confined for four days in
the Jerusalem Chamber. Shortly afterwards, under the act of Parliament
which directed that every one who refused to give the King a title
belonging to him was to be put to death as a traitor, Sir Thomas More
was executed on Tower Hill because he could not honestly give Henry the
title of Supreme Head of the Church of England.
Other dead bodies, too, besides that of Henry IV. have lain in this
room. The body of Dr. South, the witty and eloquent court preacher,
lay in state here. It was South who, when reading from the seventeenth
chapter of the Acts the accusation of the Thessalonian mob against
Paul and Silas--"These that have turned the world upside down are come
hither also"--remarked that it was well for the apostles to turn the
world upside down, because the devil had turned it downside up.
[Sidenote: Funeral of Joseph Addison.]
From the Jerusalem Chamber the body of the illustrious essayist,
Joseph Addison, after lying in state for four days, was carried forth
in that memorable funeral procession at dead of night which was led
by torchlight round the shrine of St. Edward and the graves of the
Plantagenets to the chapel of Henry VII., the body being finally laid
to rest opposite the Poet's Corner in the South Transept. "Such a
mark of national respect was due to the unsullied statesman, to the
accomplished scholar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to
the consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, above all,
to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule without
abusing it; who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social
reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue, after a long and disastrous
separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and
virtue by fanaticism." So wrote Lord Macaulay of Addison, reminding us,
at the same time, how Addison "was accustomed to walk by himself in
Westminster Abbey, and meditate on the condition of those who lay in
it"; and now Macaulay himself lies there close to the grave of Addison.
[Sidenote: Sir Isaac Newton.]
But the most illustrious man whose body has ever lain in state in the
Jerusalem Chamber is Sir Isaac Newton, the great philosopher, whom his
friends called "the whitest soul they had ever known," and of whom Pope
wrote the celebrated couplet:
"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said, _Let Newton be_, and all was light."
Such are some of the great names associated with the Jerusalem
Chamber--Henry IV., Thomas More, Robert South, Joseph Addison,
Isaac Newton--and to some of them the whole world is indebted, as
to Sir Thomas More for his calm refusal to purchase his life at
the cost of his convictions, and to Joseph Addison for all that he
was as an author, a man, and a Christian, and to Sir Isaac Newton
for his lofty character and his unparalleled services to the cause
of human knowledge; but, after all, it may be doubted whether the
world is more deeply indebted to any of them than to that body of
thoroughgoing scholars and profound thinkers who in this room two
centuries and a half ago formulated the statement that "effectual
calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin
and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and
renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus
Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel"--and one hundred and six
other propositions concerning the most momentous interests of human
existence, which for luminous condensation of truth have never been
surpassed in all the history of the human expression of the doctrines
of Scripture.
[Sidenote: An Architectural Triumph.]
Westminster Abbey is not wanting in architectural interest. Indeed, it
is pronounced by Mr. Freeman the most glorious of English churches,
and is said to be the one great church of England which retains its
beautiful ancient coloring undestroyed by so-called "restoration."
The exterior is singularly impressive, whether viewed from the east,
where the exquisite lacework of Henry VII.'s Chapel, with its richly
decorated buttresses, rivets the attention at the first glance; or
from the north, where we face the north transept, the front of which,
with its niches, its rose-window, and its great triple entrance, is
pronounced by Mr. Hare the richest part of the building externally;
or even from the west, where, in spite of the two comparatively late
and feeble towers, we have a noble front, the loftiness of which is
well brought out by "the low line of grey wall which indicates the
Jerusalem Chamber." The interior is still more beautiful, and, as we
have already seen, this beauty culminates in Henry VII.'s Chapel, the
loveliness of which is absolutely unrivalled in the whole world. In
his very sympathetic essay on Westminster Abbey in _The Sketch Book_,
Washington Irving says of this wonderful chapel: "On entering, the eye
is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the elaborate beauty of
sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into universal ornament,
incrusted with tracery, and scooped into niches, crowded with the
statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of
the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended
aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful
minuteness and airy security of a cobweb."
[Sidenote: Coronations and Burials.]
But the intrinsic beauty of the building is only a small part of the
explanation of the unique place which it holds in the interest of
mankind. The two real reasons are suggested by Waller's lines:
"That antique pile behold,
Where royal heads receive the sacred gold:
It gives them crowns, and does their ashes keep;
There made like gods, like mortals there they sleep,
Making the circle of their reign complete,
Those suns of empire, where they rise they set."
Coronation and burial! Here the nominal kings are crowned. Here they
and the real kings--those who by their genius and character really rule
the race--are buried.
[Sidenote: The Stone of Scone.]
In the chapel of Edward the Confessor stands a scratched and battered
wooden chair, six hundred years old, beneath the seat of which is
inserted a thick, flat block of reddish sandstone. This is the
celebrated Stone of Destiny, about the adventures and travels of which
so many incredible stories have been told, from the time of its alleged
use by the patriarch Jacob as a pillar at Bethel, till the time of its
arrival at Scone, near Perth, in Scotland. It is certain that from the
middle of the twelfth century all the Scottish kings were crowned on
this stone, till it was captured and carried to London by Edward I.,
and that in the oak chair beneath which the stone was then enclosed all
the kings of England since the time of Edward I. have been crowned,
the last being Edward VII., on the 9th of last August. It has never
been carried out of the church but once. That was when it was taken to
Westminster Hall, across the street, that in it Oliver Cromwell might
be installed Lord Protector. Thus it was that "the greatest prince
that ever ruled England," as Lord Macaulay rightly calls him, the man
who refused to wear the crown, but who wielded so much more of real
power than any of those who did wear it that he placed England in
the forefront of European nations and made her mistress of the seas,
was not inducted into his office in the Abbey, where all the other
sovereigns have been crowned since William I., but in Westminster Hall,
which is also a place of extraordinary historical interest. The chair
which holds the Stone of Scone, and the mate to it, made later and used
for the queen consort, are, of course, covered with rich upholstering
at the coronations, and much of the defacement of them is the result of
driving nails into the wood for this purpose.
[Sidenote: Whither the Paths of Glory Lead.]
But the main attraction of Westminster Abbey is neither its
architectural glory nor its connection with the crowning of the
nation's sovereigns, but the fact that it is the chief sepulchre of
Britain's great men. Not only is the building "paved with princes and
a royal race," their memory a mingling of grandeur and of shame, but
the uncrowned glories of the nation, the true and pure and gifted, lie
there as well under our feet, or are commemorated in stone before our
eyes. Some English sovereigns are buried elsewhere, as Charles I. at
Windsor, and Victoria at Frogmore; some preëminent men of action also,
as Nelson and Wellington at St. Paul's Cathedral; some authors, too,
of the first order of genius, as Shakespeare at Stratford, Milton at
St. Giles, and Goldsmith in the Temple yard at London; and so on, but
nowhere else on earth have the ashes of so many great men been brought
together as in Westminster Abbey. Moreover, to many who are buried
elsewhere monuments have been erected in the Abbey; for instance, to
the three poets who have just been mentioned. That of Shakespeare is a
marble figure holding a scroll on which are inscribed these lines from
the _Tempest_, peculiarly appropriate in the building where so much
greatness is buried:
"The Cloud capt Towers,
The Gorgeous Palaces,
The Solemn Temples,
The Great Globe itself,
Yea all which it Inherit,
Shall Dissolve,
And like the baseless Fabrick of a Vision
Leave not a rack behind."
In St. Margaret's Church, hard by the Abbey on the north side, lies the
decapitated body of another great Englishman of the Elizabethan era,
Sir Walter Raleigh, whose _History of the World_ contains a passage
which expresses, as no other within my knowledge has done, the feeling
that comes to a thoughtful man as he walks through this solemn burial
place of genius and power: "O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom
none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast
done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of
the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched
greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it
all over with these two words, _Hic jacet_."
A sober autumn day, with the leaves changing and the atmosphere touched
with melancholy suggestive of the passing of worldly glory, prepared
us to feel the full force of Raleigh's sentiment, and, as we stepped
through the doorway into the subdued light of the minster, and saw the
multitude of white marble statues and tombs stretching through dim
aisles and clustering in gloomy chapels, we were "hushed into noiseless
reverence," and understood what Edmund Burke meant when he said, "The
moment I entered Westminster Abbey, I felt a kind of awe pervade my
mind which I cannot describe; the very silence seemed sacred."
[Illustration: POET'S CORNER, WESTMINSTER.]
[Sidenote: The Monuments of the Nave and Transepts.]
Remembering that "too many tombs will produce the same satiety as too
many pictures," and determined not to fill our minds with "a hopeless
jumble in which kings and statesmen, warriors, ecclesiastics and poets
are tossing about together," we began at the Poet's Corner, as every
one should do on his first visit, and, merely glancing at the monuments
of subordinate interest, gave our time to those of the men with whose
lives and works we had some acquaintance from our former reading, thus
spending a whole morning in the two transepts and the nave. What
a list of glorious names is afforded by even this meagre selection!
Chaucer, Spencer, Browning, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Milton, Gray, Burns,
Scott, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Southey (the last eight named being
represented by monuments, but buried elsewhere); Thackeray, Addison,
Macaulay, Garrick, Samuel Johnson (with his degree of LL. D. chiselled
after his name in the unscholarly form of "L. L. D."--a thing which
would have mortified him, and which one would not expect to find in
Westminster Abbey), Charles Dickens; Dr. Busby (for fifty-five years
head-master of Westminster School, celebrated for his extremely free
use of the rod and for having persistently kept his hat on when Charles
II. visited his school, saying that it would never do for the boys
to think any one superior to himself);--all these and many more in
or near the south transept; then in the nave, Major André (hanged by
Washington as a spy), Lord Lawrence ("who feared man so little because
he feared God so much"), David Livingstone, Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac
Newton, Matthew Arnold, Charles Kingsley, Wordsworth, William Pitt,
Charles James Fox, "Rare Ben Jonson"; then, in the north transept,
Lord Mansfield, Warren Hastings, and others, among them the monument
of the "Loyall Duke of Newcastle" (1676) and his literary wife, a most
voluminous writer, who was in the habit of calling up her servants at
all hours of the night to take down her thoughts, much to the disgust
of her husband. When complimented on her learning, he said, "Sir, a
very wise woman is a very foolish thing."
[Sidenote: Pagan Sculptures in a Christian Church.]
A great deal of bad taste has been displayed in the monuments of this
transept. There is a colossal tomb by Nollekens, the worst but one in
the Abbey, commemorating three sea captains. It represents Neptune
reclining on the back of a sea-horse, and directing the attention of
Britannia to the medallions of the dead, which hang from a rostral
column surmounted by a figure of Victory. "Is that Christianity?" asked
a visitor, pointing to Neptune and the trident. "Yes," wittily answered
Dean Milman, "it is _Tridentine_ Christianity"--a remark which has an
exceedingly keen edge, though it may not be appreciated except by those
who have some knowledge of the relation sustained by the Council of
Trent to the beliefs and practices of the Romish Church. The sculptors
were for a time "weighed down by the pagan mania for Neptunes,
Britannias, and Victorys." Goldwin Smith says, "Some of the monuments
might with advantage be removed from a Christian Church to a heathen
Pantheon, while some might be better for being macadamized."
[Sidenote: The Nightingale Monuments.]
The most striking monument in the Abbey, though Walpole calls it "more
theatrical than sepulchral," is that of Lady Elizabeth Nightingale. In
the lower part of the sculpture a skeleton figure, Death, has broken
through the iron doors of the grave, and, grasping the ledge above
him with one bony hand, is in the act of hurling his dart with the
other at the lady, who with her husband occupies the upper part of the
sculpture, and who is represented as falling back into the arms of her
horror-stricken husband, while he makes frantic but futile efforts to
shield her from the stroke. Wesley said Mrs. Nightingale's tomb was the
finest in the Abbey, as showing "common sense among heaps of unmeaning
stone and marble"; but Washington Irving, while granting that the whole
group is executed with terrible truth and spirit, says it appears to
him horrible rather than sublime, and asks, "Why should we thus seek
to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round
the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything
that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead; or that
might win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of disgust and
dismay, but of sorrow and meditation."
CHAPTER XX.
THE ROYAL CHAPELS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
LONDON, _October 2, 1902_.
[Sidenote: A Hard-hearted Verger.]
We had reserved our last day in London for a visit to the eastern
part of the great Abbey, where nearly all the kings and queens of
England are buried. There is a charge of sixpence for admission to
this part of the building. When we had paid our fees a black robed,
bullet-headed, hard-voiced verger led us rapidly, along with a big
crowd of other sightseers, from one chapel to another, pointing out one
or two objects of special interest in each, and speaking a few words
of explanation. Thus we were "railroaded" through the Royal Chapels in
the most tantalizing manner. When we were all turned out of the iron
gate at the end of this rapid round, with our heads full of a jumble
of kings and queens, and other notables, our little party lingered
to parley with our burly conductor, in the hope of getting more time
in this fascinating part of the Abbey; but, though a shilling is a
wonder-worker in England, and though we offered to pay another fee each
for the privilege of remaining a while longer, our guide was for some
reason obdurate. It should be added, in justice to him, that this was
only the second day that the Abbey had been opened to visitors, after
being closed throughout the greater part of the summer on account of
the coronation, and consequently there was a much larger number of
visitors for the vergers to handle than usual.
[Sidenote: A Courteous Sub-Dean.]
We were not yet beaten, however. After a brief "council of war," two of
us walked out through the cloisters, rang at the door of the sub-Dean's
residence, and, learning that he was not in, left a note for him,
explaining our disappointment at having waited so long for the Abbey to
open, only to find that we could get but a hasty glance at some of its
most interesting parts, and asking him to give us permission to visit
those parts at our leisure. On his return home, the sub-Dean, Canon
Duckworth, very courteously wrote the desired authorization that we
should visit the chapels "without a guide," and this permission was of
use to some members of the party that afternoon.
Meantime it occurred to us that all vergers might not be equally
ungracious, so, pending the Canon's answer to our note, we approached
that one of the vergers who seemed to have the most benevolent face,
informed him that we had just been through the chapels, but that our
guide had given us very little time, and had not shown us the wax
effigies at all, which we were very anxious to see, and asked him if
he could not afford us a better opportunity. Unlike him of the stony
heart into whose hands we had fallen at first, this one promptly and
kindly granted our request, though doubtless expecting a fee, which, by
the way, he deserved and received, and not only came with us himself
to show us the wax effigies, but then gave us liberty to roam among
the chapels at our pleasure. It was now dinner-time, but we gladly did
without dinner in order to improve the opportunity thus secured, and
set about a leisurely and thorough examination of the contents of the
chapels and adjoining rooms in the eastern half of the building.
[Sidenote: The Wax Effigies.]
The wax work figures in a chamber over one of the chapels are very
interesting, and should not be missed by visitors to Westminster,
and yet I went through the Abbey some years ago without even knowing
that they were there. We had a good look at them this time. They are
effigies of notable personages, dressed exactly as they were in life.
These effigies were carried at the public funerals of those whom they
represent. The earlier custom was to carry the embalmed bodies of the
kings and queens, with faces uncovered, at their funerals, but from
the time of Henry V. these life-like representations were carried
instead. Here is Queen Elizabeth, ugly and overdressed, as usual,
with the diadem on her head, the huge ruff round her neck, the long
stomacher covered with jewels, the velvet robe embroidered with gold
and supported on panniers, and the pointed high-heeled shoes with
rosettes--"gotten up," perhaps, pretty much as she was when, just a
year before her death, she had allowed the Scottish ambassador, as
if by accident, to see her "dancing high and disposedly," that he
might disappoint the hopes of his master, King James, by his report
of her health and spirits; she was then an old woman. There are few
subjects more perilous for a man to write about than a woman's dress,
and I may as well tell my readers that in the foregoing description of
Elizabeth's finery I have closely followed good authorities.
Another of the effigies shows us the swarthy and sensual face of
Charles II. He is dressed in red velvet, with lace collar and ruffles.
Here, too, is the strong face and slight figure of William III.,
represented as very much shorter than Mary, his wife, who stands nearly
six feet in height beside him. The fat figure of Queen Anne, and the
very small one of Lord Nelson, with the empty sleeve of course, are
among the most interesting. There are eleven in all still existing. A
good many have disappeared.
[Sidenote: Mutilated Monuments.]
The shrine of Edward the Confessor is raised upon a kind of platform
mound, said to have been made of several shiploads of earth brought
from the Holy Land, and is surrounded by the tombs of Edward I., the
good Queen Eleanor, Richard II., Henry V., and others. Above the grand
tomb of Henry V. are hung his shield, saddle and helmet. Upon it lies
the headless effigy of the great king, which was cut from English oak
and plated with silver-gilt. The head, which was of solid silver, with
teeth of gold, was stolen from the Abbey centuries ago. Other tombs
have suffered in the same way. The coffin of Edward the Confessor has
been robbed of its funeral ornaments. The sceptre has been stolen from
the hand of Queen Elizabeth. One of the beautifully modelled fingers of
the recumbent marble statue of Mary, Queen of Scots, has been broken
off, carried away as a souvenir, perhaps, by some conscienceless vandal.
In the two aisles on the opposite side of Henry VII.'s Chapel lie the
remains of these two rival queens, Elizabeth and Mary, the one beheaded
by the other,--a striking instance of the equality of the grave, and
reminding us of Macaulay's description of the Abbey as "the great
temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty
generations lie buried."
I have only touched in the briefest manner a few of the many
interesting monuments which throng the royal chapels. But there is one
thing that I must write to you about before leaving the subject of
Westminster Abbey finally, and that is the vacant space in the Central
Eastern Chapel, where the body of the greatest man that ever ruled
England once lay, and the story of why his body is not there now.
We have seen that Lord Macaulay speaks of Westminster Abbey as "the
great temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of
twenty generations lie buried." In the same strain, Sir Walter Scott
writes:
"Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand and still the tongue
Of those who fought, and spoke, and sung;
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke again,
'All peace on earth, good will to men';
If ever from an English heart,
Oh! here let prejudice depart."
These are fine sentiments, and certainly the policy of the authorities
of the Abbey has been broad enough in some respects, far too broad
indeed, as many think, in the matter of admitting the bodies of men of
skeptical views and evil lives to lie here alongside of the great and
good in God's house.
[Sidenote: Monuments Denied to Notable Persons.]
But in some other respects the policy has been a narrow one. The
erection of a monument here to Louis Napoleon, the late Prince Imperial
of France, who fell in Zululand while fighting in the cause of
England, was prevented by what has been called "the illiberal clamor
of an ignorant faction." By the way, within the precincts of the
Roman Catholic Oratory of Brompton, in West London, stands a statue
of Cardinal Newman, the most distinguished of modern apostates, who
forsook the English Church for the Romish; it was intended for Oxford,
but was refused by the University, and not allowed a place in the
streets of London. These two are not very good examples of the kind
of narrowness to which I refer,--one can hardly blame the English
churchmen for the treatment accorded to Newman's statue,--they are
simply instances which naturally come to mind in connection with the
general subject. I will give an example presently of the complete
triumph of prejudice in the exclusion from the Abbey of the greatest
man of action that England ever produced.
[Sidenote: The Objection to Milton.]
Meantime, as leading up to that, let us note the remark of Dr. Gregory
to Dr. Johnson when, in 1737, the monument of Milton was placed in the
Abbey: "I have seen erected in the church a bust of that man whose name
I once knew considered a pollution of its walls." He was referring to
the action of Dean Sprat in cutting away a part of the fulsome epitaph
on the tomb of John Philips which compared him to Milton, of whom he
was a feeble imitator. "The line, '_Uni Miltono secundus, primoque
paene par_,' was effaced under Dean Sprat, not because of its almost
profane arrogance, but because the royalist dean would not allow even
the name of the regicide Milton to appear within the Abbey--it was
'too detestable to be read on the wall of a building dedicated to
devotion.' The line was restored under Dean Atterbury," and, as already
noted, a bust of the great Puritan genius was installed in the Abbey a
few decades later, so that the triumph of prejudice in this case was
short-lived.
[Sidenote: General Meigs and President Davis.]
The story reminds one of the action of General Meigs in removing the
name of President Davis from the record-stone of the Cabin John Bridge
near Washington. This magnificent aqueduct bridge, one of the largest
and most beautiful single stone arches in the world, was erected by
Jefferson Davis while Secretary of War for the United States, and
of course his name, with those of the then President and other high
officials of the government, was placed on the completed structure.
When the Civil War came on, and Mr. Davis was elected President of the
Confederate States, General Meigs had the misfortune to lose a son in
battle in Virginia. One can feel profound sympathy with him in such
a bereavement, but does it not seem a small and childish thing that
he should then have had Mr. Davis' name chiselled off the bridge in
revenge? And has not his action, like Dean Sprat's, defeated itself?
The blank made in the inscription excited curiosity and gave rise to
questions, which brought out the whole story, and thus reminded many
people who might otherwise have forgotten it, what eminent services
Jefferson Davis had rendered to the united country before the unhappy
division which made him the President of that portion of it with which
his greater fame is now associated.
[Sidenote: The Vindication of Cromwell.]
To but few men in her long history is England so deeply indebted as to
Oliver Cromwell. Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, written by a
bitterly hostile and prejudiced contemporary, effectually blackened
Cromwell's character for some two hundred years, the misrepresentation
being continued by other royalist writers, such as Sir Walter Scott in
_Woodstock_. Carlyle's publication of Cromwell's own letters proved
that he had been grossly slandered, and put it beyond question that
the Protector was a sincere and godly man and a true patriot, as well
as the greatest man of action that had ever lived in England. This is
the view taken of Cromwell by the more recent biographies of him, which
have been coming from the press in significantly rapid succession, such
as Hood's, Gardiner's, John Morley's and President Roosevelt's. So that
in several senses Cromwell is coming to his own again, though his work
seemed at one time to have failed utterly, and to have been swept
clean away by the restoration of Charles II. to the throne.
[Sidenote: Treatment of his Dead Body.]
It is of the indignities visited upon Cromwell's remains at the time
of this Restoration that I wish to tell you. The great men of the
Commonwealth and several members of Cromwell's family were buried in
the extreme eastern end of the Abbey. After the Restoration they were
disinterred from this honorable place of sepulture, and the only member
of the Protector's family who was allowed to remain in the Abbey was
his second daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, "as being both a royalist and
a member of the Church of England."
The bodies of Cromwell, his son-in-law, General Ireton, and Bradshaw,
the judge who had condemned Charles I., were dragged through London on
sledges and hanged at Tyburn, and their heads were set up on the high
roof-gable of Westminster Hall, the very building in which Cromwell
had been made Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. It is safer to kick
a dead lion than a living one. Fancy these valiant royalists treating
Cromwell that way in his lifetime!
[Sidenote: History of Cromwell's Head.]
Cromwell's head having been embalmed before his burial, "remained
exposed to the atmosphere for twenty-five years, and then one stormy
night it was blown down, and picked up by the sentry, who, hiding
it under his cloak, took it home and secreted it in the chimney
corner; and, as inquiries were constantly being made about it by the
government, it was only on his death-bed that he revealed where he
had hidden it. His family sold the head to one of the Cambridgeshire
Russells, and in the same box in which it still is, it descended to
a certain Samuel Russell," who, being in need, sold it to James Cox,
the keeper of a famous museum. Cox in turn sold it, about the time of
the French Revolution, for $1,150, to three men, who made a business
of exhibiting it at half a crown per head in Bond Street, London. At
the death of the last of these three men, it came into the possession
of his three nieces. These young ladies, being nervous at keeping it
in the house, asked Mr. Horace Wilkinson, their physician, to take
charge of it for them, and finally sold it to him; and in his house at
Sevenoaks, Kent, the head of Oliver Cromwell remains to this day.
It is a ghastly story, though I have been careful to leave out the most
gruesome details.
To-day, immediately in front of Westminster Hall, where his head
was first exposed in dishonor, stands a bronze statue of the Great
Protector, with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other,--erected
within the last five years,--and doubtless the day will come when a
monument of "the greatest prince that ever ruled England" will be given
its rightful place in Westminster Abbey.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CATHEDRALS VS. THE GOSPEL.
LONDON, _October 2, 1902_.
[Sidenote: Original Significance of the Cathedrals.]
Before saying what I had in mind when I remarked, in a former letter,
that in some respects the English cathedrals had proved to be
hindrances to vital religion, I wish to cite what Goldwin Smith says
of the significance and beauty of these glorious monuments of mediæval
piety: "Nothing so wonderful or beautiful has ever been built by man
as these fanes of mediæval religion which still, surviving the faith
and the civilization which reared them, rise above the din and smoke of
modern life into purity and stillness. In religious impressiveness they
far excel all the works of heathen art, and all the classical temples
of the Renaissance. Even in point of architectural skill they stand
unrivalled, though they are the creations of an age before mechanical
science. Their groined roofs appear still to baffle imitation. But we
do not fully comprehend the marvel, unless we imagine the cathedrals
rising, as they did, out of towns which were then little better than
collections of hovels, with but small accumulation of wealth, and
without what we now deem the appliances of civilized life. Never did
man's spiritual aspirations soar so high above the realities of his
worldly lot as when he built the cathedrals." The last proposition
is not true. What Professor Smith wished to say was that never did
an outward, material expression of man's religion so far surpass all
his other outward conditions. But even when thus stated, it must be
remembered that these great structures were not erected by those
who inhabited the "hovels" referred to, but by kings, or nobles,
or prelates who lived in palaces and rolled in wealth. Still, the
cathedrals were built as an expression of religion. Religion in
the Middle Ages expressed itself chiefly in the erection of these
costly and splendid buildings, as it now expresses itself chiefly in
missionary activity.
[Sidenote: Their Æsthetic Influence.]
Passing by, for the present, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury and
Winchester, which excel all others in historical interest, and St.
Paul's, which, though the largest of all, is modern, we may agree
fully with Smith's estimate of the relative merits of the different
cathedrals and the effect produced by them: that "Salisbury is the most
perfect monument of mediæval Christianity in England"; that in height
and grandeur the palm is borne off by York; in beauty and poetry,
by Lincoln; that Norman Durham, "half church of God, half castle
'gainst the Scot," is profoundly imposing from its massiveness, which
seems enduring as the foundations of the earth, as well as from its
commanding situation; that Ely also is a glorious pile, on its unique
mound among the fens; and that Wells and Salisbury are "the two best
specimens of the cathedral close, that haven of religious calm amidst
this bustling world, in which a man tired of business and contentious
life might delight, especially if he has a taste for books, to find
tranquillity, with quiet companionship, in his old age. Take your stand
on the close of Salisbury or Wells on a summer afternoon when the
congregation is filing leisurely out from the service and the sounds
are still heard from the cathedral, and you will experience a sensation
not to be experienced in the New World."
Having shown by these citations that Goldwin Smith is not indifferent
to the æsthetic influence of the cathedrals, I wish now to quote from
him a final paragraph which states very well the practical point to
which I referred in the outset:
[Sidenote: Their Romanizing Tendency.]
"The cathedral and the parish church belong to the present as well
as to the past. Indeed, they have been recently exerting a peculiar
influence over the present, for there can be no doubt that the spell
of their beauty and their adaptation, as places of [Roman] Catholic
devotion, to the Ritualistic rather than to the Protestant form of
worship have had a great effect in producing the Neo-Catholic reaction
of the last half century. Creations of the religious genius of the
Middle Ages, they have been potent missionaries of the mediæval faith."
I wish to call special attention to this ominous feature of the
influence of English cathedrals upon the forms, and thus eventually
upon the spirit, of Christian worship. I am not unsusceptible, I think,
to the glorious beauty of these stately buildings, or the spell of
their exquisite music, or the fascination of their spectacular forms
of worship. I shall never forget the solemn impression made upon my
mind the first time I ever entered a great cathedral, when, at Chester,
I stepped from the broad glare of outer sunshine into the cool, dim
light of the minster, and heard the choir of white-robed, sweet-voiced
boys responding with a prolonged, musical "A-men," accompanied by
the great organ, as the priest intoned the English service. But I am
clear, nevertheless, that Goldwin Smith is right in saying that by
their adaptation to the ritualistic rather than the Protestant form of
worship the cathedrals have been potent missionaries of the mediæval
faith.
The Roman Catholic ideal of Christian worship is very different
from that of Protestants. Its functionary is a priest, who offers
sacrifice, and performs the ceremonies of an elaborate ritual. Its
appeal is chiefly to the senses and the æsthetic sensibilities.
Protestants, on the other hand, hold that the minister is not a priest,
but a teacher; his function is not the performance of ceremonies, but
the inculcation of truth. The truly Protestant churches appeal chiefly
to the mind rather than to the senses, they rely upon ideas rather than
ceremonies, because they know that only by the intelligent apprehension
of truth can the spiritual life be really nourished and developed. In
a Romish church the central thing is the altar. In a Protestant church
the central thing is the pulpit. In short, Romish churches are built
for ceremonies, and Protestant churches for preaching. The cathedrals
were erected as Romish churches. There was little or no thought of
their being used for preaching. They were erected as expressions in
stone of religious aspiration; they are "frozen music"; they are places
for processions, and incense, and altars, and pictures, and vestments,
and chants, but they are not adapted to preaching. They are too large,
for one thing. No man could make himself heard throughout some of them.
Nor was it intended that he should.
[Sidenote: Their Charm for the Greatest of the Puritans.]
It is an extraordinary paradox that the finest expression in any
language of the idea which lay in the minds of those who built the
cathedrals was given by a Puritan writer:
"But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale;
And love the high embowe'd roof
With antique pillars massy proof:
And storied windows, richly dight,
Casting a dim, religious light.
There let the pealing organ blow
To the full-voic'd choir below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may, with sweetness through mine ear,
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes."
Thus Milton in _Il Penseroso_, the interpretation of which I must leave
to the students of that exquisite poem. Only let it not be forgotten
that in his _Eikonoclastes_, Milton ridicules the organs and the
singing men in the King's chapel, as well as the "English mass-book" of
the "old Ephesian goddess called the Church of England." I am sorry to
say, Milton is at times vituperative in his prose writings.
[Sidenote: A Half-reformed Church.]
Let us be more respectful in our references to the Church of England.
It contains many good people and has done much good work. Still, it
is an indisputable fact that it never has been a thoroughly reformed
church. Its origin as a separate church was different from that of
the Reformed churches. Not through the protracted struggles of people
and ministers did it win out clear from Romanism, with generally
diffused and clear convictions of truth, as was the case with the
really Reformed churches, but by the act of Henry VIII. detaching a
certain portion of the Catholic Church from the papacy, for interesting
domestic reasons, and making himself the head of the church. That
was the origin of the Church of England as entirely distinct from
the Church of Rome. Henry did not wish to become a Protestant at
all, nor did he wish the people to change their religion, and, as a
matter of fact, he had people burned alive for being Protestants. Of
course, Protestantism did make progress afterwards under Edward VI.
and Elizabeth, but there never was a sufficiently decisive break with
Romish doctrine and Romish forms of worship. And, the architecture of
the cathedrals and parish churches being what it is, there has been a
constant tendency to relapse to the Romish model outright.
If we seem to attribute too much influence to mere architecture, let
it be remembered that the structure and arrangements of the college
buildings at Oxford, which did not admit of family life, but were
designed for the mediæval clerical students who were celibates, have
had a tendency to revive the monk, and that, as a matter of fact,
these Oxford colleges produced Newman and the other leaders of the
Anglo-Catholic reaction in our day, to say nothing of Laud and his
reaction two centuries ago.
[Sidenote: Relics of Romanism.]
How easily the cathedrals may aid Roman Catholicism, and how strong
is the lingering influence of what Macaulay calls "that august and
fascinating superstition," may be seen not only in the general
character of the services, but also in certain details. Each cathedral
has what is still called a Lady Chapel, that is, a chapel dedicated
to Our Lady, the Virgin Mary. In the Lady Chapel of Winchester
Cathedral is a series of highly prized wall paintings, of whose
edifying character the reader may judge when he learns that one of them
represents "the Virgin commanding the burial of a clerk of _irreligious
life_ in consecrated ground, because he had been her votary"; while
another depicts a miracle by an _image_ of the Virgin, which is bending
its finger, so as to prevent a young man from taking off a ring, given
him by his lady love, which he had placed on the image that it might
not be lost or injured while he played at ball. "By this the young man
was won to monastic life." Does this mean that he jilted the girl, or
that she discarded him for losing her ring?
Again, the inscription on the tomb of the builder of that cathedral,
William of Wykeham, the same who built the round tower at Windsor
Castle, records his work as bishop, politician, and founder of
colleges, and concludes with this injunction:
"You who behold this tomb cease not to pray
That, for such great merits, he may enjoy everlasting life."
Finally, the most striking effigy on any tomb in Winchester Cathedral
is that of a great dignitary of the Romish Church, Cardinal Beaufort,
represented here by a very fine recumbent figure in scarlet cloak and
hat. He was enormously wealthy, was four times Lord Chancellor of
England, was present at the burning of Joan of Arc at Rouen, and is
said to have burst into tears and to have left the horrible scene; but
he persecuted the Lollards and gave a half million pounds to put down
the Hussites in Bohemia, in which crusade he was general and legate.
Yet here he lies, one of the most honored figures, in what is generally
regarded as a Protestant church.
These points are sufficient to indicate what I mean by saying that the
cathedrals have in some respects had an unfavorable influence upon the
doctrine and worship of the Church of England.
[Sidenote: Presbyterians also have Felt the Effect of them.]
If at the Reformation every cathedral in Great Britain had been pounded
to pieces by the iconoclasts, it would have been an immeasurable
calamity to art, but it might have been a real gain for religion. At
any rate, it is ritualism rather than religion that is now promoted
by the cathedrals. Nor is the English Church the only one that has
inherited these splendid but baleful monuments of mediæval Romanism.
The Presbyterian Church has come into the possession of a few. The
people of Scotland at the time of the Reformation, remembering their
oppression and impoverishment by the great church establishments, and
disregarding the more moderate counsels of their leaders, smashed
most of these buildings which fell to them, witness Melrose Abbey and
many others--John Knox speaks of "the rascal multitude" that destroyed
the buildings at Perth--but one or two they spared, for example, the
Cathedral at Glasgow. It is maintained by some that the same tendency
to ritualism manifests itself in these Presbyterian cathedrals as in
others, though, of course, not to the same extent. Certainly our simple
and scriptural forms of worship, with the prominence which they give
to the preaching of the Word, suit a warm, home-like church, where
everything can be heard, much better than they do a cold and vast
cathedral of stone which is too large for any congregation that ever
assembles in it, and where the voice of the preacher is lost among the
lofty arches.
While the Presbyterians have in some cases not freed themselves
completely from the Romish associations, and in the great buildings
which were erected for Romish worship show something of the same
tendency to undue ritualism, still I think it will be generally
conceded that they severed the connection with Rome more effectually,
on the whole, than any other church.
[Sidenote: Protestant Simplicity more Impressive.]
Nor did their worship lose in real religious impressiveness. Even Sir
Walter Scott (who, though a Presbyterian elder, had a strong leaning to
the ritualistic churches), in the twentieth chapter of _Rob Roy_, puts
into the mouth of his hero this description of the Presbyterian service
in the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral:
"I had heard the service of high mass in France, celebrated with all
the _éclat_ which the choicest music, the richest dresses, the most
imposing ceremonies, could confer on it; yet it fell short in effect
of the simplicity of the Presbyterian worship. The devotion, in which
every one took a share, seemed so superior to that which was recited
by musicians as a lesson which they had learned by rote, that it gave
the Scottish worship all the advantage of reality over acting."
The more I see of the high church "service" the more incomprehensible
it seems to me that any thoughtful man can take any other view than
the one thus expressed by Scott. The service he describes was indeed
conducted in a cathedral, but it was in the crypt, the part best
adapted to intelligent Protestant worship, on account of its smaller
dimensions and better acoustics.
CHAPTER XXII.
SOME THINGS FOR HIGH CHURCHMEN TO THINK ABOUT.
LONDON, _October 3, 1902_.
It does not follow, from what I said in my former letter about
the different forms of service in use among Episcopalians and
Presbyterians, respectively, that the latter necessarily disapprove
of the use of written prayers. So far is this from being the case
that Calvin and Knox themselves wrote liturgies, though neither they
nor their successors believed in the rigid prescription of fixed
forms, but insisted upon ample freedom for the use of such original
prayers as occasion demanded. The Book of Common Prayer itself,
which is the product of every Christian age and Christian people,
including Reformers, Presbyterians, Puritans and Lutherans, as well as
Romanists and Anglicans, and which is used constantly by the Episcopal
churches throughout the English-speaking world, owes no little to the
influence of men of our faith and polity, and especially to that of the
illustrious Genevan reformer, John Calvin. The General Thanksgiving,
called "the chiefest treasure of the Prayer-Book," is said to have been
composed by the Rev. Dr. Edward Reynolds, a distinguished Presbyterian
member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and afterwards Bishop of
Norwich. These prayers, as well as other parts of the Book of Common
Prayer, are constantly used, in whole or in part, by many Presbyterian
ministers when leading the public devotions of their people, and the
more such models of prayer are studied by Presbyterian ministers in
general the sooner will they cease to deserve the reproach that
their manner of conducting this important part of public worship is
sometimes rambling, slovenly and unedifying. No minister of our time
of any denomination was more acceptable and helpful in the conduct
of this part of the service than the late Rev. Dr. Moses D. Hoge, of
Richmond. His prayers were characterized in a preëminent degree by good
taste and propriety of expression, as well as by unction. He was a
diligent student of the best liturgies, such as those of Calvin, Knox
and Cranmer. His biographer, speaking of "the elaborate and laborious
preparation that he made for this service, as evinced by his papers,"
says: "Dr. Hoge's peculiar power in prayer was not merely the result of
what is called the 'gift of prayer.' Not only his celebrated prayers on
great public occasions were carefully written out, but from his early
ministry he wrote prayers for every variety of occasion and service,
and formulated petitions on every variety of topic."
[Sidenote: The Huguenot Presbyterians in Canterbury Cathedral.]
When we visited Canterbury Cathedral, the other day, we were reminded
of another striking proof of the liberty of Presbyterian usage in this
matter. The place is, of course, one that brings to mind innumerable
events of interest, ranging all the way from the tragedy of Thomas a
Becket's death to the comedy of the struggle that took place in St.
Catherine's Chapel, Westminster, in 1176, between the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York, a scuffle which led to the question of their
precedence being decided by a papal edict, giving to one the title of
Primate of all England, to the other that of Primate of England. One
cannot help thinking, in connection with it, of the official titles of
the two great Presbyterian bodies in our country, the technical title
of the Northern Church being the Presbyterian Church in the United
States of America, and the technical title of the Southern Church being
the Presbyterian Church in the United States. Fuller's _Church History_
gives a racy account of the scene referred to: "A synod was called at
Westminster, the Pope's legate being present thereat; on whose right
hand sat Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, as in his proper place.
When in springs Roger of York, and finding Canterbury so seated,
fairly sits him down on Canterbury's lap (a baby too big to be danced
thereon); yea, Canterbury's servants dandled this lap-child with a
witness, who plucked him thence, and buffeted him to purpose." But far
more interesting to us than the story of this undignified behavior on
the part of these two dignitaries, and even more interesting than the
thrilling story of Becket's murder, was the chapel in the crypt, where
for three hundred and fifty years the Huguenots, who were welcomed
by Queen Elizabeth and given the use of this part of the cathedral,
have continued to use the ancient Presbyterian forms of worship which
they brought with them when driven from France by Roman Catholic
persecution. And it is a very interesting fact that the liturgy (in
French) which they use is almost the same as the Book of Common Prayer,
but immensely significant that the congregation continues to observe
the Lord's Supper seated, after the Presbyterian form. The communion
plates and cups, which we had the pleasure of taking up in our hands,
were brought by the refugees to England three hundred and fifty years
ago, but are still in use.
[Sidenote: The Concomitants and the Intoning.]
From what has now been said, it is clear that it is not altogether
the use of the Prayer-Book which gives to the American Protestant
worshipping in an Anglican church that curious feeling of strangeness
and formalism. It is rather the Romish-looking arrangements about
the "altar," the crosses and candles and cloths, the vestments and
processions, the turning of the people towards the east when they
pray, the "vain repetitions" of certain parts of the liturgy, such as
the Lord's Prayer, which sometimes occurs four or five times in one
service, and the "intoning" of the service, that is, the literally
monotonous recitation of the prayers, without any rising or falling
inflection, every word being uttered in precisely the same tone,
without the slightest variation. I do not mean that all these features
always occur in every service. Sometimes one or more of them will
be omitted, such as turning to the east in prayer, or intoning. For
instance, Canon Hensley Henson, whom we heard a short time ago at St.
Margaret's, Westminster, where the late Canon Farrar preached so long
and so brilliantly, and who, though quite radical in some of his views,
is the most thoughtful preacher among the ministers of the Anglican
Church in London at the present time, did not intone the prayers which
he offered, though his assistant did. I do not know whether Canon
Henson's usage is from necessity or choice--whether it is because he
cannot intone or because he does not care to do so, preferring to
address the Almighty in the same natural and expressive tones which he
uses in communications with his fellow-men.
[Sidenote: Canon Hensley Henson at St. Margaret's.]
Canon Henson does not look the least like the typical Englishman. His
appearance is antipodal to that of the beefy, bluff, full-blooded John
Bull. He is slender, clean-shaven, boyish, white, his face "sicklied
o'er with the pale cast of thought." His body may be delicate, but
there is no lack of vigor about his mind. The strength and charm of
his preaching, due chiefly to the freshness of the thought and the
purity and clearness of the language--for he has no marked advantages
of presence or voice or manner--draw great crowds to St. Margaret's.
We had to wait at the door for some time to let the pewholders have a
chance, but when the word was given the crowd at the door poured in
and quickly overflowed all the vacant seating space. Shortly after he
began his sermon, which was read throughout, three ladies rose to leave
the church, and I was not a little astonished to hear him stop and
say, with what I thought was a touch of irritation, "I will wait till
those ladies get out." No doubt it is vexatious to have people leave
the church during the sermon, but no minister has a right to pillory
anybody in that fashion, unless it is somebody who is known to be in
the habit of interrupting the service in that way. The minister has no
right to assume that people are doing a deliberately discourteous or
culpably thoughtless thing. The probability is that one of the ladies
in the group referred to was sick or faint and had to withdraw. This
kind of rudeness may be naturally expected from some of the men who in
our country have done so much to degrade the fine name of "Evangelist,"
but surely one does not expect it from a gentleman like Canon Henson.
[Sidenote: Canon Henson on Anglican Narrowness.]
While bound to criticise Canon Henson for this breach of good manners,
I hasten to express my cordial admiration of his courtesy, courage, and
Christliness in general, and especially of the power of his statement
of the claims of Christian love against the Anglican custom of refusing
to commune with Nonconformists. The most remarkable sermon preached by
any clergyman of the Established Church during our sojourn in England
was a sermon preached by him before the University of Cambridge on the
text, "There shall be one fold and one Shepherd," in which he advocated
the admission of Nonconformists to the sacrament. Hear him:
"The primary need of the hour is more religious honesty. In the
classic phrase of Dr. Johnson, Churchmen beyond all others need 'to
clear their minds of cant.' '_Let love be without hypocrisy_' is
the kindred protest of St. Paul. Bear with me while I bring these
considerations to a very simple, indeed an obvious application. On all
hands there is talk of Christian unity. Not a Conference or a Congress
of Churchmen meets without effusive welcome from Nonconformists. A
few weeks ago I sat in the Congress Hall at Brighton and listened to
a series of speeches by prominent Nonconformists, all expressing the
warmest sentiments of Christian fraternity. I reflected that by the
existing law and current practice of our church all those excellent
orators and their fellow-believers were spiritual outcasts; that, if
they presented themselves for the Sacrament of Unity, they would be
decisively rejected; that, in no consecrated building, might their
voices be heard from the pulpit, though all men--as in the case of Dr.
Dale, of Birmingham--owned their conspicuous power and goodness. The
contradiction came home to my conscience as an intolerable outrage, and
I determined to say here to-day in this famous pulpit, to which your
kindness has bidden me, what I had long been thinking, that the time
has come for Churchmen to remove barriers for which they can no longer
plead political utility, and which have behind them no sanctions in the
best conscience and worthiest reason of our time. I remembered that
in my study, at work in preparation of the sermons which expressed my
obligation as a Christian teacher, I drew no invidious distinctions.
Baxter and Jeremy Taylor, Dale and Gore, Ramsay and Lightfoot,
Döllinger and Hort, George Adam Smith and Driver, Ritschl and Moberley,
Fairbairn and Westcott, Bruce and Sanday, Liddon and Lacordaire, these
and many others of all Christian churches united without difficulty in
the fellowship of sacred science; it was not otherwise in my devotions.
Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Nonconformist were reconciled
easily enough in the privacy of prayer and meditation. The two persons
whom I venerated as the best Christians I knew, and to whom spiritually
I owed most, were not Anglicans. Only in the sanctuary itself was
the hideous discovery vouchsafed that they were outcasts from my
fellowship. I might feed my mind with their wisdom, and kindle my
devotion with their piety, and stir my conscience with their example,
but I might not break bread with them at the table of our common Lord,
nor bear their presence as teachers in the churches dedicated to his
worship. It seemed to me that the love so lavishly expressed in that
Congress Hall must, at least on our side, be a strangely hollow thing.
It is true that the presiding bishop reminded the Nonconformists that
there were doctrinal differences which could not be forgotten or
minimized, but this obstacle was effectively demolished by the debates
of the Congress--debates which revealed the widest possible doctrinal
divergence between men who, none the less, communicated at the same
altars and owned allegiance to the same church."
[Sidenote: What Canon Henson could see in Virginia.]
Such a discourse from such a man in such a place naturally created a
sensation in England. It would not have done so, as to its main point,
in Virginia. Why? Well, the fundamental reason is that the average
Virginia Episcopalian represents a much higher type of Christianity
than the average English churchman, broader, sweeter, truer. Indeed, if
there are in any church anywhere people of lovelier character, truer
charity, and more genuine devotion to our Lord than the evangelical
Episcopalians of Virginia, many of whom it has been my good fortune
to know long and intimately, I have never heard of them. I only wish
the type was more common in some other parts of the country. Now,
the things so trenchantly stated by Canon Henson in the foregoing
excerpt are mere matters of course to the mind of your evangelical Low
Churchman in Virginia. To him it is no uncommon thing to break bread
with Christians of other denominations at the table of our common Lord
or to hear the gospel preached by ministers of other churches from the
pulpits of his own. I have heard it said that this fraternal attitude
is deprecated by some of the younger clergy in Virginia of late, and
that through their opposition this open recognition of other Christian
people and their ministers is less common than it used to be. I should
be sorry to believe it, and I know some facts which seem to disprove
it. Four or five years ago I myself was invited to deliver the Reinicke
Lecture to the students of the Episcopal Seminary at Alexandria, Va.,
and did so with a feeling of as cordial welcome as I had ever received
anywhere in my whole life. I have been repeatedly invited to preach in
Episcopal pulpits. When the General Assembly of our church meets in
Lexington, Va., next May, you may rely upon it Presbyterian ministers
will be invited by the rector of the Episcopal church there to supply
his pulpit on Sunday, just as they are by the pastors of the other
churches. More than that, I have a friend in the Presbyterian ministry,
now a pastor in Baltimore, who not long ago, by invitation of the
vestry of an Episcopal church in a Virginia town, not only occupied the
pulpit and preached, but also wore the surplice and administered the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
[Sidenote: Are Virginia Episcopalians Becoming Less Liberal?]
It may be true that there is a reaction going on even in Virginia
against this spirit of Christian fellowship, and that things of this
kind are less frequent than formerly; but, if so, I am satisfied that
it is a reaction with which the Virginia laymen have nothing to do, and
which they will oppose as soon as they become aware of it,[6] and I am
sure, too, that clergymen will not be lacking who will make a strong
stand against it.
[Sidenote: Decreasing Attendance in the Anglican Churches in London.]
One or two other facts which may well be pondered by High Churchmen
have been brought to light by the census of church attendance in
London, recently taken by the _Daily News_ of that city. The census
shows that, while more than one-half of the five millions of people in
London are Christian worshippers, there has been a decrease in church
attendance of over one hundred thousand since 1886, that this decrease
has been almost entirely in the congregations of the Church of England,
and that the attendance in the Established and Nonconformist churches
is now about equal.
The census shows further that in wealthy districts the Established
Church, as we might expect, has the majority. As was also expected,
Nonconformists have a majority in middle-class districts. But, contrary
to all expectations, Nonconformists are a majority in the working-class
districts and among the very poor. It was often said that only the
ritualists were getting hold of the poor, and many supposed the
Salvation Army was doing great things amongst the lowest people. It is
one of the surprises of the census that ritualism fails to attract the
non-churchgoing classes.
In the proportion of the sexes present, in almost all cases the
Episcopal churches showed two women to one man; in nonconformist
churches the proportion of men was greater, being two men to three
women. Does not this preponderance of men in the nonconformist
congregations indicate clearly that if the Church of England is to
retain her hold upon men she must lay less stress upon the appeal to
the æsthetic sensibilities and more upon the appeal to the mind; that
she must make less of the ornamental features of public worship and
more of the didactic; less of millinery, music and marching, and more
of the preaching of the gospel? As the _British Weekly_ puts it:
"The great means of attracting the people is Christian preaching.
Whenever a preacher appears, no matter what his denomination is, he
has a great audience. Nothing makes up for a failure in preaching. The
churches of all denominations, if they are wise, will give themselves
with increased zeal and devotion to the training of the Christian
ministry. I have no doubt that it is for lack of a trained order of
preachers that the Salvation Army has failed in London. Nor will any
magnificence of ritual or any musical attractions, or any lectures on
secular subjects, permanently attract worshippers. It can be done only
by Christian preaching."
[Sidenote: An Episcopalian Estimate of Presbyterian Preaching.]
In this connection the following clipping from _The Evangelist_ is not
without interest, as showing that both the disease and the remedy are
at least partially recognized by some observers within the English
Church:
"A recent writer in _The Guardian_, one of the leading Church of
England papers, laments the decay of preaching within his own
communion, and is forced to contrast the conditions obtaining in
Presbyterian churches with those which prevail in Episcopalian ones,
to the obvious disadvantage of the latter. While it is true that the
Church of England has some great preachers, as it always has had, the
ordinary village vicar is scarcely mediocre. Such is not the case among
the Presbyterians--in Scotland, with which the writer is familiar--or
in America, Canada, Australia, or in missionary lands, where the same
standards and ideals are in effect. Here are the characteristics of
Presbyterian preaching as described by a Church of England critic:
"'Their ministry lays itself out for the cultivation of prophetical
power, and not without success. In general, they are students of
Hebrew, which the English clergy are not. The consequence is that for a
good Old Testament sermon you must go north of the Tweed. In England we
confine ourselves almost exclusively to the New Testament, not merely
because of its transcendent importance, but because it is ground with
which we are more familiar. But the loss to our people is great.
"'Then, again, the Scottish ministers are students of German theology.
More or less they are at home in the writings of the great German
thinkers, both orthodox and liberal. We, as a rule, are not....
"'One more point. In travelling through Palestine some years ago, with
a view to the study of biblical geography, I was greatly struck with
the preponderance of Scottish ministers who were there on the same
purpose intent. I think it no exaggeration to say that they were in
numbers to the English clergy as five to one. Evidently they regard it
as a necessary part of that same biblical equipment they are so careful
about, that they should with their own eyes realize the scenes of the
sacred narrative. A pilgrimage to the Holy Land is now so easy, and is,
moreover, to any thoughtful Christian teacher so fruitful in results,
that it is a marvel it should not be made an ordinary addition to a
university or theological college course. To any one who will go with
a reverent mind and open eyes, and with his Bible as his Baedeker, it
is an unparalleled experience for life. If it is objected to on the
score of expense, I ask, How do the Presbyterian ministers, and a large
proportion of Nonconformist ministers also, manage to accomplish it?'"
The _Guardian_ itself, in an editorial comment on the decreasing
attendance of men in the Anglican churches, says frankly that a large
number of men are "repelled by the extremely low standard of preaching
which prevails, and the comparative success of Nonconformity may be
due in part to the attention which is devoted to the preparation of
the sermon." "Another source of offence is the over-elaboration of
musical services, and the practical exclusion of the congregation
from any real share in prayer and praise. It is a fatal policy which
drives the devout but unmusical away from our churches to chapels in
which they can find greater simplicity and greater heartiness. One
of the surprises of the census has been that the Nonconformists have
been found to be strong not only in middle-class districts, but in the
regions where poverty abounds. The poor, we believe, are attracted by
greater simplicity, and it must be acknowledged that the services of
our Prayer-Book are difficult for the uninstructed to follow and to
appreciate. There is a stage at which a greater elasticity of worship
is needed, and for this we make no adequate provision."
According to the latest statistics, the relative strength of the
Established Church and the free evangelical churches is as follows:
Sittings. Communicants.
Established (estimated), 7,127,834 2,050,718
Free, 8,171,666 2,010,530
S. S. Teachers. S. S. Scholars.
Established, 206,203 2,919,413
Free, 391,690 3,389,848
FOOTNOTE:
[6] _December, 1903._--It was an immense satisfaction to me to learn,
on my return to America, that in the matter of the proposed change in
the name of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the laity had saved the
day and decisively defeated the clerical delegates who represented
the pro-Catholic sentiment, and wished to call their denomination
the American Catholic Church, and thus make it appear that there was
closer sympathy between Episcopacy and Romanism than between Episcopacy
and Protestantism. In one diocese in particular, in which I have
always felt a peculiar interest, although the Bishop in his opening
address made a strong plea for the change, and although he carried the
clergy with him, he and they were overwhelmingly defeated by the lay
delegates. Would it not be a singular situation if the clergy, the
official leaders of the people in spiritual things, should come to
stand as a class for all that is reactionary or bigoted or trivial,
while the people themselves represented the real spirit of Christ?
There may be such a tendency on the part of the clergy in other
dioceses, but I can hardly believe that it is true of those in Virginia.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PARIS AND MEMORIES OF THE HUGUENOTS.
THE HAGUE, _October 21, 1902_.
The English Channel is one of the oldest ferries in the world. For two
thousand years and more, men have been crossing it in all sorts of
craft, but they have never yet found a way to do it comfortably when
the water is rough, as it generally is. Our experience made us doubt
whether the modern steamers that ply between New Haven and Dieppe are
a whit more comfortable than the galleys of Julius Cæsar. Our boat was
mercilessly buffeted by the winds. She rolled and plunged in every
direction. It seemed to us that her propeller was out of the water
half the time. If seasickness really is good for people, this Channel
should be called a health resort. All the members of our party were
violently sick except myself. We felt sure we had discovered one of
the reasons why the shore to which we looked so wistfully is called
"the pleasant land of France." Any land would seem pleasant after that
dreadful Channel. At last we reached it, pale and wretched. As we
entered the mouth of the river at Dieppe the huge crucifix overhanging
the harbor reminded us that we were now in a Roman Catholic country.
And a "pleasant land" it is in many respects. Our railroad journey to
Paris through the fair and fertile Valley of the Seine made that quite
evident.
[Sidenote: The External Beauty of the French Capital.]
We secured quiet and comfortable quarters close to the lovely Madeleine
Church and only two blocks from the Place de la Concorde, the finest
square in Europe, with the Seine on one side, the Tuileries Gardens
on another, the Champs Élysées leading from it in one direction, and
the Rue de Rivoli in the other. London, as we have seen, is a dingy
congeries of dingy towns built mostly of dingy bricks. Paris is
sunny and bright, the streets are wide and clean, and the houses are
uniformly handsome, being built of a light stone that gives the whole
city an air of elegance. No doubt it is the most beautiful city in the
world, it has a glitter and sparkle unmatched elsewhere,--but, gay as
it seems, it has more suicides than any other city.
[Sidenote: What we did not like about Paris.]
We submitted to it, but could not enjoy the French custom of taking our
morning rolls and coffee in bed. There are many other French customs
constantly in evidence in Paris, but not to be described here, to which
I trust our English and American people will never become accustomed.
Modesty is not prominent among the virtues of the French, though of
course there must be many good people among them. Vice flaunts itself
more in Paris than in any city I have ever seen. There is a certain
brazen shamelessness even in French art that one does not see in New
York or London. But the collection in the Louvre is one of the richest
aggregations of antiquarian and artistic objects in the world, and
surely no museum was ever so splendidly housed. The Moabite Stone, the
oldest extant Hebrew inscription, was one of the things that we made a
point of seeing. As we passed to another part of the great building,
we had the pleasure of seeing the celebrated DeWet and the other Boer
generals who were visiting Paris at that time.
In the rear of the Louvre stands the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois.
It was from the bell-tower of this church that the signal was given
for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. On the other side of the Rue de
Rivoli, and in plain view of this fateful tower, stands the pure white
marble statue of Admiral Coligni, the most illustrious victim of that
fearful massacre. What France needs to-day is the influence of that
Huguenot element which she slaughtered and expelled at that time.
[Sidenote: The Huguenot Name and the Huguenot Character.]
Several names which are now among the most illustrious in the history
of the world were originally used as terms of reproach. When Abram
left his home in Chaldea and crossed the great boundary stream between
the East and the West and settled in Palestine, the Canaanites
dubbed him "the Hebrew," that is, the man who crossed over the
Euphrates--intruder, interloper. But for ages "Hebrew" has been the
honored designation of one of the most gifted and enterprising of the
races of mankind. It is not unlikely that the name "Christian" was
first applied in a contemptuous sense to the disciples of our Lord
at Antioch. It is well known that the name of "Methodist," which is
now the honored designation of a large, active and devoted body of
the people of God, was at first given to the followers of Wesley in a
spirit of ridicule and derision. In like manner, the name "Huguenot,"
according to its most probable derivation from a French word meaning
a kind of hobgoblin of darkness, a night-wanderer, was given to the
Protestants of that country, because there were times in their early
history when, for fear of persecution, they dared not meet except under
cover of darkness. But this term of reproach has gathered about itself
all the glory that belongs to genius and skill in the useful arts, to
industry, thrift and purity in the home, to patriotic valor on the
field of battle, and to unpurchasable and unconquerable devotion to
principle, and is now a name that is venerated by every clear-headed
and sound-hearted and well-informed and unprejudiced person in the
world. It is a name which will wear forever the red halo of martyrdom.
By the Massacre of St. Bartholomew alone thirty-five thousand names
were added to the church's crimson roll of martyrs, with that of the
great Admiral Coligni leading the list. By the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, and the refusal of Louis XIV. to tolerate any exercise of
the Protestant religion in France, while at the same time punishing
inexorably all who attempted to escape from France, nearly half a
million Huguenots were driven into exile, sacrificing their homes,
their property and their country rather than renounce their religion;
and Sismondi estimates that some four hundred thousand others perished
in prison, on the scaffold, at the galleys, and in their attempts to
escape.
[Sidenote: Palissy, the Potter.]
On our visit to the celebrated Porcelain Works at Sevres, a few miles
below Paris on the Seine, our interest centered less in any of the
works of art shown inside than in the fine bronze figure in front of
the building which represents Bernard Palissy, natural philosopher,
chemist, geologist, artist, political economist, Christian hero and
author, of whom Lamartine himself said, "This potter was one of the
greatest writers of the French tongue. Montaigne does not excel him
in freedom, Rousseau in vigor, La Fontaine in grace, Bossuet in
lyric energy." He was the inventor of enamelled pottery. For fifteen
years he pursued his search for the secret of his art, scorned as a
visionary, suspected of being a counterfeiter, reproached by his wife
for the scanty living he provided for his family, sitting by his fire
for six successive days and nights without changing his clothes, and,
in his last desperate experiment, when fuel began to run short and
still the enamel did not melt, rushing into the house, breaking up his
furniture and hurling that into the furnace to keep up the heat--his
long and furious search being rewarded at last by the appearance of
the beautiful white glaze which has made him famous. His transcendant
merits as an artist were then fully recognized, and the Duke of
Montmorency and Catherine de Medici became his patrons, the latter
appointing him to decorate the gardens of the palace of the Tuileries.
But in the meantime he had founded the Reformed Church at Saintes, and
had revolutionized the morals of the community. He was seized, dragged
from his home, and hurried off by night to be punished as a heretic.
And the most brilliant genius of France would certainly have been
burnt, as hundreds of others were, but for the accidental circumstance
that the Duke of Montmorency was in urgent need of enamelled tiles for
his castle floor, and Palissy was the only man in the world capable of
executing them.
Few scenes in history can match that in the Bastile when this aged and
gifted man lay chained to the floor, and Henry III., standing over him,
and referring to the forty-five years of faithful and splendid service
which Palissy had rendered, said, "I am now compelled to leave you to
your enemies, and to-morrow you will be burnt unless you become a Roman
Catholic." Then the fearless answer: "Sire, you have often said you
pity me. I now pity you. 'Compelled!' It is not spoken like a king.
These girls, my companions, and I, who have a portion in the kingdom
of heaven, will teach you royal language. _I cannot be compelled to do
wrong._ Neither you nor the Guises will know how to compel a potter to
bow the knee to images."
[Sidenote: Other Huguenot Heroes and Heroines.]
French Protestantism is rich also in memories of heroic women. There is
the record, for example, of Charlotte de Laval, sitting by her husband,
Admiral Coligni, on the balcony of their castle, and asking, "Husband,
why do you not openly avow your faith, as your brother Andelot has
done?" "Sound your own soul," was his reply; "are you prepared to be
chased into exile with your children, and to see your husband hunted
to the death? I will give you three weeks to consider, and then I will
take your advice." She looked at him a moment through her tears, and
said, "Husband, the three weeks are ended; do your duty, and leave us
to God." The world knows well the sequel.
Surely no right-minded person can refuse to honor such sacrifices for
principle, such loyalty to conscience, such devotion to Christ. The
Huguenots could have remained peaceful and prosperous in their own
country had they but been willing to conform to the Romish religion.
The views I am expressing are not determined merely by my Protestant
birth and training. In proof of this, let me quote to you the words of
the Duke of Saint Simon, himself a Roman Catholic and a courtier of
Louis XIV.: "The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes ... as well as the
various proscriptions that followed, were the fruits of that horrible
conspiracy which depopulated a fourth part of the kingdom, ruined its
trade, weakened it throughout, surrendered it for so long a time to
open and avowed pillage by the dragoons, and authorized the torments
and sufferings by means of which they procured the death of so many
persons of both sexes and by thousands together.... A plot that caused
our manufactures to pass over into the hands of foreigners, made their
states to flourish and grow populous at the expense of our own, and
enabled them to build new cities. A plot that presented to the nations
the spectacle of so vast a multitude of people, who had committed no
crime, proscribed, denuded, fleeing, wandering, seeking an asylum afar
from their country. A plot that consigned the noble, the wealthy, the
aged, those highly esteemed for their piety, their learning, their
virtue, those accustomed to a life of ease, frail, delicate, to hard
labor in the galleys, under the driver's lash, and for no reason save
that of their religion."
Such are the blistering words of this eminent Roman Catholic nobleman
in regard to the policy of the church of which he was a member. If a
fair-minded member of that communion can thus condemn these horrible
iniquities and thus extol the persecuted Huguenots as the best
people in France, surely no Protestant should ever hesitate about
recognizing clearly the world's debt to this pure and heroic people.
And no well-informed Protestant ever does. The Rev. Dr. Croly, of the
Church of England, late rector of St. Stephens, in London, expresses
the opinion of all who know the facts when he says: "The Protestant
Church of France was for half a century unquestionably one of the most
illustrious churches in Europe. It held the gospel in singular purity.
Its preachers were apostolic. Its people the purest, most intellectual
and most illustrious of France."
[Sidenote: France's Loss the World's Gain.]
Now that is the church which was all but stamped out of existence by
the fierce persecutions of the papacy two hundred years ago. And it is
the remnant of that glorious church which now calls on all Christians
to help it to give once more the pure gospel to priest-ridden, infidel
France, and to deliver the nation from that fearful succession of
bloody revolutions and Panama scandals and Dreyfus outrages and
shameless immoralities which have so largely constituted the history
of that unhappy land since it butchered and banished the only class of
its people who would have effectually kept its conscience true, its
morality pure, and its institutions stable and sound.
Do we owe the Huguenots anything? Yes, the whole world is indebted to
them. What France lost the other nations gained. The emigration of
the Huguenots gave a death-blow to several great branches of French
industry. The population of Nantes was reduced from eighty thousand
to forty thousand, a blow to its prosperity from which it has not
recovered to this day. Of twelve thousand artisans engaged in the
manufacture of silk at Lyons, nine thousand went to Switzerland. The
most skilled artisans, the wealthiest merchants, the bravest sailors
and soldiers, the most eminent scholars and scientists went by
thousands to Germany, Holland, England, enriching those lands in money
and morals beyond computation.
The cause of civil and religious liberty is deeply indebted to the
Huguenots. It was Oliver Cromwell, "the greatest prince that ever ruled
England," who raised Britain to her present position of power and
gave her the dominion of the seas. But it was William of Orange who
completed Cromwell's work after the temporary reaction in favor of Rome
and the Stuarts. It was the battle of the Boyne which finally decided
that Great Britain and America were to be Protestant countries and not
Romish. And do you know who it was that won the day for William on the
banks of the Boyne? It was the three regiments of Huguenot infantry
and the squadron of Huguenot cavalry hurled upon the Papists at the
critical moment by the Huguenot, Marshal Schomberg. That is a part of
your debt to the Huguenots for the civil and religious liberty which
you enjoy to-day.
In the Franco-German War of 1870, many of the officers of the
victorious army of invasion were descendants of the Huguenots whom
Louis XIV. expatriated.
"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding
small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he
all."
The King of England himself is of Huguenot blood, George I. having
married Dorothea, granddaughter of the Marquis d'Olbreuse, who was one
of the Huguenot refugees to Brandenburg after the Revocation. Time
would fail me to tell of all the scholars, scientists and noblemen of
England who have sprung from the same great stock, such as Grote, the
historian of Greece, Sydney Smith, the Martineaus, Garrick the actor,
and a great number of gifted clergymen of the Church of England.
Many of the French churches established in London and other parts of
England by the exiles have contributed for centuries to the vigorous
religious life of Britain. For three hundred and fifty years the
Presbyterian Huguenots and the Episcopal Englishmen have worshipped
in different portions of Canterbury Cathedral, and to this day the
Huguenot Church at Canterbury continues to conduct its worship in the
cathedral in French, singing the psalms to the old Huguenot tunes. But
for the most part, the exiles have become merged with the English,
and their names have been Anglicised. In every way Britain has been
enriched and blessed by the infusion of Huguenot blood and genius.
[Sidenote: Huguenot Strain in America.]
What America owes to Huguenot immigration you know. Had the Huguenots
given us only Hugh Swinton Legare, John Jay, Francis Marion, and
Commodore Maury, "the pathfinder of the seas," we should have owed
them an everlasting debt of gratitude. But when we remember what they
have been in Virginia itself--the Maurys, Maryes, Michauxs, Flournoys,
Dupuys, Fontaines, Moncures, Fauntleroys, Latanes, Mauzys, Lacys,
Venables, Dabneys, and many others--we cannot fail to see that we
are under great and lasting obligation to that heroic race, whose
banishment, while it resulted in the moral ruin of France, resulted in
the moral enrichment of America. And we should count it a privilege
to do what we can to retrieve the religious ruin of misguided France
by giving her once more the pure Huguenot gospel. From a statement
published by the Rev. J. E. Knatz, B. D., Delegate of the Huguenot
Churches of France to America, I take the following facts:
[Sidenote: The Huguenot Revival in France.]
The population of France is composed of six hundred thousand
Protestants and nearly thirty-nine million Catholics. The former
are mostly descendants of the Huguenots. In spite of centuries of
persecution, which reduced them to a mere handful, they have not only
kept their ground, but made important advance. They are the strongest
bulwark of republican institutions. In the Dreyfus trial, they were
foremost in forming a better public opinion, fighting the hardest for
the triumph of truth and justice. Lately a Catholic paper had to admit,
reluctantly, that for the last twenty-five years the war waged against
intemperance, immorality and other social evils, had been the work of
the Protestants.
Outside of France the Huguenots carry on a great missionary work in
the French colonies, which are many and extensive. The religious
reorganization of Madagascar alone cost them two hundred thousand
dollars.
In France they have to care for the spiritual welfare of an
ever-increasing number of non-Protestant communities. The movement
toward Protestantism is making great progress in the rural districts,
the population of which, all Catholics, had been hitherto indifferent
or bigoted. New Huguenot churches are springing up on all sides, often
in places where Protestant worship had been abolished for over two
hundred years.
The tears and blood our fathers shed, the torments they suffered on
scaffolds and stakes, are bringing forth fruit after many years, and
"the harvest is truly plenteous." In two departments of Central France
alone, forty-five villages have, within a single year, besought our
societies for regular Protestant services. To this church extension
work alone the French Protestants contribute one hundred and
twenty-five thousand dollars annually.
Congregations of two hundred members (not one of whom was brought up in
the evangelical faith), Sunday-schools of fifty children (none of whom
a year before had ever heard of the Bible), are common results of our
work.
Other missionary enterprises have to devise means of attracting
audiences. With us there is no such difficulty, crowds gather wherever
we are able to send ministers.
Where in the whole world could be found so promising a mission
field--one ready to yield such rich returns? Where could be found
people so eager to listen to the preaching of the gospel, and to have
their children taught its lessons?
As well as a most promising, France is a most important mission field.
The conversion, within the next few years, of some thousands of French
people, would be of incalculable value to the religious and moral
welfare of the world, for France exerts a mighty influence throughout
the world. Moreover, the outlay would be comparatively small.
There are men willing to bring the Bread of Life to the hungering
crowds for a mere pittance, prompted, not by any worldly motive, but by
the Spirit of God.
The salary of a minister is only four hundred dollars. This amount will
send one more to some of the many localities from which urgent appeals
have come; it will open a new district to the permanent influence of
the gospel.
No movement of such size and promise has been witnessed in France since
the time of the Reformation. It is the old light, the eternal light
from above, dawning again on France, illuminating the approach of a new
century and bringing hope for the future.
Let the Christians of America help the Huguenot Church of France in
this great work of hers.
* * * * *
At the American Church in Paris, whose pastor, the Rev. Dr. Thurber,
showed us many courtesies, we had the pleasure, a few days ago, of
hearing a very striking address by the Rev. Merle D'Aubigné, son of the
well-known historian of the Reformation, which abounded with equally
awakening facts as to the present religious condition of France.
Paris is not only one of the most brilliant, but one of the most
interesting cities in the world, from almost every point of view, and
we revelled in its museums and monuments; but its memories of the
Huguenots had more interest for us than anything else, and we have
thought it best to devote our space to that subject rather than to the
Louvre, the tomb of Napoleon, Notre Dame, Versailles, Fontainebleau,
and the scores of other fascinating places and subjects that appeal to
one's interest in this ancient, gay, and terrible city.
We had a rainy day at Brussels and a cold one on the battlefield of
Waterloo, but were not deterred from seeing them by these conditions of
the weather. Then, with a comfortable feeling, almost like the feeling
one has on coming home after journeying in strange lands, we crossed
from Roman Catholic France and Belgium into Protestant Holland.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE MAKING OF HOLLAND.
THE HAGUE, _October 22, 1902_.
There is an endless variety of interest in the different countries of
the Old World. Each has its own fascination for travellers. But, after
all, the strangest, quaintest, cleanest and most picturesque country
in Europe is Holland--little, wet, flat, energetic, heroic Holland. By
calling it picturesque I do not mean that nature has made it so. There
are no bold cliffs overlooking the sea, no heathery hills reflecting
themselves in placid lakes, no soaring mountains, forest-clad or
snow-capped, no waterfalls foaming and thundering among the rocks. It
is not what nature has done, but what man has done, that makes Holland
so picturesque. There is no country on the globe for which nature has
done so little and man has done so much. By an energy and industry
unsurpassed in the annals of the world, the Dutchman has wrested his
land from the ocean itself, walling out its wild waves with huge dykes,
and has converted this swamp into a blooming paradise, studded all over
with prosperous farms and opulent cities.
[Sidenote: A Land below Sea Level.]
As the two most common names of this country themselves suggest,
_Holland_ meaning Hollow Land, and _Netherlands_ meaning Lowlands, the
greater part of it is from twenty to thirty feet below the level of the
ocean; that is to say, the sea actually rolls some ten yards higher
than the ground on which the people live. Hence the common remark, in
which, however, there is some exaggeration, that the frog, croaking
among the bulrushes, looks down upon the swallow on the housetops, and
that the ships float high above the chimneys of the houses.
[Sidenote: Water as an Enemy.]
Of course, then, there is the ever-present danger that the ocean will
break in and again overspread all this fair territory where its waters
once rolled, and only by the most remarkable ingenuity, the most
incessant vigilance, and the most untiring industry can it be prevented
from doing so. Water is the immemorial enemy of the Dutch. They are
trained at college to fight against water, as in other lands soldiers
are trained to fight against the human foes of their country. They are
compelled to wage a perpetual battle for their very existence, for, as
some one has expressed it, as soon as they cease to pump they begin to
drown. It costs the Dutch people about six million dollars a year to
keep their country above water, or, to speak more accurately, to keep
the water above it. If one wishes to appreciate the imminence of this
danger, he has only to stand for a few minutes at the foot of one of
the great dykes on the coast, at high tide, and listen to the waves
dashing against the outer side of the barrier, twenty feet above his
head.
[Sidenote: Dykes as Protectors.]
Of course, the explanation of all this lies in the fact that Holland
is of alluvial formation. Like Lower Egypt and some other regions at
the mouths of great rivers, it is a delta land, the soil of which has
been carried down from the interior by the Rhine and deposited here,
little by little, in the course of the ages; so that Napoleon Bonaparte
is said to have laid claim to the country on the whimsical plea that
it was land robbed from other countries which were his by right of
conquest. Moreover this particular delta lies farther below sea level
than any other, Holland, as a whole, being the lowest country in the
world. These vast and costly embankments are therefore absolutely
necessary to shut the ocean out and keep it out. The Dutch proverb
says, "God made the sea, we made the shore."
But that is not all. In many places the dykes are no less necessary to
prevent the country from being overflowed by the rivers, the beds of
which have been gradually raised by alluvial deposits, so that now the
surface of the water is considerably above the level of the surrounding
country, as is the case in our own land with the Mississippi river at
New Orleans.
[Sidenote: How Dykes are made.]
These huge ramparts, by which the sea has been made to obey the command
of Canute, sometimes rise to a height of not less than thirty-six feet,
and rest upon massive foundations a hundred and fifty feet wide. They
are made of earth, sand and mud thoroughly consolidated so as to be
impervious to water, and the surface is covered with interwoven willow
twigs, the interstices being filled with clay, and the whole thus
bound into a solid mass. Many of the dykes are planted with trees, the
roots of which help to bind the materials of the structure more firmly
together. Others are protected by bulwarks of masonry or by stakes
driven along the sides, the surface being covered with turf.
[Sidenote: Sand Dunes.]
In addition to the directly aggressive action of the water, the sea has
made trouble for the Hollanders in another way. Along the coast, low
sand hills, from thirty to a hundred and fifty feet high, have been
thrown up by the action of the wind and the waves, and, as these dunes,
if left to themselves, are continually changing their shape, shifting
their position, and scattering their loose sand over the fertile land
adjacent, the people, in order to prevent this, sow them annually with
reed-grass and other plants which will sprout in such poor soil, and
the roots, spreading and intertwining in every direction, gradually
consolidate the sand, form a substratum of vegetable soil, and convert
the arid sand dunes into stable and productive agricultural regions.
[Sidenote: Canals.]
Having thus made his land by walling out the sea and the rivers, and by
anchoring those portions of it which were too much disposed to travel
about, the Dutchman's next task was to provide drains for removing the
superfluous water from the cultivated land, fences for enclosing the
portion belonging to each individual farmer and separating it from that
of his neighbor, and highways for communication and traffic between
the different parts of the country. By means of canals he made the
conquered water serve all three of these purposes. The whole country
is a network of canals, which stretch their shining lengths in every
direction, and which are of all sizes, from the main thoroughfares,
sixty feet wide and six feet deep, along which glide the great barges
laden with merchandise and drawn by sedate horses, down to the ditches
of five or six feet which mark the boundaries of separate farms or
divide the fields of each farmer from one another, canals being used in
this way as uniformly as hedges and fences are in other lands.
[Sidenote: Windmills.]
Remembering, as already stated, that not only the surface of the water,
but the beds of the larger canals are often considerably above the
level of the surrounding country, it will be seen that the problem of
drainage was not an easy one. The Dutch solved it by making the wind
work for them. On every hand are seen windmills, larger and stronger
here than in any other country, swinging their huge arms, and pumping
up the superfluous water from the low lying ground to the canals, which
carry it to the sea. These mills are used also for grinding grain,
cutting tobacco, sawing timber, manufacturing paper, and many other
things for which we use water mills or steam mills.
[Sidenote: Polders.]
Of late, however, windmills have been to a large extent superseded by
steam engines for purposes of drainage, especially in the making of
polders, as they call the marshes or lakes, the beds of which have
been reclaimed by draining. In this process, which is still actively
carried on by speculators, the morass or lake to be drained is first
enclosed with a dyke to prevent the entrance of any water from without.
Then the water within is removed by means of peculiarly constructed
water-wheels, driven by steam engines. Sometimes the lake is so deep
that the water cannot be lifted directly to the main canal, and thus be
carried off, and when this is the case a series of dykes and canals at
different levels has to be made, and the water transferred successively
from one to another. The land thus reclaimed is wonderfully fertile,
since in wet seasons superfluous water can always be quickly removed,
and in dry seasons thorough irrigation can be effected still more
easily and quickly.
If these polders could be looked down upon from a balloon, they
would have a very artificial appearance, something like gigantic
checker-boards, as they have been mapped out with mathematical
precision, divided into rectangular plots by straight canals and
straight rows of trees, and furnished with houses all built on exactly
the same pattern.
The most stupendous work of this kind ever projected is the proposed
construction of an embankment which would convert the Zuider Zee into
a vast lagoon, with an area of 1,400 square miles, two-thirds of which
could be made into a polder. It is estimated that the work would cost
$75,000,000.
It is evident, therefore, that this little nation, which has
accomplished such wonders in making its own land and in keeping it from
being swallowed up by the sea after it was made, and which has in the
past done such great things for liberty and learning, for manufactures
and commerce, is still capable of great enterprises.
[Sidenote: Entering Holland.]
No boy or girl who has read _Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates_ can
ever think of Holland with indifference. No man or woman who has read
Motley's stirring history of the heroic little republic in the Rhine
delta can ever enter the Netherlands without a feeling of the liveliest
interest. No lover of liberty who recalls the sufferings and services
of the Dutch Calvinists in the cause of freedom, and the glorious
victory they achieved against tremendous odds, can set foot on that
sacred soil without a thrill of reverent gratitude.
[Sidenote: The Scenery and the Scenes.]
Such were some of the memories with which our hearts were warmed as
our train from Brussels began to cross the bridges over the broad
estuaries that make in from the sea through the low, flat country, in
the neighborhood of Dordrecht and Rotterdam, and to run through an
unmistakably Dutch landscape, with bright green fields divided into
rectangular sections by hundreds of shining canals, and occupied by
innumerable herds of black and white Holstein cattle, not a few of them
actually wearing jackets, apparently made of burlaps or bagging, to
protect them from the dampness; with level roads running along the tops
of the dykes several yards above the surrounding country, and sedate
looking horses drawing old-fashioned wagons, and brisk looking dogs
drawing clattering milk carts, with their cargo of burnished cans; with
innumerable rows of willow trees, the twigs of which the people use to
make the covering of the dykes, and the wood of which they use to make
their heavy, pointed shoes, or sabots; with picturesque houses roofed
with red tiles, and broad-built peasants working in the fields, wearing
those same wooden sabots, and clean looking market women trudging
into the towns in their exceedingly picturesque head-dress of gold
helmets covered with lace caps; with stiff, symmetrical gardens, and
trees clipped into fantastic shapes; with quaint old church steeples
and gilded weather-cocks; and ever and anon a weather-beaten windmill
swinging its great arms between us and the low horizon. This was
Holland, beyond a doubt.
[Sidenote: Rotterdam.]
An interesting indication of the important part played by the dykes in
the development of Holland is the number of towns which have been named
from the dyke or dam originally built on a site, such as Rotterdam,
Schiedam, Amsterdam, and so on. The first important place we passed
was Rotterdam, the most active seaport of Holland, with a population
of three hundred and twenty thousand, and from the high railway bridge
on which we crossed the Maas we had a good view of the boompjes, as
they call the magnificent quays, which, with their graceful fringe
of trees and their tangled forest of shipping, line the banks of the
river for a mile and a half. We caught a glimpse also of the bronze
statue of Erasmus, the Dutch scholar, who, as some say, "laid the
egg which Luther hatched." On a former visit to Rotterdam I had seen
the birthplace of this illustrious man, bearing on its front the
inscription, "_Haec est parva domus, magnus qua natus Erasmus_" (_this
is the little house in which great Erasmus was born_.)
[Sidenote: The Hague.]
Leaving Rotterdam, we pass on our left Delftshaven, from which a party
of the Pilgrim Fathers sailed to America in 1620; then Schiedam,
noted for its "schnapps," of which there are more than two hundred
distilleries; then Delft, where William the Silent, the immortal
founder of Dutch independence, was assassinated by a Jesuit whom the
Roman Catholic persecutors of the Netherlands had hired to rid them
of their great foeman, but which, I fear, is better known to some of
my readers as the place where a certain blue-glazed earthenware used
to be made in imitation of Chinese porcelain; and then, fifteen miles
from Rotterdam, The Hague, one of the handsomest towns in Holland,
with the Royal Palace, and in a lovely park outside the city the
royal villa, called The House in the Wood, and two miles away on the
sea the fashionable watering-place of Scheveningen, and in the city
itself scrupulously clean and bright houses on every hand, where its
two hundred thousand people live, and, above all, the picture gallery,
with its two world-renowned paintings by Rembrandt and Potter, to say
nothing of others scarcely inferior, if at all so, such as Vermeer's
"View of Delft," with its red and blue roofs partly lit up with
yellow sunlight, a simple view which "is perhaps unmatched by any
other landscape in the world for the truthfulness of its atmospheric
and light effects and for the vigor and brilliance of its coloring."
Paul Potter's "Young Bull" is a marvellous picture, but the one
which demands and repays the longest study is Rembrandt's "School of
Anatomy," which shows us the celebrated Nicolaas Tulp, in black coat,
lace collar and broad-brimmed soft hat, explaining the anatomy of
the arm of a corpse to a body of surgeons, who listen to the lecture
with the most life-like expressions, and which has been happily
characterized as the truest and most life-like representation of the
"working of intellect" ever produced.
[Sidenote: A Presbyterian Government.]
As we had reminded ourselves when visiting the royal residences that
the young and beloved Queen Wilhelmina is the only Presbyterian Queen
in the world, so we reminded ourselves when visiting the Chambers of
the States General that Holland is the only country in the world which
has the good fortune to have a Presbyterian preacher for its Prime
Minister. Of course, other countries have Presbyterian laymen for prime
ministers, Mr. Balfour of Great Britain, for example, but Holland is
the only one that has placed the helm of the state in the hands of a
preacher. His name is the Rev. Dr. Abraham Kuyper, and he is one of
the ablest and most versatile men in the world. His recent book on
_The Holy Spirit_ is the greatest monograph on that subject that has
appeared since the work of John Owen. He has rendered a great service
to the cause of vital religion in checking the rationalistic views of
such men as Professor Kuenen, and strongly reasserting the evangelical
doctrines to which Holland has been so deeply indebted in the past
for the heroic character of her people, and the glorious position she
holds in the history of human freedom. Though the Chambers were not
in session when we visited the Binnenhof, we took special pleasure in
having even the chair of Dr. Kuyper pointed out to us.
[Sidenote: Unpresbyterian Church Buildings.]
By the way, the cathedrals and other great churches of Holland erected
before the Reformation strikingly illustrate how unfit such structures
are for Christian worship, according to the simple New Testament model,
especially for preaching the gospel. They are adapted only to the
spectacular ceremonies of the Roman Catholics and other ritualists.
Therefore, any Protestant community which has had the misfortune to
inherit a cathedral from the unreformed period has an elephant on its
hands. The Dutch people, being mostly Presbyterians, have had this
experience, and, finding themselves unable to make the most effective
use of these great buildings erected for Romish rites, have allowed
them to assume a very unattractive, dreary and barn-like appearance on
the inside.
The question may shock our æsthetic friends, but, notwithstanding
the incalculable loss to art, would it not have been better for the
world if the Protestant countries at the time of the Reformation had
macadamized all their cathedrals? And if any one hesitates to answer
in the affirmative, let him consider carefully the connection between
the modes of worship, and the character of the worshipper, and let him
explain to himself clearly why it is that the countries which have
adopted the Protestant model, with its steady appeal to the reason,
and its earnest insistence upon intelligent apprehension of the
truth, are the cleanest, safest, thriftiest and strongest countries
in the world, while those which have adopted the Romish model, with
its constant appeal to the æsthetic sensibilities, and its millinery,
music, processions, incense, and "vain repetitions," are precisely
the countries which have suffered the greatest material and moral
deterioration, and which were not long ago contemptuously characterized
by Lord Salisbury, the late Premier of Great Britain, as "decaying
nations."
CHAPTER XXV.
LEYDEN'S UNIVERSITY, HAARLEM'S FLOWERS, AND AMSTERDAM'S COMMERCE.
UTRECHT, _October 25, 1902_.
We gave only one day to Leyden, ten miles from The Hague, but it was
one of the most interesting days we have had in Europe. Taking a guide
at the railway station, we traversed the quaint streets and crossed and
recrossed the multitudinous canals, and climbed to the top of the great
fortified circular mound of earth in the centre of the city, called the
_Burg_, the foundations of which date from the tenth century, and from
the top of which we had a unique view of the heroic old town and the
peaceful homes of its fifty-four thousand people.
[Sidenote: The Great Siege.]
But one does not go far in Leyden without being reminded of the
terrible siege to which it was subjected by the Spaniards in 1574. One
such reminder is the bronze statue of the gallant Mayor Van der Werf,
who defended the city in that siege and would listen to no suggestion
of surrender. Another is an inscription on the front of the Stadhuis,
which, translated, reads: "When the black famine had brought to the
death nearly six thousand persons, then God the Lord repented and gave
us bread again as much as we could wish"; and which in the original
Dutch is an ingenious chronogram, the capital letters as Roman numerals
giving the date, and the one hundred and thirty-one letters used in
the original indicating the number of days during which the siege
lasted. But, after a short and partial relief, the siege was continued
in the form of a blockade for many dreadful months. William of
Orange finally cut the dykes and flooded the country, and relieved the
famished city by ships.
[Illustration: A STRANGER IN LEYDEN.]
[Sidenote: A Unique Reward of Valor.]
The story of Leyden which made the deepest impression upon me as a
boy was that of William's offering to reward the citizens for this
gallant defence either by exempting them from taxes for a certain
number of years or by the establishment of a university in their city.
To their everlasting honor they chose the latter, even in that time
of distress and poverty, and the University was founded in 1575. Of
course we wished to see the University which had such a history as
that, to say nothing of the fact that we had heard of Leyden jars ever
since we began the study of electricity at college, and that we knew
something of a few of the men whose genius has at different periods
since made the faculty one of the most illustrious in Europe, such as
"the learned Scaliger," the famous physician Boerhaave, Arminius and
Gomar, champions, respectively, of the two theological schools known as
Arminians or Remonstrants and Calvinists, which in 1618 brought their
differences to debate in the famous Synod of Dort; and, as is always
the case when an opportunity for thorough discussion on the basis
of Scripture is given, the result was a victory for the Calvinists.
We remembered also with pleasure that Oliver Goldsmith, author of
the immortal _Vicar of Wakefield_, was for a time a student at the
University of Leyden; and we recalled with less pleasure that in our
own day the faculty of the institution had furnished one of the boldest
advocates of the destructive criticism of the Old Testament, Professor
Abraham Kuenen.
[Sidenote: Plain College Buildings Abroad.]
It was a satisfaction to see it, though there is little to see;
this University, like most of those on the continent, having very
indifferent buildings and appointments. The men who sometimes "kick"
in American colleges and seminaries because the class-rooms and
dormitories do not suit them, to say nothing of their board, would get
a superabundance of that sort of exercise if they had to attend the
average Dutch or German university. In fact, it has been intimated
at times that there are men in American colleges and seminaries who
belong to that class of people of whom it was suggested that they
would grumble even after getting to heaven on the ground that their
haloes didn't fit. Fortunately, however, these are very few, the great
majority of our American students being not spoiled and fussy children,
but manly, sensible, hard working, plain living, high thinking men.
[Sidenote: John Robinson and the Pilgrim Fathers.]
Before leaving Leyden we made a point of visiting the house in which
the Rev. John Robinson lived. He was the leader of the first Puritans
who were banished from England, and who, like the adherents of every
other persecuted faith, found toleration and liberty in Calvinistic
Holland. A bronze tablet affixed to the wall of the church on the
opposite side of the street contains a bas-relief of the _Mayflower_,
and states that it was at Mr. Robinson's prompting that the Pilgrim
Fathers went forth to settle New England in 1620.
[Sidenote: Horse Flesh as Food.]
As we passed with our guide through what looked like an open-air beef
market, he surprised us not a little by telling us that what the people
were buying there was not beef, but horse flesh, which is much cheaper,
adding that the worn-out dray horses and car horses of the English
cities were regularly bought and shipped to Holland to be sold to the
poor instead of beef. No doubt the people of Leyden became accustomed
to much worse fare than that when, during the great siege of 1574,
the Spaniards were trying to starve them into resubmission to Roman
Catholicism. But those conditions no longer exist, and the idea of
eating horse flesh as a regular thing is not one which commends itself
to our feelings.
[Sidenote: Haarlem.]
This place, seventeen miles from Leyden, also had experience of the
tender mercies of the papal soldiery when, in 1573, after a gallant
defence of seven months, it fell into the hands of the Spaniards, and
the entire garrison, the Protestant ministers of the gospel, and two
thousand of the townspeople were executed. Haarlem is now, and has
been for two hundred and fifty years, famous for its horticulture.
It supplies bulbs to every part of the world, and in the spring the
nurseries around the city are ablaze with the brilliant blooms of
the tulips, hyacinths, crocuses and lilies, whole fields of them in
every variety of color, like vast natural flags of the brightest hues,
lying on the flat surface of the country, and the whole atmosphere is
impregnated with their delicious fragrance.
[Sidenote: A Flower Boom.]
Two centuries and a half ago, at the time of the "Tulip Mania," there
was as wild speculation in bulbs as there has ever been in our day in
stocks. Enormous prices were paid for the rarer bulbs. For instance, a
single bulb of the species called "Semper Augustus" was sold for five
thousand two hundred dollars. This statement will not seem incredible
to any of my readers who have had bitter experience with the fictitious
values created by the "booms" which cursed and crippled so many of our
Southern communities a few years ago. The tulip craze in Holland had
the same history: the mania subsided, the prices fell, many of the
speculators were ruined, and before long a "Semper Augustus" could be
bought for twenty dollars. Even that will seem to most people a pretty
high price for a single tulip bulb.
[Sidenote: A Small Country.]
We did not stop at Haarlem, as it was not the right season for the
gorgeous display of flowers above referred to, that is, the latter part
of April and the beginning of May, but pushed on to Amsterdam, which is
only ten miles away. If the reader has taken account of the distances
between these populous cities as they have been successively mentioned,
and has observed how short they are, he will have received a very
strong impression of the smallness of the country.
[Sidenote: Amsterdam.]
Amsterdam, the largest city in Holland, with a population of more than
half a million, is built upon nearly a hundred islands, separated from
one another by a network of canals and connected by means of some three
hundred bridges, and is, therefore, sometimes spoken of as "a vulgar
Venice," but, with its prodigious vitality, its crowded streets, its
busy waters, and its financial eminence, it must be far more like the
Venice which was Queen of the Adriatic some centuries ago than the
stagnant and melancholy town which bears that name to-day.
[Sidenote: Odoriferous Canals.]
The water in the canals is about three feet deep, and below this is
a layer of mud of the same thickness. It is said that, in order to
prevent malarial exhalations, the water is constantly renewed from an
arm of the North Sea Canal and the mud removed by dredging. I hope this
process is effective, but there were unmistakable exhalations from the
canals when we were there. Whether they were malarial or not I cannot
say, but certainly they were unfragrant to a degree. Still, the evil
smells of Amsterdam are not to be named in number and vigor with those
of Venice.
[Sidenote: A City Built on Stakes.]
As in Venice, so here, all the houses are built on piles which are
driven fifteen or twenty feet through the loose sand near the surface
into the firmer layers below. Hence the jest of Erasmus, that he knew
a city whose inhabitants dwelt on the tops of trees like rooks. They
are not so secure on their perch, however, as the rooks. For, although
the preparations underground are often more costly than the buildings
afterwards erected above, yet, such is the difficulty of securing
a firm foundation, and such the ravages of the wood worm among the
fir-tree piles after they are driven into the sand and built upon, that
many of the brick houses which were once erect are now considerably
out of the perpendicular, and lean backwards or forwards or sideways,
according as the piles have given way at one place or another. In 1822
thirty-four hundred tons of grain were stored in a grain magazine
originally built for the East India Company, and, the piles being
unable to sustain the weight, the building literally sank down into the
mud.
[Sidenote: The Business of Amsterdam.]
Besides its importance as a mart for the tobacco, sugar, rice, spices,
and other produce of the Dutch colonies in the East Indies, West Indies
and South America (which, by the way, have a population of thirty-five
million, that is, seven times as many as the little mother country),
Amsterdam has a number of important industrial establishments, such
as ship-yards, sugar and camphor refineries, cobalt-blue and candle
factories, machine shops, breweries, and especially diamond-polishing
mills, of which last there are no less than seventy, employing in all
about ten thousand men. We visited one of these mills and watched the
process for a few minutes.
[Sidenote: The Jewish Quarter.]
The art of polishing diamonds was introduced here in the sixteenth
century by Portuguese Jews, who, driven from their former homes by
papal persecution, found in Protestant Holland an asylum, and, like
the oppressed adherents of other creeds, secured the full religious
toleration which they craved. They have ever since constituted an
important part of the population of Amsterdam, and now number about
thirty-five thousand. One of the interesting episodes of our visit was
a drive through the poorer Jewish Quarter, with its swarms of untidy
men, women and children. In this quarter and of this stock Spinoza, the
philosopher, was born; and in this quarter, though not of this stock,
Rembrandt, the painter, lived for fifteen years, in a house marked by a
tablet, which those who are specially interested in art always wish to
see.
[Sidenote: Home of President Kruger.]
Utrecht, twenty-two miles from Amsterdam, is an attractive city of one
hundred thousand inhabitants. It interested us chiefly as the centre
of the Jansenists, the redoubtable Roman Catholic adversaries of the
Jesuits, and as the peaceful home of ex-President Kruger since his
withdrawal from the stormy experiences of his life in South Africa.
This venerable man, so remarkable on account of his public career,
is of special interest to any one connected with Union Seminary in
Virginia, because it was under the ministry of a former student of our
Seminary, the late Dr. Daniel Lindley, who went as a missionary to
South Africa more than sixty years ago, that Mr. Kruger was brought
into the church. He lives in great comfort on the famous Malieban,
which, with its triple row of lime trees, is one of the loveliest
residential districts in Europe.
[Sidenote: Queer Customs in Holland.]
It seems odd that in a country where there is so much water, there
should be so little that is fit to drink, and that in a country where
land is so valuable the people should use any part of it for fuel, and
yet, not only does one constantly see dog-carts containing barrels of
fresh water and loads of peat passing hither and thither in the towns,
but at cellar doors in the side streets sign-boards are seen announcing
"water and fire to sell," and at these places the poorer classes buy
the boiling water or red-hot turf that they need to make their tea or
coffee. Foot-warmers are very generally used by the Dutch women, and in
some of the churches we saw immense numbers of these little fireboxes.
[Sidenote: The Comfort of a Hot Water Bottle.]
This reminds me to say, for the benefit of any of my readers who may
be planning a trip to Europe, that two things are more conducive to
comfort and health than a good hot-water bottle when one is travelling
in Northern or Central Europe, for these lands are much colder than
ours in spring, summer and autumn, and arrangements for heating the
hotels either do not exist or are utterly ineffective. American
tourists who do not observe this precaution are likely to need physic,
and, by the way, the universal sign for drug stores in Holland is not
the mortar and pestle, but "the gaper," that is, a painted Turk's head
showing his tongue.
[Sidenote: Domestic Store-rooms in the Top Stories.]
In Amsterdam and other Dutch cities many of the houses, which are made
of brick with light colored painting and have a very substantial and
neat appearance, are narrow and high, standing with ornamented gable
ends to the street, and have beams projecting from the gables with
fixtures for hoisting goods to the top stories, which are used for
store-rooms. These are not business houses, but dwelling houses of
people well to do, and the windows and woodwork from top to bottom are
scrupulously clean and bright.
[Sidenote: The Original "Spotless Town."]
Broeck, in the north of Holland, is said to be the original Spotless
Town. We did not visit this place, but it is thus described by a writer
in _Public Opinion_ who has done so:
"The palings of the fences of Broeck are sky-blue. The streets are
paved with shining bricks of many colors. The houses are rose-colored,
black, gray, purple, light blue or pale green. The doors are painted
and gilded. For hours you may not see a soul in the streets or at the
windows. The streets and houses, bridges, windows and barns show a
neatness and a brilliancy that are absolutely painful.
"At every step a new effect is disclosed, a new scene is beheld, as
if painted upon the drop-curtain of a stage. Everything is minute,
compact, painted, spotless and clean. In the houses of Broeck
for cleaning purposes you will find big brooms, little brooms,
tooth-brushes, aqua fortis, whiting for the window panes, rouge for
the forks and spoons, coal dust for the copper, emery for the iron
utensils, brick powder for the floors, and even small splinters of wood
with which to pick out the tiny bits of straw in the cracks between the
bricks. Here are some of the rules of this wonderful town:
"Citizens must leave their shoes at the door when entering a house.
"Before or after sunset no one is allowed to smoke excepting with a
pipe having a cover, so that the ashes will not be scattered upon the
street.
"Any one crossing the village on horseback must get out of the saddle
and lead the horse.
"A cuspidor shall be kept by the front door of each house.
"It is forbidden to cross the village in a carriage, or to drive
animals through the streets."
Thus, it appears that "Spotless Town" is not merely an ideal existing
in the imagination of the man who writes the very clever verses
placarded in our street-cars and elsewhere in praise of the cleansing
properties of Sapolio, but a reality; and there are numerous places in
Holland which in point of cleanliness would put to shame any of our
American towns.
[Sidenote: A Pardonable Mania.]
Some one has said that the Dutch love of cleanliness amounts almost
to a monomania, and that the washing, scrubbing and polishing to
which every house is subjected once every week is rather subversive
of comfort. And it would appear from the regulations above cited that
the matter is sometimes pushed to extremes. But my experience as a
traveller in some parts of my own country, as well as in some parts of
other lands, has made me very tolerant of such a mania as that, and,
when amid the filth of Venice or Naples, for instance, my mind has
reverted to these clean Dutch towns, it has caused me to sigh--"_O si
sic omnes!_"
[Sidenote: Mr. Edward Bok on the "Mother of America."]
I cannot resist the temptation to append to these letters about little,
quaint, clean, energetic, heroic, learned, unpretentious Holland some
extracts from an article of Mr. Edward Bok's which I have read since
my return to America. He refers to the fact that twenty thousand more
American travellers are said to have visited the Netherlands during
the past summer than in any previous year, and to the fact that
there is a rapidly increasing demand for books on the history of the
Dutch people, as shown by the reports of the librarians in American
towns, and he regards these as specimens of a group of facts which,
taken together, indicate clearly that the reading world of America is
beginning to appreciate the real extent of the strong Dutch influences
which underlie American institutions and have shaped American life.
He says that for years we have written in our histories and taught
in our schools that this nation is a transplanted England; that the
institutions which have made this country distinctively great were
derived from England. But he denies that England is entitled to this
honor, and declares that the true mother land of America is not
England, but Holland:
"Take, for instance, what may be truly designated as the four vital
institutions upon which America not only rests, but which have caused
it to be regarded as the most distinctive nation in the world. I mean
our public-school system of free education; our freedom of religious
worship; our freedom of the press; and our freedom of suffrage as
represented by the secret ballot. Not one of these came from England,
since not one of them existed there when they were established in
America; in fact, only one of them existed in England earlier than
fifty years after they existed in America, and the other three did
not exist in England until nearly one hundred years after their
establishment in America. Each and all of these four institutions came
to America directly from Holland. Take the two documents upon which the
whole fabric of the establishment and maintenance of America rests--the
Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution of the United
States--and one, the Declaration, is based almost entirely upon the
Declaration of Independence of the United Republic of the Netherlands;
while all through the Constitution its salient points are based upon,
and some literally copied from, the Dutch Constitution. So strong
is this Netherland influence upon our American form of government
that the Senate of the United States, as a body, derives most of the
peculiarities of its organization from the Netherlands States General,
a similar body, and its predecessor by nearly a century of years, while
even in the American flag we find the colors and the five-pointed star
chosen from the Dutch.
"The common modern practice of the State allowing a prisoner the free
services of a lawyer for his defence, and the office of a district
attorney for each county, are so familiar to us that we regard them as
American inventions. Both institutions have been credited to England,
whereas, as a matter of fact, it is impossible to find in England even
to-day any official corresponding to our district attorney. Both of
these institutions existed in Holland three centuries before they were
brought to America.
"The equal distribution of property among the children of a person
dying intestate--that is, without a will--was brought to America direct
from Holland by the Puritans. It never existed in England.
"The record of all deeds and mortgages in a public office, a custom
which affects every man and woman who owns or buys property, came to
America direct from Holland. It never came from England, since it does
not exist there even at the present day.
"The township system, by which each town has local self-government,
with its natural sequence of local self-government in county and State,
came from Holland.
"The practice of making prisoners work, and turning prisons into
workhouses, and, in fact, our whole modern American management of
free prisons which has caused the admiration of the entire world, was
brought from Holland to America by William Penn.
"Group these astonishing facts together, if you will, and see
their tremendous import: The Federal Constitution; the Declaration
of Independence; the whole organization of the Senate; our State
Constitutions; our freedom of religion; our free schools; our
free press; our written ballot; our town, county and State systems
of self-government; the system of recording deeds and mortgages;
the giving of every criminal a just chance for his life; a public
prosecutor of crime in every county; our free prison workhouse
system--to say nothing of kindred important and vital elements in our
national life. When each and all of these can be traced directly to
one nation, or to the influence of that nation, and that nation not
England, is it any wonder, asks one enlightened historian, that some
modern scholars, who, looking beneath the mere surface resemblance of
language, seek an explanation of the manifest difference between the
people of England and the people of the United States assumed by them
to be of the same blood, and influenced by the same (?) institutions?
"Nor is it strange that so strong a Dutch influence should have entered
into the establishment and making of America, when one considers the
immense debt which the world owes to Holland. For it may be said
without fear of contradiction that in nearly every art which uplifts
and adorns human life, in nearly every aspect of human endeavor,
Holland has not only added to the moral resources of mankind and
contributed more to the fabric of civilization, but has also actually
led the way. It was the first nation to master the soil and teach
agriculture to the world. It has taught the world the art of gardening.
It taught commerce and merchandise to the entire world when it ranked
as the only great commercial nation on the globe. It taught the
broadest lines of finance to the world by the establishment, in 1609,
of its great Bank of Amsterdam, with one hundred and eighty millions of
dollars deposits, preceding the establishment of the Bank of England
by nearly one hundred years. The founding of its great University of
Leyden, in 1575, marked an epoch in the world's history of education,
and made the Netherlands the centre of learning of Europe. Here was
founded international law through Grotius, one of Holland's greatest
sons. Here Boerhaave, a Dutchman, revolutionized medicine by his
wonderful discoveries until Holland's medical school became the seat of
authority for all Europe. From this centre, too, came that great lesson
in the publishing of books in the shape of the famous Elzevir books. It
was the first nation to place the reader and the spelling-book in the
hands of the child, irrespective of station or means. As musicians, for
nearly two hundred years the Netherlands stood supreme, and furnished
all the courts of Europe with vocal and instrumental music. It was the
Dutch who founded, in Naples, the first musical conservatory in the
world, and another in Venice, and it was to their influence and example
that the renowned school of Rome owed its existence.
"The starting of all these masterful influences would alone make
a nation great. But these were only a part of Holland's wonderful
contributions to the world's enlightenment. It went on and introduced
to the world the manufacture of woollen cloth that marked an epoch
in history, and followed this up by developing the manufacture of
silk, linen, tapestry and lace until it made its city of Flanders the
manufacturing centre of the world. It devised and presented through
the Van Eyck brothers the wonderful discovery of oil painting, and
revolutionized the world of art, and gave, in the person of one of
these brothers, Jan Van Eyck, the originator of the painted portrait.
Then came the invention of wood-engraving by a Dutchman, followed
quickly by the printing of books from blocks; the substitution
of movable type for the solid block of wood, and we have the
printing-press--the invention of which Germany may never concede to
Holland, and yet the germ of which lay in the block books to which
Holland lays unquestioned claim. But Holland need never squabble
over a single invention. A nation that, in addition to what has been
cited above, has likewise invented the telescope, the microscope, the
thermometer, the method of measuring degrees of latitude and longitude,
the pendulum clock, thereby putting before the world the beginning
of anything which we can call accuracy in time, and discovered the
capillary circulation of the blood, need not stop to split straws.
There is a wonderful charm in reading the history of a people who
have done so much toward the enlightenment of the world, and not
alone in one field of thought or activity, but in every field of
human endeavor. The people of no nation make so bold and strong an
impression on the mind as one after another of their achievements
pass before one, and especially when it is considered that all these
contributions to humankind were done with one hand while the other was
busy in saving every foot of land from the rushing waters. But the
people always remained cool, balanced and solid. That same patient but
deep, perfervid spirit which built the dykes and saved the land with
one hand, and opened those same dykes, built by the very life-blood of
the people, with the other, and flooded the land against encroaching
enemies--that same spirit built up a nation unrivalled in history as a
financial, commercial, maritime, art, learning, medical and political
centre, from which have radiated the strongest influences for the
upbuilding of great empires--not only in the new Western world of
America, but also in the far East of the Indies, and in the strong
colonial establishment of South Africa. Her glory may be of the past,
but he is indeed a rash prophet who would predict the future of any
nation, however small, on the face of the globe of to-day. Of some
things the American traveller is to-day constantly convinced: that
there is less intellectual veneer in Holland than in any other country
in Europe; that there is more solid and abiding culture of the very
highest kind, and that the modern Dutch family represents a repose of
mind, a simplicity of living, and a contented happiness with life in
general that we, as a nation, might well envy."
CHAPTER XXVI.
UP THE RHINE AND OVER THE ALPS.
The Cologne Cathedral is the finest Gothic structure in the world.
We had a perfect view of the majestic exterior from the windows of
our hotel, but, of course, devoted most of our time to the still more
impressive interior. It is no part of my purpose to descant upon
these things which are described in all the books of travel. The city
possesses other objects of interest besides its matchless cathedral,
and some of them we visited, in spite of the weather. It was cold and
wet, and we did not prolong our stay. But no conditions of weather
could have deterred us from taking the steamer for our trip up the
Rhine, rather than the railroad. It was late in the season. The summer
tourists had long since returned to their homes in England and America.
We had the boat pretty much to ourselves. We could hardly have fallen
upon a worse day for the first half of our trip. It was not only cold,
but foggy, and we could get only tantalizing glimpses of the shores now
and then when the mist thinned a little. So it continued nearly all
the way to Coblentz, where we landed and spent the night. We comforted
ourselves, however, with the reflection that the finest scenery was
farther up, and with the hope that we should have a better day for that
part of the trip. And we had. The mist was rolling away rapidly when we
rose next morning, and it soon disappeared, leaving us a fine autumn
day. After listening to the exhilarating music of a military band which
was serenading a young general near our hotel and after taking a look
at the noble statue of William I., and at the massive fortifications
of Ehrenbreitstein, the German Gibraltar, on the other side of the
river, we took the boat in better spirits, addressed ourselves with
more zest than before to the volume of _Legends of the Rhine_, and thus
began a delightful and memorable day.
The chief advantage of making this celebrated trip at this season is
that one thus gets the opportunity to see the vintage of the Rhine
Valley as it can be seen at no other season.
"Purple and red, to left, to right,
For miles the gorgeous vintage blazed."
Though, as a matter of fact, I believe that most of the Rhine grapes
that we saw were white. The steep slopes of the hills among which the
great river winds are covered with vineyards, the vines in rows as
regular as ranks of Indian corn, and laden with millions of luscious
bunches. The vintagers, men, women and children, in picturesque
costumes and with huge baskets on their backs, were busy everywhere
stripping the fruit from the yellow vines. The soil is kept in place by
stone terraces. Above the line of the vineyards jut out the huge rocks
of the mountains, their gray bastions alternating with forests robed in
green, brown, red and yellow, and standing out boldly against the pure
blue sky.
It is only by strong self-restraint that I can pass without special
notice such a rock as Rhinestein, such a town as Bingen, and such a
monument as that to "Germania" on the Niederwald, but it must be done.
_November 15, 1902._
[Sidenote: Wiesbaden and the German Woods.]
Wiesbaden, the most charming of German watering-places, is a clean and
handsome city, with broad and well paved streets, many attractive
shops and pleasant residences, excellent hotels, extensive and lovely
parks, a sumptuous opera house, a less costly but very spacious
music hall (where, by the way, we had the pleasure of hearing Frau
Shuman-Heink sing), and a few large and costly churches, but with no
adequate arrangements, so far as I could see, for the churching of
its large population. The place owes its importance primarily to the
Boiling Salt Springs, which here gush from the earth, and which have
made this the great resort for rheumatics and the victims of various
other ailments. It is also the home of one of the most celebrated
oculists in Europe, whose patients come to him from every part of the
world. The chief attraction for those who are fond of outdoor life is
the glorious forests which stretch from Wiesbaden back through the
valleys and over the Taunus Mountains. One of our young people has
just been writing to the folks at home about an eighteen-mile walk
through these woods, guided only by the blazed trees, and speaks with
pardonable enthusiasm of "the blue-gray trunks outlined against the
terra cotta carpet of fallen leaves, the sunlight glancing through the
trees, and the gently waving branches against the azure sky. There is
no undergrowth as in our forests at home, but there are here and there
gray rocks, large and small, covered with fresh green moss, or with
gray, pink and yellow lichen. There were rustic benches all along, but
the forest was quite deserted except for an occasional woodman with
a fire and piles of neatly chopped wood, or some little boys drawing
carts filled with bundles of sticks for winter use."
_November 20, 1902._
[Sidenote: Worms, Heidelberg and Strasburg.]
We spent three weeks at wholesome Wiesbaden, counting a day that we
gave to Mayence, on the other side of the Rhine, for the purpose of
seeing the memorials of Gutenberg, the inventor of printing. Then we
took the train for Worms. The chief "lion" here is, of course, the
magnificent Luther monument, a thing which no visitor to this part
of the world should fail to see. Recrossing the Rhine, we ran up to
Heidelberg, and devoted a day to the fine old castle and the famous
university--a stinging cold day it was, too. Nor did winter relax
his grip at Strasburg, for there we had snow. One of the youngsters
celebrated his birthday there by watching the noon performances of
the world-renowned clock in the old Cathedral, our whole party going
with him, the adults watching the wonderful mechanism with scarcely
less interest than the children. The striking of that clock and the
movements of its various figures and fixtures at twelve o'clock every
day invariably draws a large crowd of people. We saw the storks' nests
on the chimneys, too, but of course the storks themselves were down in
the warm sunshine of Africa at that season.
_November 23, 1902._
[Sidenote: Switzerland in Winter-time.]
Switzerland caps the climax of scenic interest in Europe--lakes,
waterfalls, mountains, glaciers--language and pictures are alike
unavailing to convey an adequate impression of this sublime scenery.
My first views of it were in midsummer. On the 31st of July, 1896, at
the top of the Wengern Alp, seven thousand feet above the sea, reached
by rail all the way, my travelling companions and I had coasted on
sleds over the snow like boys, wearing our heavy overcoats the while.
Above us rose the Jungfrau, six thousand feet higher, piercing the
clouds. As we watched, the clouds parted, and the white Jungfrau,
wearing the dazzling Silberhorn on her bosom, burst upon our view.
Never shall we see anything more beautiful till our eyes rest upon
the pinnacles of the celestial city. We were standing at the time on
the Eiger Glacier, an immense mass of pale green ice covered with a
snowy crust. Longfellow somewhere (in "Hyperion," I think) likens the
shape of one of the glaciers to a glove, lying with the palm downwards.
"It is a gauntlet of ice, which centuries ago Winter, the king of
these mountains, threw down in defiance to the Sun, and year by year
the Sun strives in vain to lift it from the ground on the point of
his glittering spear." Aye, in vain. Winter is king. But the Sun now
and then wrenches somewhat from his grasp. And even while we gazed
speechless at the unearthly splendor of the Jungfrau and the Silberhorn
we heard an avalanche fall with a crash like the end of the world. That
night we sat before a roaring fire and wrote home about it.
[Illustration: THE LION OF LUCERNE.]
That was my experience in midsummer. Now we were to see not only the
great mountain tops, but the whole country, in the undisputed grasp
of Winter. When we reached Lucerne, not only the high Alps, but all
the mountains and hills, far as the eye could reach, were covered
with snow. When we visited Thorwaldsen's celebrated Lion of Lucerne
we found workmen with scaffolding and ladders against the cliff,
carefully boxing it in with boards to prevent it from being injured by
the freezing of water trickling down upon it during the winter now at
hand. But we were in time, just in time, to see it, and we all agreed
that few monuments in Europe are so impressive. The great figure,
twenty-eight feet in length, I believe, carved in the living rock,
represents the king of beasts lying slain, pierced by an arrow, with
broken spear and shield beneath, and over that shield, which bears the
lilies of France, the huge paws are thrown, as if guarding it still
in death. It commemorates the devotion of the Swiss guard who, in
1792, were appointed to keep the palace at Versailles, and receiving
no orders to retire, preferred to die at their post rather than betray
their trust. The glacier gardens near by, with their ingenious and
realistic illustration of the action of the falling water in grinding
the boulders in the glacier pots, interested us greatly. We paid some
attention to the shops also, and the old cathedral, and the quaint old
bridges. But we did not tarry long at Lucerne. It was too cold. We
took the steamer down the lake, though, cold as it was, for we had no
idea of missing entirely the magnificent scenery which gives this body
of water easy preëminence among the Swiss lakes. We spent the night,
bitter cold, at Fluelen, then took the fastest train we could get for
Milan, only to meet there another disappointment in the matter of the
weather.
_November 26, 1902._
[Sidenote: Italy Gives us Little Relief.]
We had seen the ice floating in great blocks down the Neckar at
Heidelberg, and had felt the stinging winds on the hills above the old
castle; we had stamped our feet on the stone floors of the cathedral
at Strasburg to renew the circulation in our benumbed extremities
while waiting for the crowing of the rooster and the marching of the
puppets, and the striking of the bells on the famous clock; we had
seen vast fields of snow covering the Alps in every direction as we
passed through Switzerland, and had shivered in the searching cold
as we steamed down Lake Lucerne, unable to tear ourselves from the
glorious beauty that lay open to our view on every hand from the
steamer's decks; we had caught the wintry glitter of gigantic icicles
against the cliffs on either side as our train climbed the wild St.
Gothard pass--and, in short, we had had a surfeit of cold weather,
and for days and weeks we had been sighing for Sunny Italy. Imagine
our disappointment, then, when we emerged from the Alps and entered
the land of balmy climate and blue skies (as most of us had always
ignorantly thought it to be even in winter) to find the whole world
still white around us, to run along the side of Lake Lugano and Lake
Como in a whirling snow-storm, and to arrive at Milan in a fog so
thick that it looked like it could be cut into blocks, so opaque that
at times we could not see the mighty Cathedral from our hotel, though
but little more than a block away, and so persistent that it did not
lift during the whole of our stay. Add to these conditions the slush
in the streets and the penetrating quality of the damp, cold air,
and our desire to push on at once to the farther south in search of
more genial skies will not seem unnatural. And we might have done so,
notwithstanding the attraction of the Cathedral and of Leonardo's
picture of the "Last Supper" (which, however, we expected to see on
our return to Northern Italy in the spring), had it not been for our
anxiety to get a sight of the Iron Crown of Lombardy at Monza, a few
miles north of Milan. And see it we did, in spite of the weather, as I
shall tell you more fully in a later letter. We ate our Thanksgiving
dinner at Milan, visited again and again the white marble Cathedral,
whose delicate stone lace work was touched into marvellous and weird
beauty by the snow clinging to its pinnacles and projections and
statues, saw Leonardo's picture, and the other principal sights, and
then took the train for Venice.
CHAPTER XXVII.
VENICE, BOLOGNA, FLORENCE AND PISA.
_December 8, 1902._
Though still cool, the weather was milder in Venice, so we remained a
week or so, yielding ourselves to the pensive charm of that--
"White phantom city, whose untrodden streets
Are rivers, and whose pavements are the shifting
Shadows of palaces and strips of sky."
[Sidenote: The Queen of the Adriatic.]
Of the palaces that we visited, the one in which the poet Browning
lived, and in which his son now lives, is the best preserved, and
illustrates better than any other the almost regal state in which the
wealthy Venetians lived in the day of their commercial supremacy. One
of these old palaces on the Grand Canal is now used as a bank. Some
are used as warehouses, and others are put to still meaner uses. The
Doge's Palace is, of course, the largest and finest, but it is more
like a public building than a residence. Next to this stands the chief
architectural glory of Venice, the gorgeous Cathedral of St. Mark,
with its unequalled profusion of costly materials, and its ominously
uneven stone floor, suggesting the painful possibility that it, too,
may some day share the fate of the great Campanile, which till last
summer lifted its head three hundred and seventy-five feet in the air
from the pavement of the square in front. We found the ruins of this
graceful structure, up the winding incline of which Napoleon Bonaparte
is said to have ridden his horse to the belfry, lying in a heap on the
square surrounded by a temporary unpainted board fence. Workmen within
were making preparations for the erection of the new bell tower which
is to take the place of the old one. On the first Sunday after our
arrival we heard the Rev. Dr. Robertson, at the Presbyterian Church,
make felicitous use of the fate of the old Campanile in a sermon on
the text, "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which
is Jesus Christ." Nowhere are foundations of more importance than in
Venice. The whole city is built upon piles. The Rialto Bridge, a great
marble arch of a single span, rests upon twelve thousand of these
piles, which are driven deep into the mud.
The interior of the Church of the Jesuits made more impression upon
us than any other Venetian church except St. Marks. It looks at first
view like it was lined throughout with chintz, through which runs a
green pattern; but on closer inspection you find that it is all white
marble--the pulpit and its heavy curtains, the altar steps, the walls
from floor to ceiling, are all of white marble, and the green pattern
is nothing less than verd antique.
Some of our young people, who had already wearied of the miles of
picture galleries in Europe, manifested but little interest in the
rich collection of art at Venice, but I think that all brought away
an indelible impression of Titian's splendid "Assumption of the
Virgin." They felt a much keener interest in the marvellous skill of
the Venetian glass-makers at Murano. But their special delight was the
gondolas. They soon had their favorites among the gondoliers, and,
with Marco and Pedro propelling them, threaded the innumerable canals
in every direction, visited the outlying islands, drifted hither and
thither on the broad lagoons, and enjoyed the distant views of this
strangely beautiful city, sometimes looming through the mist, at
other times standing out sharp and clear against the red sky of a
flaming sunset.
[Illustration: DOGE'S PALACE, VENICE.]
[Sidenote: The Greatest of the Venetians.]
Nothing in all the strange history of Venice interested us so much
as the career of Fra Paolo Sarpi, "the greatest of the Venetians,"
as Dr. Alexander Robertson well calls him in his striking biography
of that illustrious thinker and man of action. An ecclesiastic whom
Gibbon calls "the incomparable historian of the Council of Trent";
a mathematician of whom Galileo said, "No man in Europe surpasses
Master Paolo Sarpi in his knowledge of the science of mathematics"; an
anatomist whom Acquapendente, the famous surgeon of Padua, calls "the
oracle of this century"; a metaphysician who, as Lord Macaulay says,
anticipated "Locke on the Human Understanding"; and a statesman who
saved Venice from the domination of the papacy--it is no wonder that
Dr. Bedell, chaplain of the English Ambassador to Venice, should have
said that he was "holden for a miracle in all manner of knowledge,
divine and human." "As a statesman, the great Republic of Venice
committed all its interests to his guidance, and he made its history,
while he lived, an unbroken series of triumphs; in an age when the
papacy lifted high its head, and rode roughshod over the rights of
kings and peoples, he forced Pope Paul V., one of the haughtiest of
Rome's Pontiffs, to his knees, and so shattered in his hands the weapon
of interdict and excommunication that never again has it served the
interest of a wearer of the tiara. Constitutional government everywhere
owes something to Fra Paolo; and modern Italian history is the outcome
and embodiment of the principles he laid down in his voluminous State
papers. He was stronger than the papacy, for, in spite of the hatred,
persecution and protest of Pope and Curia, he lived and died within the
pale of the church, enjoying the esteem and affection of its clergy,
performing all his priestly duties, and receiving, as the Senate wrote
in its circular announcing his death to the courts of Europe, '_Li
santissimi sagramenti con ogni maggior pieta_.' And he was stronger
than the Republic, for immediately after his death it began to succumb
to papal domination, and to totter to its fall."
We visited the Servite Monastery, where he lived, the bridge where he
was set upon and stabbed by the Pope's hired assassins, and where his
statue now stands, and the grave in the island cemetery of Venice where
his body rests at last after all the strange adventures and removals
made necessary by the ghoulish malice of his foes.
_December 10, 1902._
[Sidenote: Bologna, the Fat.]
The business activity of Bologna is in sharp contrast with the
stagnation and decay of Venice. It is a brisk and handsome city, with
well-paved streets, flanked by arcades like those along the Rue de
Rivoli in Paris. Bologna has an unequalled number of these colonnades.
They are so continuous, indeed, and afford such perfect protection
from the sun in summer and the rain in winter, that it is more nearly
possible to dispense with umbrellas here than in any other city in the
world. The greatest of these covered ways is the portico which winds
up the mountain just outside the city, by an easy gradation, to the
costly church of the Madonna di S. Lucca, which, as its name indicates,
possesses an image of the Virgin said to have been the work of Saint
Luke. There are no fewer than six hundred and thirty-five arches in
this colonnade, and they command lovely views on either side, as one
ascends; but the view from the church, at the top of the mountain,
caps the climax, combining, as it does, Alps, Appennines, Adriatic,
plains and cities. It is from the arches of this long colonnade up the
mountain that one gets the best impression of Bologna's towers. They
are very numerous, and many of them are out of the perpendicular. In
fact, there are more leaning towers here than in any other city in the
world. But, unlike "Pisa's leaning miracle," these are not beautiful.
They are imposing only in the grouping of a distant view, being nothing
but quadrangular masses of ugly brown brick, with no ornaments, no
windows, and indeed no known uses, the object for which they were
erected being now an insoluble mystery.
Bologna has important manufactures of silk goods, velvet, crape,
chemicals, paper, musical instruments, soap and sausages. We made full
trial of the last two mentioned commodities, and found them excellent.
But Bologna, while vital and modern, is not lacking in the matter of
antiquity and literary and historical interest. It boasts the oldest
university in the world, founded in 425 A. D. In the thirteenth century
it had ten thousand students, and it still has over a thousand. In
front of the University stands a statue of Galvani, holding a tablet
on which he is exhibiting the famous frog legs. But it is said that
"his wife was the real discoverer of galvanism, having laid some
frogs, which she was preparing for soup, beside a charged electrical
machine; and it was she who observed the convulsion in the frogs which
she touched with the scalpel, and communicated the discovery to her
husband, who repeated the experiment at the University."
_December 15, 1902._
[Sidenote: The Flower of Fair Cities.]
Florence! "City of fair flowers, and flower of fair cities!" Second
only to Rome itself in variety and wealth of historical, artistic and
literary interest, home of Dante and Boccacio, Machiavelli and the
Medici, Galileo and Amerigo Vespucci, Savonarola and Fra Angelico,
Cimabue, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Michelangelo and
Benvenuto Cellini--what can one do in a letter like this but merely
name them and pass on, hoping for a time of larger leisure to say at
least a word concerning the most illustrious of them?
In the Uffizi Gallery, which is "a complete exemplification of the
progress and development of art," there is an octagonal room, called
the Tribune, which contains perhaps the richest aggregation of
masterpieces in the world. Sculpture is represented by the Venus de
Medici, the Young Apollo, The Wrestlers, The Grinder, and The Dancing
Faun; and painting by no less remarkable pictures. In addition to
these, the things that stand out in one's memory in connection with
Florence are Cellini's "Perseus," Ghiberti's "Doors," Michael Angelo's
"David" and his "Lorenzo de Medici," Brunelleschi's "Dome," and last,
but not least, Giotto's "Tower," "the model and mirror of perfect
architecture," of which John Ruskin says: "The characteristics of Power
and Beauty occur more or less in different buildings--some in one
and some in another. But all together, all in their highest possible
relative degrees, they exist, as far as I know, only in one building
in the world--the Campanile of Giotto at Florence." For the proper
appreciation of almost any other great production of art some education
in art is necessary, but any one can see the transcendant beauty of
Giotto's "Tower." Untutored as we are in these matters, we never
wearied of looking at it.
In the freshness of its undimmed splendor, there is nothing in Florence
to compare with the Medici Chapel. It is still unfinished, but has cost
up to the present time three million five hundred thousand dollars.
It is probably the most magnificent mausoleum in the world. "The
walls are covered with costly marbles, inlaid with precious stones--a
gorgeous mosaic of the richest material."
[Sidenote: The Reformer before the Reformation.]
But, after all, the thing that lays deepest hold of us in Florence
is the story of Savonarola, Harbinger of the Reformation and Martyr
for the Truth. That little cell in the Monastery of San Marco, where
he once lived, and where his manuscript sermons, his annotated books
and his wooden crucifix are still shown; those fearful dungeons in
the Palazzo Vecchio, where the greatest man of his age endured his
forty days' imprisonment, and lay during the intervals of torture, and
spent his last hours on earth; and the bustling Piazza Della Signoria,
which witnessed the triumphant tragedy of May 23, 1498--Florence has
nothing else so impressive as these. We visit them with subdued hearts
and reverent spirits. "On the 22nd of May, 1498, it was announced to
Savonarola and his friends, Domenico and Maruffi, that they were to be
executed by five the next morning; our heroic preacher was thoroughly
resigned to his share of the doom, saying to Domenico, 'Knowest
thou not it is not permitted to a man to choose the mode of his own
death?' The three friends partook of the sacrament of the Holy Supper,
administered by Savonarola. He said, 'We shall soon be there, where
we can sing with David, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity!"' They were then taken to the
tribunal, where they were divested of all their priestly decorations,
during which the bishop took Savonarola by the hand, saying, 'Thus
I exclude thee from the church militant and triumphant.' 'From the
church militant thou mayest,' exclaimed Savonarola, 'but from the
church triumphant thou canst not; that does not belong to thee.'... The
last that was beheld of him was his hand uplifted as if to bless the
people; the last that was heard of him, 'My Saviour, though innocent,
willingly died for my sins, and should I not willingly give up this
poor body out of love to him?' The cinders of the bodies of the
martyred friars were carted away, and thrown into the river Arno." But--
"The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wycliffe's dust shall spread abroad,
Wide as the waters be."
What the principles of Wycliffe have done for England, the principles
of Savonarola may yet do for Italy. At any rate, his work for Italy is
not done yet.
_December 19, 1902._
[Sidenote: Pisa's Four Monuments.]
The four chief objects of interest at Pisa are all in a group at the
northern end of the town, and a wonderfully effective group it is: the
cloistered cemetery, or Camp Santo, with its fifty-five shiploads of
earth from the Holy Land; the Baptistery, with its remarkable echo;
the Cathedral, with the pendent lamp in the nave which suggested to
Galileo the idea of the pendulum; and that wonder of the world, the
white marble Tower, which leans thirteen feet out of the perpendicular.
We all tried in vain to stand with heels and back to the inside of the
north wall on the ground floor--it cannot be done; one falls forward
at once. From the top there is a magnificent view of the city and the
surrounding plain, of the mountains on the east and the sea on the
west, of the city of Leghorn and the island of Elba.
From the windows of our hotel at Pisa we saw for the first time the
red gold of ripe oranges shining amid their dark green leaves in the
gardens, and rejoiced to think that at last we had reached a somewhat
milder climate, and were now leaving rigorous winter behind us.
The journey from Pisa to Rome is a long one, and the schedule was such
that we did not arrive till late at night. From the car windows we had
some impressive views of the Mediterranean by moonlight, and of the
solemn campagna, and, thus prepared, we crossed the Tiber at midnight,
and passed through the breach in the walls which has been made for the
railway, feeling, perhaps even more deeply than is usual, the thrill
with which all travellers except those who are utterly devoid of
imagination first enter the Eternal City.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
SOME LITTLE ADVENTURES BY THE WAY.
_December 21, 1902._
[Sidenote: Conditions Unfavorable to Letter-writing Abroad.]
The margin of leisure left to a traveller in Europe for the writing of
letters is, after all, a very narrow one, as those of my readers who
have been abroad will readily remember. One generally moves from place
to place in such rapid succession that the feeling of being settled,
which is essential to the most satisfactory writing, is almost unknown.
Then, when one does stop for a few days in a historic city, each day
is so full of interest, and the golden opportunity to see its sights
seems so fleeting, that one hesitates to take any part of such time for
writing, to say nothing of the weariness and drowsiness of an evening
that follows a day of sightseeing.
Add to this the amount of time required of one who acts as general
director of the tour, and has to take account of all manner of business
details, and the number of questions to be answered when there are
three or four young people in the party who have read just enough
general history to make their minds bristle with interrogations at
every interesting place, and who have to be read to daily _en masse_
on the spot in order to improve the psychological moment of excited
curiosity; add also the physician's injunction to take abundance of
exercise in the open air, in order to the full recovery of health and
the laying up of strength for future work, and his earnest counsel not
to linger much at a writing desk or a study table--and it will be seen
that if the continuity of this series of letters suffers an occasional
break, it is but the natural result of the conditions of tourist life.
[Sidenote: An American Baby in Europe.]
It may interest some of my younger readers to know that the member
of our party who receives the most attention is a little blue-eyed
girl, just two years old to-day, who is the most extraordinary
traveller of her age that I ever saw or ever heard of, accepting all
the irregularities, inconveniences and discomforts of this migratory
mode of life with the serene indifference of a veteran. We naturally
supposed that, being so young, she would give us more or less trouble
on so long a journey, and this proved to be true on the cold and rough
sea voyage, but, from the day that we landed on this side of the ocean,
she has been a delight to our whole party, a maker of friends wherever
we have gone, and an immensely interesting object to the populace of
the cities through which we have passed. At Leyden, in Holland, as we
passed along the streets, we were followed all over town by an admiring
throng of Dutch children, just out of school, to whom our baby's bright
red coat and cap were no less interesting than their wooden shoes were
to us; and so we found out how the elephants and monkeys and musicians
and other people who make up the street parade of a circus may be
supposed to feel when they pass through a town followed by the motley
gang of school boys, ragamuffins, and general miscellanies of humanity.
[Sidenote: Something New in Venice.]
At Wiesbaden, in Germany, we bought one of those odd little German
baby carts with two wheels and two handles, like plow handles, between
which the person who pushes it walks, the baby really riding backwards,
instead of forwards, as in our American baby carriages. You will see
from this description that German baby carriages are like the German
language--all turned the wrong way, though it must be said for this
arrangement that the baby is not so likely to be lonesome as when
riding face forward, since she always has some one to look at. Well,
at Venice, which is almost a dead town now, so far as business is
concerned, and which has perhaps as large a leisure class--that is,
street loafers--as any city of equal size on this terraqueous planet,
a lady of our party essayed to take the baby out for an airing in her
German cart. It would appear that it was the first time since the
foundation of that pile-driven city in the sea that a pair of wheels
was ever seen on her streets. At any rate, from the moment that the
lady and the baby and the cart emerged from the hotel door they were
attended by an ever-increasing throng of unwashed Venetians, whose
interest could not have been keener had Santos Dumont's air-ship or a
Japanese jinriksha suddenly appeared in their gondola-ridden town, and
who commented in shrill Italian on this wheeled apparition. The lady is
not easily beaten when she decides to do anything, but, after standing
that for half a block or so, she made a hasty retreat to the hotel, and
wheels disappeared, probably forever, from the streets of Venice.
[Sidenote: Gondolas and Gondoliers.]
Although Venice, with its population of one hundred and sixty-three
thousand, is seven miles in circumference, and is divided by one
hundred and forty-six canals into one hundred and seventeen islands,
yet these are so joined together by means of four hundred bridges that
it is possible to walk all over the city. But the bridges are built in
steps, and cannot be used by wheeled vehicles. There are no horses or
carriages of any kind. The funereal-looking gondola, always painted
black, is the only conveyance upon these streets of water, and does
duty for cab, omnibus, wagon, cart, wheelbarrow and hearse. It is used
for pleasure riding, shopping, church-going, theatre-going, visiting,
carrying prisoners to jail, carrying the dead to the cemetery--in
short, for everything.
In propelling this black but graceful and easy-going boat, the
gondolier does not sit. He stands, on a sort of deck platform towards
the stern, and to balance his weight there is affixed to the prow a
heavy piece of shining steel, which rears itself at the front almost
like a figure-head, only this is always of the same pattern, simply
a broad, upright blade of steel, notched deeply on the front edge.
The gondolier does not pull the oar, he pushes it--there is only one
oar--and he does not change it from side to side, as in paddling a
canoe, but makes all the strokes on one side, a thing that looks very
easy, but is in fact extremely difficult. The dexterity of these men
with their long single oar is wonderful. They glide in and out among
scores of gondolas on the crowded canals without collision or jerking,
and they turn a corner within an inch.
[Sidenote: Baggage Smashing in Europe.]
These remarks upon the skill of the gondoliers, and the ease and safety
of the gondolas, remind me, by contrast, of the destructive bungling
of a porter in Cologne, who undertook to cart a load of trunks and
handbags and shawl-straps down from our hotel to the Rhine steamer, and
who, in turning a corner on a down grade, made the turn too short, and
hurled the whole lot of our belongings into the muddy street with such
violence that many of them were defaced, some permanently damaged, and
one valise broken to pieces and utterly ruined.
That German baby carriage had an exciting adventure also on the night
of our arrival in Rome. As usual, it was made the apex of the pyramid
of trunks and grip-sacks which constitute our sign manual, so to
speak, on the top of every omnibus that takes us from the station to
the hotel; but in this instance it was carelessly left untied, so
that as we went steeply down one of the seven hills of Rome, the cart
tumbled from its high perch to the stone-paved street, snapping off one
of the handles, and suffering sundry other shattering experiences. A
few days after we had the pleasure of paying a fraudulent cabinetmaker
more for repairing it than it cost in the first instance. The Italian
workmen and shopkeepers uniformly charge you more than their work and
goods are worth. I think I have had more counterfeit money passed on me
in the short time I have been in Italy than I have had in all the rest
of my life before, and the very first swindle of this kind to which I
was subjected was in a church, when the sacristan gave me a counterfeit
two-franc piece in change as I paid the admission fees to see certain
paintings and sculptures behind the high altar.
However, I am wandering from my subject; I may conclude my eulogy
on the baby above mentioned by saying that, young as she is, she
sits through the seventy or eighty minutes of the customary tedious
European dinner almost as circumspectly as a graven image might, but
reminding us of one of Raphael's cherubs in her blue-eyed combination
of sweetness, archness and dignity.
Next time we will resume our account of matters of more general
interest.
CHAPTER XXIX.
RELICS IN GENERAL, AND THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY IN PARTICULAR.
ROME, _December 23, 1902_.
I had heard of relics before. Years ago I had read Mark Twain's account
of the large piece of the true cross which he had seen in a church in
the Azores; and of another piece which he had seen in the Cathedral
of Notre Dame in Paris, besides some nails of the true cross and a
part of the crown of thorns; and of the marble chest in the Cathedral
of San Lorenzo at Genoa, which he was told contained the ashes of St.
John, and was wound about with the chain that had confined St. John
when he was in prison; and of the interesting collection shown him in
the Cathedral of Milan, including two of St. Paul's fingers and one
of St. Peter's, a bone of Judas Iscariot (black, not white), and also
bones of all the other disciples (presumably of the normal color), a
handkerchief in which the Saviour had left the impression of his face,
part of the crown of thorns, a fragment of the purple robe worn by
Christ, a picture of the Virgin and Child painted by St. Luke, and a
nail from the cross--adding in another place that he thought he had
seen in all not less than a keg of these nails.
But I had hardly taken Mark Twain seriously in these statements, not
knowing at the time that his _Innocents Abroad_ was, notwithstanding
its broad humor, really one of the best guide-books to Europe that was
ever written.
[Sidenote: The Palladium of Venice.]
I had read repeatedly the story of the bringing of St. Mark's bones
from Alexandria, in Egypt, to their present resting-place in St. Mark's
Cathedral at Venice--a story which is related as follows in that same
lively volume:
"St. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt. He was martyred, I think.
However, that has nothing to do with my legend. About the founding of
the city of Venice--say four hundred and fifty years after Christ--(for
Venice is much younger than any other Italian city), a priest dreamed
that an angel told him that until the remains of St. Mark were brought
to Venice, the city could never rise to high distinction among the
nations; that the body must be captured, brought to the city, and
a magnificent church built over it; and that if ever the Venetians
allowed the Saint to be removed from his new resting-place, in that
day Venice would perish from off the face of the earth. The priest
proclaimed his dream, and forthwith Venice set about procuring the
corpse of St. Mark. One expedition after another tried and failed, but
the project was never abandoned during four hundred years. At last it
was secured by stratagem, in the year eight hundred and something.
The commander of the Venetian expedition disguised himself, stole the
bones, separated them, and packed them in vessels filled with lard. The
religion of Mahomet causes its devotees to abhor anything in the nature
of pork, and so when the Christian was stopped at the gate of the city,
they only glanced once into the precious baskets, then turned up their
noses at the unholy lard, and let him go. The bones were buried in
the vaults of the grand cathedral, which had been waiting long years
to receive them, and thus the safety and the greatness of Venice were
secured. And to this day there be those in Venice who believe that if
those holy ashes were stolen away, the ancient city would vanish like a
dream, and its foundation be buried forever in the unremembering sea."
[Sidenote: The Gift of Leo XIII. to London.]
More recently I had read of what has been well called the burlesque
enacted at Arundel Castle no longer ago than in July, 1902, in which
the Duke of Norfolk, Cardinal Vaughan, and many lesser ornaments and
dignitaries of the Romish Church, took part.
"Pope Leo XIII., in order to show his 'good-will to England,'
sent from Rome the remains of St. Edmund to garnish the new Roman
Catholic cathedral at Westminster. It was an appropriate gift, for
such buildings are usually garnished with 'dead men's bones and all
uncleanness.' But as the cathedral is not yet finished, as a further
token of good-will, the relics were committed to the care of no less
a personage than the Earl Marshal of England. They arrived at Arundel
on the evening of July 25th, and were placed for the night in Fitzalen
Chapel. The next morning the whole castle was astir betimes, for the
great event of the day, the transference of the bones to the castle
chapel, was to take place. This was accomplished in a solemn and
befitting manner. A procession was formed, and, to the measured tread
of the Earl Marshal of England, Cardinal Vaughan, several archbishops
and bishops, and a mixed company of priests and acolytes and a numerous
train of household servants and dependents, carrying banners, crosses,
crucifixes, censers, lamps, candles, torches, and other ecclesiastical
stage paraphernalia, the remains of St. Edmund were borne to their
resting-place. All went off well, and at last the curtain fell on
the finished play, to the satisfaction of every one. Unfortunately,
however, the Pope and all concerned had to reckon with English
common-sense and with English love of truth, and it was not very long
before it was proved to the world that the bones, like most relics of
the kind, were counterfeit--whoever else's bones they were, they were
not those of St. Edmund."[7]
[Sidenote: The Blood of St. Januarius.]
I had read with cordial approval Mark Twain's animadversions upon the
fraud which is regularly practiced on the people of Naples by the
priests in the Cathedral:
"In this city of Naples they believe in and support one of the
wretchedest of all religious impostures one can find in Italy--the
miraculous liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. Twice a year
the priests assemble all the people at the Cathedral, and get out
this phial of clotted blood, and let them see it slowly dissolve
and become liquid; and every day for eight days this dismal farce
is repeated, while the priests go among the crowd and collect money
for the exhibition. The first day the blood liquefies in forty-seven
minutes--the church is full then, and time must be allowed the
collectors to get around; after a while it liquefies a little quicker
and a little quicker every day, as the houses grow smaller, till on
the eighth day, with only a few dozen present to see the miracle, it
liquefies in four minutes.[8]
"And here, also, they used to have a grand procession
of priests, citizens, soldiers, sailors, and the high dignitaries
of the city government, once a year, to shave the head of a made-up
Madonna--a stuffed and painted image, like the milliner's dummy--whose
hair miraculously grew and restored itself every twelve months. They
still kept up this shaving procession as late as four or five years
ago. It was a source of great profit to the church that possessed the
remarkable effigy, and the public barbering of her was always carried
out with the greatest _éclat_ and display--the more the better, because
the more excitement there was about it the larger the crowds it drew
and the heavier the revenues it produced--but at last the day came
when the Pope and his servants were unpopular in Naples, and the city
government stopped the Madonna's annual show.
"There we have two specimens of these Neapolitans--two of the silliest
possible frauds, which half the population religiously and faithfully
believed, and the other half either believed or else said nothing
about, and thus lent themselves to the support of the imposture."
[Sidenote: The House of the Virgin at Loretto.]
I had read the story of the _Casa Santa_, or Holy House, the little
stone building, thirteen and one-half feet high and twenty-eight feet
long, in which the Virgin Mary had lived at Nazareth. In 336 the
Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, made a pilgrimage
to Nazareth and built a church over the Holy House. This church fell
into decay when the Saracens again got the upper hand in Palestine,
and when the Christians lost Ptolemais the Holy House was carried by
angels through the air from Nazareth to the coast of Dalmatia. This
miraculous transportation took place in 1291. A few years later it
was again removed by angels during the night, and set down in the
Province of Ancona, near the eastern coast of Italy, on the ground
of a widow named _Laureta_. Hence the name, _Loretto_, given to the
town which sprang up around it for the accommodation of the thousands
of pilgrims who flocked thither, and which is now a place of some six
thousand inhabitants, whose principal business is begging and the sale
of rosaries, medals and images. In a niche inside the Casa Santa is a
small black image of the Virgin and Child, of cedar, attributed, of
course, to St. Luke. We did not visit Loretto, but at Bologna we had
the satisfaction of seeing a _fac-simile_ of the Casa Santa, with its
little window and fireplace, and the replica of St. Luke's handi-work
in the niche above. A large number of women, some of them handsomely
dressed, were saying their prayers and counting their beads before
the altar that had been erected in front of these images and the Holy
House, and a few were kneeling in the narrow space behind the altar,
close to the fireplace of the house. As we passed, one of these women,
in plainer garb, interrupted her devotions long enough to hold out her
hand to us, begging for pennies, but without rising from her knees.
There was nothing unusual about this, except that this beggar made her
appeal to us while actually on her knees to the image of the Virgin,
for nothing is more common in Italy than for visitors to a Roman
Catholic church to pass through such "an avenue of palms" when leaving
it.
[Sidenote: The Wonder-working Bones of St. Anne in Canada.]
I had even seen a few relics, not mere reproductions like that of the
Casa Santa at Bologna, but the relics themselves. For instance, three
summers ago, when in Quebec, I had made a special trip to the Church
of St. Anne Beaupre, some twenty miles below the city, for the purpose
of seeing the wonder-working relics of St. Anne, the alleged mother
of the Virgin Mary--a bit of her finger bone and a bit of her wrist
bone--which are devoutly kissed and adored by thousands of pilgrims
to this magnificent church from all the French and Irish portions of
Canada, and which are said to have wrought miraculous cures of all
manner of maladies, cures which are attested by two immense stacks
of canes, crutches, wooden legs, and the like, which rise from the
floor almost to the roof on either side of the entrance. In the store
in another part of the church I had got a clue to it all by seeing
the poor pilgrims buying all sorts of cheap, tawdry, worthless little
images and pictures, and especially little vials of oil of remarkable
curative virtue because it had stood for a while before the image of
St. Anne, and for which they paid probably five times as much as the
oil had cost the priests who were selling it.
[Sidenote: The Iron Crown of Lombardy.]
These, then, are potent bones and images and oils, but by far the
most interesting relic I had seen before reaching Rome itself was the
Iron Crown of Lombardy, at Monza, a little town in Northern Italy.
This is the place where the good King Humbert was assassinated on the
29th of July, 1900, and it is not without interest for other reasons.
For instance, it has a cathedral built of black and white marble
in horizontal stripes, and containing, besides the tomb of Queen
Theodolinda and other interesting objects in the nave and its chapels,
a great number of costly articles of gold and silver, set with precious
stones, in the treasury, as well as various relics, such as some of the
baskets carried by the apostles, a piece of the Virgin Mary's veil,
and one of John the Baptist's teeth. But we should never have made a
special trip to Monza in such weather as we were having at the time of
our visit, last November, had it not been for our intense desire to see
its chief treasure, the Iron Crown, the most sacred and most celebrated
diadem in the world, a relic possessing real historical interest, not
because of any probability whatever in the story of its origin, but
because of the extraordinary uses and associations of it within the
last thousand years.
[Sidenote: A Winter Trip to Monza.]
So, regardless of the wet, cold, foggy weather that we found in
Milan, and the rivers of mud and slush that were then doing duty for
streets, and the splotches of snow that lay here and there in the
forlorn-looking olive orchards, we took the electric tram, which was
comfortably heated, and ran out to Monza, a distance of some ten miles.
When we stepped into the chilly cathedral and looked about us, we could
not at first see anybody to show us around, though there were a good
many poor people saying their prayers there. Evidently the custodians
were not expecting tourists at such a season and in such weather.
But presently, in an apartment to the left, we found a number of the
priests warming their hands over a dish of twig coals covered with a
light layer of white ashes, which they kindly stirred a little to make
them give forth more heat as they saw us stretch our cold hands also
towards the grateful warmth.
[Sidenote: The Treasury of the Cathedral.]
When we asked if we could see the Iron Crown, they said we could; but
instead of going at once to the chapel in which it is kept, they got a
great bag of keys, large keys, thirty-seven in number, as the observant
statistician of our party ascertained, and led us into the treasury and
unlocked a great number of doors (one of which had seven locks), and
showed us the costly objects and precious relics above mentioned. We
were only mildly interested in these--even in the apostolic baskets,
the Virgin's veil, and John the Baptist's tooth--partly because we were
so cold and partly because of our greater interest in the more famous
relic which we had come especially to see.
[Sidenote: The Chapel of the Great Relic.]
At last one of the priests, attended by an acolyte, took up a censer,
placed a little incense on the coals with a teaspoon, and, swinging it
in his hand by the chain, led us back into the cathedral, turned to
a chapel on the left, unlocked an iron gate in a tall railing which
separated this chapel from the body of the building, closed the gate
again when our party had come inside, and, while a dozen or so of
the people who had been at their devotions crowded up to the railing
and peered curiously through, he and his attendant began to kneel
repeatedly before the altar and to swing the smoking censer on every
side. Above the altar was a strong, square steel box, over which, in
plain view, was suspended a _fac-simile_ of the Iron Crown, made of
cheaper materials, while the real crown was still concealed within the
steel safe.
[Sidenote: The Great Relic itself.]
Handing the censer to his attendant, that it might be kept swinging
without intermission, the priest produced another series of keys and
proceeded to unlock a succession of small doors in the side of the
metal safe, which proved to be a "nest" of caskets, one within another,
the last of which was a glass case. Drawing this out, he brought into
full view the venerated crown of the Lombard kings, and told us to step
up on the stool by the altar so as to see it better. It is made of six
plates of gold, joined end to end, richly chased, and set with splendid
jewels. But one would see at a glance that neither the material, nor
the workmanship, nor the gems, could account for the unique reverence
with which it has been regarded for centuries, and an indication of
which we had just seen in the service conducted by the priest. Among
the regalia in the Tower of London, and at several other places in
Europe, we had seen crowns which far surpassed this one in costliness
and beauty, but none of which, nor all of which combined, had ever
excited a thousandth part of the interest attaching to this old crown
in Monza.
[Sidenote: Why the Crown is so Sacred.]
The explanation is this: within that ring of jointed plates of gold
runs a thin band of iron, which priestly tradition says was made of one
of the spikes that fastened the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ to the
cross. It was this band of iron that we tiptoed to see, hardly noticing
the bejewelled rim of gold around it. It was on account of this band of
iron that the priest and his attendant swung their censer and performed
their ceremony as we entered. It was this band of iron that gave to the
crown its sacred place above the altar. It was for the safe keeping of
this band of iron that the steel case, with its numerous locks, was
made. It was from this band of iron that the diadem received its name,
the Iron Crown of Lombardy.
[Sidenote: How it was Used by Charlemagne and Napoleon.]
And what were the historical uses of it, referred to above, which made
it so much more interesting to us than the many other so-called nails
of the true cross elsewhere? Well, this among others: on the last
Christmas day of the eighth century, while Charlemagne was kneeling
with uncovered head before the high altar of St. Peter's in Rome,
the Pope approached him from behind, and, placing the Iron Crown of
Lombardy on his head, hailed him as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
A thousand years later on the 26th of May, 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte,
"watched by an apparently invincible army which adored him and a world
which feared him," standing in the vast marble cathedral at Milan,
with fifteen thousand of his soldiers around him, lifted this same
Iron Crown of Lombardy into their view, and placed it upon his brow,
saying, "God has given it to me, let him touch it who dares!"
[Sidenote: High Reflections and Hard Cash.]
That men who, like Charlemagne and Napoleon, had reached the highest
pinnacle of human power, should seek to enhance their influence by
crowning their heads with one of the nails which, as their followers
believed, had pierced the Galilean's foot, is a richly suggestive fact.
But we must keep our tempted thoughts to another and less edifying line
at present.
When we had examined all the parts of the famous crown to our
satisfaction, we stepped to the desk in the ante-room and paid our five
francs (one dollar), the regular price for the exhibition of the Iron
Crown, then left the cathedral, bought one or two post-card pictures of
the crown, and took the tram through the dreary weather back to Milan,
well pleased with the results of our first pilgrimage to the shrine of
a real Roman Catholic relic in Italy.
[Sidenote: Rome Caps the Climax.]
But on our arrival at Rome, a month later, we found that, interesting
as were the relics which we had seen or read of elsewhere, they were
nothing to those in the Eternal City itself. In this, as in everything
else except such little matters as cleanliness and morality and
truthfulness and honesty, Rome outvies all her rivals. It is only fair
to add, however, that, since the overthrow of the papal sovereignty and
the establishment of a capable government, Rome has improved immensely
in the matter of cleanliness, and even her immorality is not so
flaunting as it was. This is attested by the Hon. Guiseppe Zanardelli,
the present Premier of Italy, who says:
"The church appears better than it once was. I no longer see in Rome
what I used often to see in my young days, ladies driving about its
streets with their coachmen and footmen in the liveries of their
respective cardinals. Has this improvement come about because the
church is really growing better? Nothing of the kind. It is because the
strong arm of the law checks the villainy of the priests." That is the
testimony of the Prime Minister of Italy.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Do American Roman Catholics Believe in the Relics?]
A few weeks after my return from Italy, while driving one afternoon
with a friend of mine, a lawyer of high intelligence and wide
information, our conversation turned to the subject of the recent death
of Pope Leo XIII., and from that drifted to the alleged liquefaction
of the blood of St. Januarius, and from that to relics in general. I
mentioned some of the facts above stated concerning the numerous pieces
of the true cross and the miracle-working bones and oils to be seen in
Roman Catholic churches in Europe. "But," he said, "surely the Roman
Catholics in America do not believe in such mediæval superstitions."
I happened to have in hand a couple of copies of a daily newspaper,
published in one of our Southern towns, dated August 9, 1903, and
August 17, 1903, respectively, containing extracts from the letters of
a Roman Catholic bishop, the highest dignitary of his church in that
State; and, for answer to my friend's remark, I cited the following
passage from the bishop's letter of July 10th, written from Munich,
concerning the abbey church of Scheyern:
"The chapel of the Holy Cross is specially sacred, as within is
preserved a very large piece of the true cross upon which Christ was
crucified, brought to Scheyern in 1156 by Count Conrad, the Crusader,
who afterwards entered the monastery as lay-brother, and lies buried
near the altar upon which the sacred relic is preserved."
Also the following passage from his letter of July 12th, written from
Eichstadt:
"I remained the guest of Prince Ahrenberg for the night, and early
in the morning, accompanied by some Benedictine students, I made a
pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Walburg. Above the altar is the large
silver receptacle into which flows the miraculous oil from her sacred
relics, which is known the world over."
[Sidenote: What America Needs is Some Relics.]
Writing from Vienna, July 20, 1903, concerning the imperial palaces,
he says, "They are awfully big and grand, and cost a lot of good
people's money," but adds that "the pride and glory of Vienna" is the
Cathedral, and then exclaims: "How often have I wished we could have
some such church in ----, so that our good people who cannot visit the
achievements of Catholic life in Europe could form some idea of the
greatness of the religion of their fathers!"
One hesitates to differ from so good an authority on such matters as
this bishop, but really would he not agree, on reflection, that what
this benighted and decaying country of ours needs to bring it up to a
level with Italy and Austria and Spain is not a big church, but some
relics? Would not some miraculous oil, or some wonder-working bones, or
a piece of the true cross, or one of the nails, if placed on exhibition
here attract far more attention than a big church, and enable "our good
people who cannot visit the achievements of Catholic life in Europe"
to form a much better "idea of the greatness of the religion of their
fathers"? Does it not seem strange that so many hundreds of these
relics should be kept in those enlightened and happy countries like
Italy, where "the achievements of Catholic life" are so well known,
and where Mother Church has for centuries had full sway, and that none
of them should be brought to these benighted Protestant regions, where
they could effect such a salutary change in the faith of the people?
But, seriously, as I added to my friend in the conversation referred
to, I have a better opinion of the intelligence of our good Roman
Catholic people in America than to believe that they put the slightest
credence in these childish superstitions. Whatever the bishop above
quoted may believe, I am confident that the intelligent Roman Catholic
people of our country have no more faith in many of these alleged
relics than we have.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] _The Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, Alexander Robertson, pp. 203,
204.
[8] In July of this year, 1903, while the Roman Catholic world was
greatly exercised over the grave illness of the late Pope, Leo XIII.,
the Associated Press dispatches from Naples reported that the blood of
St. Januarius had miraculously liquefied at that unusual time in token
that the prayers offered for the Pope's recovery had been answered.
The Archbishop of Naples has up to the present time vouchsafed
no explanation of the fact that the Pope died a few days later,
notwithstanding this miraculous assurance that he would recover.
CHAPTER XXX.
ROMAN CATHOLIC RELICS AT ROME.
We reached Rome at a good time for seeing relics, as the special
services of the Christmas season were just beginning. One of the most
splendid of these ceremonies is the procession in honor of the _Santa
Culla_; that is, the cradle in which the priestly tradition says the
infant Jesus was carried into Egypt. This is the great relic and chief
distinction of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, though it contains
a number of others, such as the bodies of St. Matthew and St. Jerome,
and two little bags of the brains of Thomas á Becket, and "one of the
pictures attributed to St. Luke (and announced to be such in a papal
bull attached to the walls!), much revered for the belief that it
stayed the plague which decimated the city during the reign of Pelagius
II., and that (after its intercession had been sought by a procession
by order of Innocent VIII.) it brought about the overthrow of the
Moorish dominion in Spain."
[Sidenote: The Miraculous Snow in Summertime.]
Moreover, this church of Santa Maria Maggiore is by no means lacking
in legendary and architectural interest. It was founded A. D. 352, by
Pope Liberius and John, a Roman patrician, to commemorate an alleged
miraculous fall of snow, which covered this spot of ground and no
other, on the 5th of August, and an alleged appearance of the Virgin
Mary, in a vision, at the same time, showing them that she had thus
appropriated the site of a new temple, all of which is duly represented
in a fine painting on the wall of the church, and in two of Murillo's
most beautiful pictures in the Academy at Madrid, and commemorated
every year on the 5th of August by a solemn high mass, and by showers
of white rose leaves thrown down constantly through two holes in the
ceiling, "like a leafy mist between the priests and the worshippers."
[Sidenote: A Splendid Church.]
The worshippers of the Virgin have not been lacking in their efforts to
erect a suitably sumptuous building on the site of this "miracle." The
magnificent nave, with its avenue of forty-two columns of Greek marble,
surmounted by a frieze of mosaic pictures; the glorious pavement of
_opus Alexandrinum_, whose "crimson and violet hues temper the white
and gold of the walls"; the grand _baldacchino_, with its four porphyry
columns wreathed with gilt leaves; and the splendid tomb chamber of
Pius IX. (predecessor of the late Pope Leo XIII.), with its riot of
rich marbles and alabaster, in front of the high altar--to say nothing
of the almost incredibly costly chapels opening into the nave--combine
to give S. Maria Maggiore a proud place among the very finest of the
fine basilicas of Rome.
[Sidenote: A Dazzling Scene.]
But not all the splendors of the building, nor all the fascination of
its "miracles" and legends, nor all the spell of its other relics, can
equal the interest attaching to the "SANTA CULLA," the holy cradle. On
the afternoon of Christmas Day, we walked through the wet streets to
the front of the church, pushed back the heavy, dirty screen of padded
canvas, such as hangs at the door of every great church in Italy,
however fine, and, stepping within, found ourselves in the midst of
a scene of the most dazzling splendor. The building was brilliantly
illuminated with hundreds of electric lights and huge candles, which
were sharply reflected by the glistening marbles on every hand; the
air was heavy with clouds of incense, through the blue smoke of which
the lofty ceiling looked higher than ever, and the organ and choir
were pouring forth the richest music, while a dense crowd of people,
many thousands, all standing, watched with eager interest a small,
crate-like object, made of slats of dark wood, which rested on the
high altar, enclosed in a glass case, with a gold baby on top and gold
ornaments round about.
[Sidenote: The Holy Cradle.]
We pushed our way through the crowd, so as to get a satisfactory view
of it while the service was in progress--the genuflections, the robing
and disrobing of the archbishop, the chanting, and the rest--after
which six men, dressed in pure white from head to foot (white gloves
included), except for a red circle and cross on the breast, knelt
before the cradle, then lifted it from the altar, with its gold and
glass setting, and placing it on a kind of litter on their shoulders,
under a gilt and white canopy borne by other attendants, marched with
it thus, in procession around the church, along with a large crucifix
under another canopy, and followed by a long line of cardinals,
bishops, priests and acolytes, carrying it back finally to its place in
the sacristy, where it will remain till next Christmas Day.
[Sidenote: The Christ of Rome a Babe or a Corpse.]
We squeezed our way through the great crowd at the door, and walked
back to our hotel, wondering to what extent the usual Roman Catholic
conception of Christ had deprived that organization of real spiritual
energy; for, almost invariably, Roman Catholic art represents him
either as a dead Christ on the cross, or a babe in his mother's arms,
and hardly ever as the risen and glorified Lord, the Conqueror of
death, the Leader of his people, to whom all power is given in heaven
and on earth--the more usual Protestant conception. And we asked
ourselves whether this difference did not help to explain the greater
hopefulness, vigor and growth of Protestant Christianity in these
strenuous latter days.
[Sidenote: The Little Doll that Owns a Large Carriage.]
But we were soon to learn that the Roman Catholics did not think of the
infant Christ as lacking in power of a certain sort; on the contrary
they ascribe miraculous agency even to an image of the divine babe. On
the afternoon of December 29th, as two of our party were returning to
our hotel, they passed at the foot of the Capitoline Hill a carriage,
out of the window of which hung a ribbon or sash of cloth of gold, and
they were not a little astonished to observe that, as this carriage
rolled along, people knelt reverently before it on the street. Inside
they saw two bareheaded men holding a child on a pillow with a wealth
of lace about it. They thought perhaps it was the royal carriage with
the baby princess, but they could not imagine why _men_ should be
nursing the baby, as that is usually the employment of women, nor why
the people should kneel so reverently before the young princess, a
thing which they never did even for the king himself. The fact is that,
as they learned on the following afternoon when visiting the Church of
Ara Coeli, on the Capitoline Hill, the carriage in question belonged to
a far more important personage in Rome than any princess, though that
personage was not even a living baby, but only a doll. It was the coach
of the famous Bambino--_Il Santissimo Bambino_--which with its dress
of gold and silver tissue and its magnificent diamonds, emeralds and
rubies, is the chief attraction of this church.
[Illustration: THE BAMBINO.]
[Sidenote: The Wealth and Power of the Miraculous Bambino.]
Dr. Alexander Robertson, in his book on _The Roman Catholic Church in
Italy_, says: "The Bambino is a doll about three feet high, and it
stands on a cushion in a glass case. It is clad in rich robes with
a crown on its head, a regal order across its breast, and embroidered
slippers on its feet. From head to foot it is one mass of dazzling
jewelry, gold chains, strings of pearls, and diamond bracelets and
rings, which not only cover the neck, arms and fingers, but are
suspended, intermixed with crosses, stars, hearts, monograms, and
every kind of precious stone, to all parts of its body. The only part
unweighted with gems is its round, priest-like, wax face. But all this
display of wealth, great in itself, is really only suggestive of that
untold quantity which it has brought, and is still daily bringing,
into the coffers of the church. People are continually kneeling before
this dumb idol, offering petitions and leaving gifts, whilst letters
containing requests, accompanied with post-office orders and checks to
pay for the granting of the same, arrive by post for it from various
parts of the globe."
Hare's _Walks in Rome_ gives the following account of the Bambino and
one of its most remarkable experiences:
"It has servants of its own, and a carriage in which it drives
out with its attendants, and goes to visit the sick; for, though
an infant, it is the oldest medical practitioner in Rome. Devout
peasants always kneel as the blessed infant passes. Formerly it was
taken to sick persons and left on their beds for some hours, in the
hope that it would work a miracle. Now it is never left alone. In
explanation of this, it is said that an audacious woman formed the
design of appropriating to herself the holy image and its benefits.
She had another doll prepared of the same size and appearance as the
Santissimo, and having feigned sickness and obtained permission to have
it left with her, she dressed the false image in its clothes, and sent
it back to Ara Coeli. The fraud was not discovered till night, when the
Franciscan monks were awakened by the most furious ringing of bells
and by thundering knocks at the west door of the church, and hastening
thither, could see nothing but a wee naked pink foot peeping in from
under the door; but when they opened the door, without stood the little
naked figure of the true Bambino of Ara Coeli, shivering in the wind
and rain--so the false baby was sent back in disgrace, and the real
baby restored to its home, never to be trusted away alone any more."
[Sidenote: The Communion Table Used by Christ.]
But if I dwell on all these interesting relics and images as I have
done on the Holy Cradle and the miraculous Bambino, I shall never
finish even the brief list of them which I had in mind when I began. I
must hasten on, contenting myself with a bare mention of a few of the
more notable relics at the other churches.
On the 8th of January we paid our first visit to the great Church of
St. John Lateran,[9] and here also the relics interested us more than
anything else. Under the canopy in the centre the skulls of St. Peter
and St. Paul are preserved. Beneath the altar we saw the wooden table
on which the Apostle Peter is said to have "celebrated mass" in the
house of Pudens. The interest of this relic, however, is completely
eclipsed by that of another relic over an altar at a little distance
in the same church, viz: the cedar table used by our Lord and his
disciples in the Last Supper. This table is concealed behind a bronze
relief representing that solemn scene in the Upper Room at Jerusalem.
[Sidenote: Other Relics at St. John Lateran.]
"The Basilica claims to possess many valuable relics. Amongst these are
some portions of the manger in which Christ was cradled, the shirt and
seamless coat made for him by the Virgin; some of the barley loaves
and small fishes miraculously multiplied to feed the five thousand;
the linen cloth with which he dried the feet of his apostles; also
Aaron's rod, the rod with which Moses smote the Red Sea," etc., etc.
(_Cook's Southern Italy_, p. 114.) We did not see these, but in the
cloister behind this church we were shown a marble slab on pillars
which was once an altar, "at which the officiating priest doubted of
the Real Presence, when the wafer fell from his hand through the stone,
leaving a round hole, which still remains." Here, too, we were shown
a larger slab resting on pillars, more than six feet from the ground,
which marks the height of our Saviour; also a porphyry slab, upon which
the soldiers cast lots for his seamless robe; and some columns from
Pilate's house in Jerusalem, which were rent by the earthquake of the
crucifixion.
[Illustration: THE SCALA SANTA, ROME.]
[Sidenote: The Holy Stairs from Pilate's Palace.]
But the great relic of Pilate's House, and one of the most interesting
of all the relics in Rome, is across the street from St. John Lateran,
viz., the world-renowned _Scala Santa_, or Holy Stairway, a flight of
twenty-eight marble steps, once ascended by our Saviour in the palace
of Pilate, and brought from Jerusalem to Rome in 326 by the Empress
Helena, mother of Constantine the Great. They are covered with a wooden
casing, but holes have been left through which the marble steps can be
seen. Two of them are stained with the Saviour's blood. These spots
are covered with glass. The light was rather dim, and as we entered a
gentleman struck a match and held it over one of these glass-covered
stains to show it to his little girl, so that, passing just at that
moment, we also had a good view.
[Sidenote: The Man who Crawled Up and Walked Down.]
No foot is allowed to touch the _Scala Santa_; it must be ascended
on the knees. A number of people were going up in this way when
we entered, pausing on each step to repeat a prayer, for which
indulgences are granted by the Pope. There are stairways on each
side, by which those who have thus crawled up may walk down. The
only man I know of that ever walked down the Holy Stairs themselves,
and the most illustrious man that ever crawled up them on his knees,
was Martin Luther. When he had mounted slowly half way up, step by
step on his knees, he seemed to hear a voice saying, "The just shall
live by faith." Martin Luther rose from his knees, walked down the
staircase, and left the place a free man so far as this superstition
was concerned, and shortly afterwards became the most formidable foe
that ever assailed the falsehood and corruption of the Romish Church.
[Sidenote: The Miraculous Portrait and the Shoes of Christ.]
At the top of the Scala Santa we saw through a grating the beautiful
silver tabernacle containing the great relic which has given to this
chapel the name of _Sancta Sanctorum_, viz.: the portrait of Christ,
held by the Romish Church to be authentic, having been drawn in outline
by St. Luke and finished by an angel, whence its name "Acheiropoëton,"
_i. e._, the picture made without hands. The relic chamber here
contains fragments of the true cross, the sandals of Christ, and "the
iron bar of Hades which he brought away with him from that doleful
region,"[10] but we did not see these.
[Sidenote: The Inscription on the Cross, and the Finger of Thomas.]
A short walk beyond the Scala Santa and the Lateran brings us to the
Church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, which is specially rich in relics.
Here our party was shown a piece of the true cross of Christ and the
original plank bearing the inscription, "_Jesus, Nazarene King_," in
Hebrew, Greek and Latin, which was placed over his head; also one
of the nails used in his crucifixion, and two of the thorns of his
crown; besides a large piece of the cross of the penitent thief who was
executed with him; and, most interesting of all in some respects, the
finger used by Thomas to resolve his doubts as to the resurrection of
Christ (John xx. 24-28).
[Sidenote: A Bottle of The Blood of Christ.]
In Percy's _Romanism_ it is said that "the list of relics on the right
of the apsis of S. Croce includes the finger of S. Thomas, apostle,
with which he touched the most holy side of our Lord Jesus Christ; one
of the pieces of money with which the Jews paid the treachery of Judas;
great part of the veil and of the hair of the most blessed Virgin; a
mass of cinders and charcoal united in the form of a loaf, with the fat
of S. Lawrence, martyr; one bottle of the most precious blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ; another of the milk of the most blessed Virgin; a
little piece of the stone where Christ was born; a little piece of the
stone where our Lord sat when he pardoned Mary Magdalene; of the stone
where our Lord wrote the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai; of the
stone where reposed SS. Peter and Paul; of the cotton which collected
the blood of Christ; of the manna which fed the Israelites; of the rod
of Aaron which flourished in the desert; of the relics of the eleven
prophets!"[11]
But our party saw none of these except the finger of Thomas. It is
to be hoped that the others have been withdrawn from exhibition, for
surely superstition and vulgarity can no further go. I fear, however,
that those who are willing to pay enough can still see "one bottle of
the most precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ," and "another of the
milk of the most blessed Virgin"! There is also "_una ampulla lactis
Beatae Mariae Virginis_" among the many relics to be seen in the
Church of SS. Cosmo and Damiano, near the Forum.
[Sidenote: No Women Admitted.]
It is a curious illustration of Romish wrong-headedness that women
are never allowed to enter the Chapel of St. Helena, in the Church
of S. Croce, except on the festival of the Saint, August 18th,
notwithstanding the fact that St. Helena herself was a woman, and that
the church owes its existence to her and is also indebted to her for
the piece of the true cross which it boasts, and which has given it its
name. So while men are permitted to go inside the chapel of St. Helena,
women are stopped at the entrance and only allowed to peer through the
railing. The same degrading discrimination is made in the Church of S.
Prassede (who also was a woman) as to entering the splendid chapel,
Orto del Paradiso, which contains the column of blood jasper to which
Christ was bound, and which was "given by the Saracens to Giovanni
Colonna, cardinal of this church, and legate of the Crusade, because
when he had fallen into their hands and was about to be put to death,
he was rescued by a marvellous intervention of celestial light."
Females are never allowed to enter this chapel except upon Sundays in
Lent, but are permitted to look at the relic through a grating.[12]
[Sidenote: Four Other Stones of Great Interest.]
The mention of this column reminds me of the two columns in the Church
of S. Maria Transpontina, on the other side of the Tiber, near St.
Peter's, which bear inscriptions stating that they were the pillars to
which St. Peter and St. Paul were fastened, respectively, when they
suffered flagellation by order of Nero. A little farther on towards
St. Peter's is the Piazza Scossa Cavalli, with a pretty fountain.
"Its name bears witness to a curious legend, which tells how when S.
Helena returned from Palestine, bringing with her the stone on which
Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, and that on which the Virgin Mary
sat down at the time of the presentation of the Saviour in the temple,
the horses drawing these precious relics stood still at this spot,
and refused every effort to make them move. Then Christian people,
'recognizing the finger of God,' erected a church on this spot--_S.
Giacomo Scossa Cavalli_--where the stones are still to be seen."
[Sidenote: The Hardness of St. Peter's Knees.]
While speaking of interesting stones, I must not omit to mention those
in the Church of S. Francesca Romana, near the Forum, containing the
marks of the knees of St. Peter--(which show, by the way, that this
apostle was a giant in size)--when he knelt to pray that Simon Magus
might be dropped by the demons he had invoked to support him in the
air in fulfilment of his promise to fly. One of these stones used to
lie in the _Via Sacra_, and the water which collected in the two holes
or knee prints was looked upon as so potent a remedy of disease that
groups of infirm people used to gather around them on the approach of
a shower. According to the legend, the place where Peter knelt when
he thus effected the discomfiture of Simon Magus and brought him to
the ground with such force that his thigh was fractured, never to be
healed, was the ancient _Via Sacra_. But, after the priests had removed
the stone from the roadway into the church, the inconsiderate and
iconoclastic explorers of our day, who have made so many discoveries in
their excavations about the Forum, proved that the roadway from which
this relic was taken was not the ancient _Via Sacra_ at all, but a more
modern roadway which had been mistaken for it!
[Sidenote: The Hardness of St. Peter's Head.]
In the Mamertine Prisons, which are also quite close to the Forum, a
depression on the stone wall by which we descend to the lower dungeon
is shown as the spot against which St. Peter's head rested, though our
guide had just told us that these stairs were not in existence then and
prisoners were let down into the dungeon through the hole in the middle
of the stone floor. Such trifling discrepancies do not seem to trouble
the average Italian mind.
St. Peter and St. Paul are said to have been bound in this prison for
nine months to a pillar, which is shown here. "A fountain of excellent
water beneath the floor of the prison is attributed to the prayers
of St. Peter, that he might have wherewith to baptize his gaolers,
Processus and Martinianus; but, unfortunately for this ecclesiastical
tradition, the fountain is described by Plutarch as having existed at
the time of Jugurtha's imprisonment" here, long before the time of St.
Peter.
Another miraculous spring, still flowing, is shown in the Church of SS.
Cosmo and Damiano as that which burst forth in answer to the prayers of
Felix IV., that he might have water to baptize his disciples.
[Sidenote: What the Head of St. Paul Did.]
But the most interesting of all the miraculous springs in or around
Rome are the three fountains, about two miles from the city, where the
Apostle Paul was executed. When his head was severed from his body it
bounded from the earth three times, crying out thrice, "Jesus! Jesus!
Jesus!" A fountain burst from the ground at each of the three spots
where the severed head struck. It is asserted, in proof of this origin
of the fountains, that the water of the first is still warm, of the
second tepid, and of the third cold, but we drank of them one after
another without being able to detect any difference in temperature. The
apostle's head is shown in bas relief upon the three altars above the
fountains. In the church which has been built over them we were shown
the pillar to which he was bound, and the block of marble upon which
he was decapitated, and, in the vault of another church hard by, the
prison in which he was placed just before his execution.
We could not help asking the priest who was our escort whether this
extraordinary story was still believed. His answer was: "Certainly!
There is no reason whatever to doubt it. The facts have been handed
down in an unbroken succession from eye-witnesses," a position which
he proceeded to defend at length and with great warmth when one of our
party in particular manifested much slowness to believe.
[Sidenote: St. Paul's Use of Plautilla's Veil.]
Furthermore, the opening of these three fountains was not the only
miracle wrought by the apostle after his death. Mrs. Jameson says:
"The legend of his death relates that a certain Roman matron named
Plautilla, one of the converts of S. Peter, placed herself on the road
by which S. Paul passed to his martyrdom, to behold him for the last
time; and when she saw him she wept greatly and besought his blessing.
The apostle then, seeing her faith, turned to her, and begged that she
would give him her veil to blind his eyes when he should be beheaded,
promising to return it to her after his death. The attendants mocked
at such a promise; but Plautilla, with a woman's faith and charity,
taking off her veil, presented it to him. After his martyrdom, S. Paul
appeared to her and restored the veil, stained with his blood. In the
ancient representations of the martyrdom of S. Paul, the legend of
Plautilla is seldom omitted. In the picture by Giotto in the Sacristy
of S. Peter's, Plautilla is seen on an eminence in the background,
receiving the veil from the hands of S. Paul, who appears in the
clouds above; the same representation, but little varied, is executed
in bas-relief on the bronze doors of St. Peter's."
[Sidenote: The Footprints of Christ in Stone.]
About two miles northeast of the Three Fountains, and the same distance
from the city, on the Appian Way, stands the Church of St. Sebastian.
Over an altar on the right, as you enter, the attendant priest, drawing
aside a curtain, shows you a slab of dark red stone with two enormous
footprints on it. These, we are told, were made by the feet of Christ
during an interview with Peter which took place near here, on the site
of the small Church of Domine Quo Vadis. The story is as follows: After
the burning of Rome, Nero charged the Christians with having fired
the city. Straightway the first persecution broke forth, and many of
the Christians were put to death with dreadful torture. The survivors
besought Peter not to expose his life. As he fled along the Appian Way,
Christ appeared to him travelling towards the city. The fleeing apostle
exclaimed in amazement, "_Domine, quo vadis?_" (Lord, whither goest
thou?), to which, with a look of mild sadness, the Saviour replied,
"_Venio iterum crucifigi_" (I come to be crucified a second time), then
vanished, whereupon the apostle, ashamed of his weakness, returned to
Rome, and shortly afterwards was crucified there himself.
[Sidenote: The Chains of St. Peter.]
Another relic of great interest connected with the same apostle is
shown in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome, and indeed gives
the church its name. The church is not without interest for other
reasons. For instance, it possesses portions of the crosses of St.
Peter and St. Andrew, and we are told that the high altar covers the
remains of the seven Maccabean brothers. But the basilica is specially
famous for the possession of the greatest masterpiece of sculpture
since the time of the Greeks--the majestic "Moses" of Michelangelo,
which draws thousands of sightseers who might otherwise never set foot
in the building. Nevertheless, its chief attraction, to the devout
Roman Catholic mind, is neither the bones of the Maccabees nor the
statue of Moses, but the chains referred to in the following familiar
passage of Scripture: "Peter therefore was kept in prison; but prayer
was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. And when Herod
would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between
two soldiers bound with two chains; and the keepers before the door
kept the prison. And behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a
light shined in the prison; and he smote Peter on the side, and raised
him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his
hands." (Acts xii. 5-7.) These two chains were presented by Juvenal,
Bishop of Jerusalem, to the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Theodosius the
younger, who placed one of them in the Basilica of the apostles in
Constantinople and sent the other to Rome, where this church was
erected as its special shrine. This was about the middle of the fifth
century. "But the Romans could not rest satisfied with the possession
of half the relic; and within the walls of this very basilica, Leo
I. beheld in a vision the miraculous and mystical uniting of the two
chains, since which they have both been exhibited here, and the day of
their being soldered together by invisible power, August 1st, has been
kept sacred in the Latin church!" "They are of unequal size, owing to
many fragments of one of them (first whole links, then only filings)
having been removed in the course of centuries by various popes and
sent to Christian princes who have been esteemed worthy of the favor!
The longest is about five feet in length. At the end of one of them is
a collar, which is said to have encircled the neck of St. Peter. They
are exposed on the day of the 'station' (the first Monday in Lent) in a
reliquary presented by Pius IX., adorned with statuettes of St. Peter
and the Angel--to whom he is represented as saying, '_Ecce nunc scio
vere_' (Acts xii. II). On the following day a priest gives the chains
to be kissed by the pilgrims, and touches their foreheads with them,
saying, 'By the intercession of the blessed Apostle Peter, may God
preserve you from evil. Amen.'"[13]
[Sidenote: The Benefits of Buying a Fac-simile of the Chains.]
In the sacristy we found a young priest doing a thriving business in
copies of the relic. We bought from him "an iron _fac-simile_ of the
chains (about the size of an ordinary watch-chain), authenticated by a
certificate testifying to its having touched the original chains. On
the back of this certificate was printed an extract from the Rules of
the Confraternity of the chains of St. Peter, from which we learned
that all associates in this brotherhood must wear such a _fac-simile_
as we had just bought, that the objects of the Confraternity are "The
propagation of the veneration of the chains of St. Peter, an increase
of devotion to the Holy See, prayers for the Pope's intention, for the
needs of Holy Church, the conversion of infidels and sinners, and the
extirpation of heresy and blasphemy," and that Pius IX. had granted to
the members of the Confraternity various indulgences, one of which is
"_A plenary indulgence and remission of all sins_[14] if one visits the
Church of San Pietro in Vincoli on January 18th[15] and June 29th,[16]
between the first vespers of the feast and sunset of the said days,
or on August 1st, or any one of the seven days following it. The usual
prayers for the Holy Father's intention," etc., are comprised in these
visits. We are told also that "the foregoing indulgences are applicable
to the souls in purgatory."
[Sidenote: The Relics in St. Peter's Cathedral.]
We may close this running account of the relics at Rome with a brief
mention of those that are to be seen in St. Peter's itself, the largest
and costliest church in the world. The construction of it extended
over one hundred and seventy-six years. The cost of the main building
alone was fifty million dollars. The annual outlay for repairs is
thirty-one thousand five hundred dollars. But it cost the Romish Church
far more than money--it cost her the loss of all the leading nations
of the world, which had been under her dominion till that time. For
the expense of the vast structure, with its "insolent opulence of
marbles," was so great that Julius II. and Leo X. were obliged to meet
the enormous outlay by the sale of indulgences, and that, as is well
known, precipitated the Reformation. So that Protestants may well feel
a peculiar interest in this mighty cathedral.
[Sidenote: The Column against which Christ Leaned in the Temple.]
It goes without saying that the popes would not allow the chief church
of Roman Catholicism to go begging in the matter of relics. And, sure
enough, we have no sooner pushed aside the heavy padded screen and
stepped within than we find on our right the Chapel of the Holy Column,
so called because it contains a pillar which is declared to have been
that against which our Lord leaned when he prayed and taught in the
temple at Jerusalem. The pillar contains this inscription: "Haec est
illa columna in qua DNS N{r} Jesus XPS appodiatus dum populo prædicabat
et Deo pno preces in templo effundebat adhaerendo, stabatque una
cum aliis undecim hic circumstantibus. De Salomonis templo in
triumphum hujus Basilicæ hic locata fuit: demones expellit et immundis
spiritibus vexatos liberos reddit et multa miracula cotidie facit.
P. reverendissimum prem et Dominum Dominum Card. de Ursinis. A. D.
MDCCCXXVIII."
[Sidenote: The Chair of St. Peter.]
At the other end of the church we are shown an ancient wooden chair,
encrusted with ivory, which we are told was the Cathedra Petri,
the episcopal throne of St. Peter and his immediate successors.
A magnificent festival in honor of this chair has been annually
celebrated here for hundreds of years.
My party seems to be made up of very determined Protestants. At any
rate, the sight of this relic leads an inquisitive person in the party
to ask whether the Bible does not say that "Peter's wife's mother lay
sick of a fever."
"Yes," replies the unfortunate gentleman to whose lot it falls to
answer all questions of all kinds.
"Then," continues the Inquisitive Person, "Peter was married?"
Unfortunate Gentleman: "Yes."
I. P.: "Do the Popes still marry?"
U. G.: "No."
I. P.: "If 'the first Pope' was married, why should not his successors
be married, and why should they insist upon a celibate clergy in every
age, in every country, and under all circumstances?"
[Sidenote: The Bones of St. Peter.]
U. G.: "These questions are becoming too hard for me. Come, let me
show you the tomb which contains the bones of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Only half of their bodies are preserved here, the other portion of St.
Peter's being in the Church of St. John Lateran and the other portion
of St. Paul's at the magnificent basilica of St. Paul's without the
walls."
"A circle of eighty-six gold lamps is always burning around the tomb of
the poor fisherman of Galilee.... Hence one can gaze up into the dome,
with its huge letters in purple-blue mosaic upon a gold ground (each
six feet long)--Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram ædificabo ecclesiam
meam, et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum.' Above this are four colossal
mosaics of the Evangelists.... The pen of St. Luke is seven feet in
length."
But we must not permit ourselves to be diverted from our proper subject
by the vastness and splendor of the building, natural as it is to do
so when standing under this matchless dome. The four huge piers which
support the dome are used as shrines for the four great relics of the
church, viz.: 1. The lance of St. Longinus, the soldier who pierced the
Saviour's side; 2. A portion of the true cross; 3. The napkin of St.
Veronica, containing the miraculous impression of our Lord's face; and
4. The head of the apostle Andrew.
I did not see these relics myself, as I was in the East when they were
exhibited, but on April 11th, the day before Easter, other members of
my party did, that is, they saw all of them but Andrew's head, and
from a letter written me by the youngest of my correspondents in my
own family, giving not only description, but drawings of the spear
head, the cross and the handkerchief in their several frames, I infer
that, notwithstanding the great height of the Veronica balcony from
which they are exhibited, my young correspondent and his companions
fared better in the matter of a good view than Fritz in _Chronicles
of the Schönberg Cotta Family_, who says: "To-day we gazed on the
Veronica--the holy impression left by our Saviour's face on the cloth
S. Veronica presented to him to wipe his brow, bowed under the weight
of the cross. We had looked forward to this sight for days, for seven
thousand years of indulgence from penance are attached to it. But when
the moment came we could see nothing but a black board hung with a
cloth, before which another white cloth was held. In a few minutes this
was withdrawn, and the great moment was over, the glimpse of the sacred
thing on which hung the fate of seven thousand years."
FOOTNOTES:
[9] _Later._--This is the church in which the late Pope Leo XIII. is to
be buried.
[10] _The Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, Alexander Robertson, p. 113.
[11] Hare, II., 93.
[12] Hare's _Walks in Rome_, II., pp. 166, 167.
[13] Hare, II., 45.
[14] Italics not mine, but so printed in the extract.
[15] Feast of St. Peter's Chair.
[16] Feast of St. Peter.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LEGENDS, THE POPES, AND THE PASQUINADES.
[Sidenote: The Manufacture of St. Philomena.]
Before quitting the subject of the relics at Rome, I must give my
readers what Hare calls "the extraordinary history of the manufacture
of S. Filomena, now one of the most popular saints in Italy, and one
towards whom idolatry is carried out with frantic enthusiasm both at
Domo d'Ossola and in some of the Neapolitan States."
"In the year 1802, while some excavations were going forward in the
Catacombs of Priscilla, a sepulchre was discovered containing the
skeleton of a young female; on the exterior were rudely painted some
of the symbols constantly recurring in these chambers of the dead--an
anchor, an olive branch (emblems of Hope and Peace), a scourge, two
arrows, and a javelin; above them the following inscription, of which
the beginning and end were destroyed:
--"LUMENA PAX TE CUM FI"--
The remains, reasonably supposed to be those of one of the early
martyrs for the faith, were sealed up and deposited in the treasury
of relics in the Lateran; here they remained for some years unthought
of. On the return of Pius VII. from France, a Neapolitan prelate was
sent to congratulate him. One of the priests in his train, who wished
to create a sensation in his district, where the long residence of the
French had probably caused some decay of piety, begged for a few relics
to carry home, and these recently discovered remains were bestowed on
him; the inscription was translated somewhat freely to signify _Santa
Philomena, rest in peace_. Another priest, whose name is suppressed,
_because of his great humility_, was favored by a vision in the broad
noonday, in which he beheld the glorious virgin Filomena, who was
pleased to reveal to him that she had suffered death for preferring
the Christian faith and her vow of chastity to the addresses of the
emperor, who wished to make her his wife. This vision leaving much
of her history obscure, a certain young artist, whose name is also
suppressed, perhaps because of his great humility, was informed in a
vision that the emperor alluded to was Diocletian, and at the same
time the torments and persecutions suffered by the Christian virgin
Filomena, as well as her wonderful constancy, were also revealed to
him. There were some difficulties in the way of the Emperor Diocletian,
which _incline_ the writer of the _historical_ account to incline
to the opinion that the young artist in his wisdom _may_ have made
a mistake, and that the emperor may have been not Diocletian, but
Maximian. The facts, however, now admitted of no doubt; the relics
were carried by the priest Francesco da Lucia to Naples; they were
enclosed in a case of wood resembling in form the human body; this
figure was habited in a petticoat of white satin, and over it a crimson
tunic after the Greek fashion; the face was painted to represent
nature, a garland of flowers was placed on the head, and in the hands
a lily and a javelin with the point reversed, to express her purity
and her martyrdom; then she was laid in a half-sitting posture in a
sarcophagus, of which the sides were glass, and, after lying for some
time in state in the chapel of the Torres family in the Church of Sant'
Angiolo, she was carried in grand procession to Mugnano, a little town
about twenty miles from Naples, amid the acclamations of the people,
working many and surprising miracles by the way.... Such is the legend
of S. Filomena, and such the authority on which she has become within
the last twenty years one of the most popular saints in Italy."--_Mrs.
Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art_, p. 671.
But, after all, the most extraordinary case of saint-manufacture is
not that of Philomena, but that of _Buddha_! I have not room for the
story here, but if any one wishes to know how the papacy made Buddha a
Christian saint, he will find the whole story, with the proofs, in _A
History of the Warfare of Science and Theology_, by Andrew D. White,
LL. D., late President and Professor of History at Cornell University,
and until recently United States Ambassador to Germany.
[Sidenote: "The Courteous Spaniard."]
A few days ago we visited the Church of St. Laurence Without the Walls,
where in a silver shrine under the high altar, the remains of St.
Laurence and St. Stephen are said to rest. The walls of the portico of
the church are covered with a series of frescoes, lately repainted. One
series represents the story of St. Stephen and that of the translation
of his relics to this church. "The relics of St. Stephen were preserved
at Constantinople, whither they had been transported from Jerusalem by
the Empress Eudoxia, wife of Theodosius II. Hearing that her daughter,
Eudoxia, wife of Valentinian II., Emperor of the West, was afflicted
with a devil, she begged her to come to Constantinople, that her demon
might be driven out by the touch of the relics. The younger Eudoxia
wished to comply, but the devil refused to leave her unless St. Stephen
was brought to Rome. An agreement was therefore made that the relics
of St. Stephen should be exchanged for those of St. Laurence. St.
Stephen arrived, and the Empress was immediately relieved of her devil;
but when the persons who had brought the relics of St. Stephen from
Constantinople were about to take those of St. Laurence back with them,
they all fell down dead! Pope Pelagius prayed for their restoration
to life, which was granted for a short time, to prove the efficacy of
prayer, but they all died again ten days later! Thus the Romans knew
that it would be criminal to fulfil their promise, and part with the
relics of St. Laurence, and the bodies of the two martyrs were laid in
the same sarcophagus." And thus we know how much more the Romans think
of relics than of honor and truth. "It is related that when they opened
the sarcophagus, and lowered into it the body of St. Stephen, St.
Laurence moved on one side, giving the place of honor on the right hand
to St. Stephen; hence, the common people of Rome have conferred on St.
Laurence the title of '_Il cortese Spagnuolo_'--the courteous Spaniard."
Another series of these pictures in the portico represents the story
of a sacristan who, coming to pray in this church before day, found it
filled with worshippers, and was told by St. Laurence himself that they
were the Apostle Peter, the first martyr, Stephen, and other apostles,
martyrs and virgins from paradise, and was ordered to go and tell the
Pope what he had seen, and bid him come and celebrate a solemn mass.
The sacristan objected that the Pope would not believe him, and asked
for some visible sign. Then St. Laurence ungirt his robe and gave him
his girdle. When the Pope was accompanying him back to the basilica
they met a funeral procession. To test the powers of the girdle, the
Pope laid it on the bier, and at once the dead arose and walked.
[Sidenote: The Miracles of St. Dominic.]
That is not the only miracle of resurrection offered to our credulity
by these ecclesiastical legends. The three principal frescoes in the
chapter house of the church of St. Sisto, recently painted by the
Padre Besson, represent three miracles of St. Dominic--in each case of
raising from the dead--the subjects being a mason who had fallen from
a scaffold when building this monastery, a child, and the young Lord
Napoleone Orsini, who had been thrown from his horse and instantly
killed, and who was brought to life by St. Dominic on this spot, as
is further commemorated by an inscription on the wall. But miracles
were nothing uncommon in the history of the founder of the powerful
Dominican Order. In the refectory of St. Marco, at Florence, we had
seen the fine fresco which represents the miraculous provision made
for him and his forty friars at a time of scarcity by two angels. The
refectory in which this miracle took place is at the Church of St.
Sabina, on the Aventine, in Rome; but there are three other things at
this church which interested us hardly less than the scene of that
miracle. One of them is the huge, pumpkin-shaped, black stone, two or
three times as big as a man's head, which the devil is said to have
hurled at St. Dominic one day when he found him lying prostrate in
prayer. This stone is the most conspicuous object in the church, being
set up on a pillar about three feet high, right in the middle of the
nave. Not far away is the marble slab on which the saint was lying at
the time that the formidable missile was thrown. The adversary's aim
was not good, and the saint was not harmed. The second thing of chief
interest here is the Chapel of the Rosary, at the other end of the same
aisle in which the marble slab lies, built on the very spot where St.
Dominic had the vision in which he received the rosary from the hands
of the Virgin. The supernatural gift is commemorated in a beautiful
painting by Sassoferato. It is hardly necessary to explain to any of my
readers that a rosary is a string of beads used by Roman Catholics to
keep the count of the number of _Pater-nosters_ and _Ave-Marias_ which
they repeat, and that this manner of "vain repetitions" was first used
by the Dominicans among Roman Catholics, though the custom was really
borrowed from the Mohammedans and Brahmins, who still use rosaries. The
third object is the famous orange tree, now six hundred and seventy
years old, which is said to have been brought from Spain and planted
in the court here by St. Dominic himself, orange trees having been
unknown in Rome before that time, and "which still lives, and is firmly
believed to flourish or fail with the fortunes of the Dominican Order."
Ladies are not allowed to approach this tree, so, as there were ladies
in our party, we all contented ourselves with a look at it through a
window. Hard by, of course, there is a room where things are sold to
pilgrims and visitors. There we bought a rosary, the beads of which
are made of the fruit of the plant called the Thorn of Christ, with
the exception of the bead next to the cross, which is a tiny dried
orange from St. Dominic's tree. Enclosed in the cross are a little
piece of the wood of the tree, and some earth from the catacombs where
the bodies of Sts. Peter and Paul, and of the holy virgin martyrs,
Sts. Agnes and Cecilia, reposed for some time. The printed leaflet
which accompanies our purchase tells us that "these rosaries, when
sold or ordered, are blessed and enriched with the indulgences of the
Rosary Confraternity and the papal blessing. When blessed they may be
distributed; _but if resold they lose all the indulgences_." (Italics
ours.)
Still another relic of great interest in this convent of St. Sabina
is the crucifix of Michele Ghislieri (afterwards Pope Pius V.). "One
day, as Ghislieri was about to kiss his crucifix, in the eagerness
of prayer, the image of Christ, says the legend, retired of its own
accord from his touch, for it had been poisoned by an enemy, and a kiss
would have been death."
[Sidenote: Sundry Miracles by Other Saints, and Images.]
In the Church of St. Gregory, on the C[oe]lian Hill, the thing that
interested us most was the picture by Badalocchi, "commemorating a
miracle on this spot, when, at the moment of elevation, the Host
is said to have bled in the hands of St. Gregory, to convince an
unbeliever of the truth of transubstantiation." This is the same
Gregory who presented certain foreign ambassadors with a handful of
earth from the arena of the Coliseum as a relic for their sovereigns,
so many martyrs having suffered death there, and "upon their receiving
the gift with disrespect, he pressed it, when blood flowed from the
soil."
Not far from the Church of St. Gregory we were shown the hermitage
where St. Giovanni de Matha lived. "Before he came to reside here he
had been miraculously brought from Tunis (whither he had gone on a
mission) to Ostia, in a boat without helm or sail, in which he knelt
without ceasing before the crucifix throughout the whole of his voyage!"
Time would fail me to tell of the miraculous surgical operation
performed by Sts. Cosmo and Damian upon a man who was praying in the
church dedicated to them, and who had a diseased leg amputated without
pain by the good saints while he slept; and not only so, but had a
sound leg, which they had taken from the body of a man just buried,
substituted for the diseased one. Nor can I dwell on the miraculous
blindness with which the guard sent to seize Pope St. Martin I. was
stricken the moment he caught sight of the pontiff in St. Maria
Maggiore, or the miraculous tears shed by an image of the Virgin
attached to a neighboring wall when she saw a cruel murder committed in
the street below, or the madonnas and crucifixes that spoke to saints
on various occasions. One of these, however, is too significant to be
omitted altogether. There is in the Church of St. Agostino a sculptured
image of the Madonna and child. "It is not long since the report was
spread that one day a poor woman called upon this image of the Madonna
for help; it began to speak, and replied, 'If I had only something,
then I could help thee, but I myself am so poor!' This story was
circulated, and very soon throngs of credulous people hastened hither
to kiss the foot of the Madonna, _and to present her with all kinds of
gifts_." (Italics mine.)
[Sidenote: How the Papal Treasury was Filled, and how it was Emptied.]
The evil methods employed at various times to replenish the papal
treasury are known to all readers of history. The best known, perhaps,
is the shameless traffic in indulgences by Tetzel, which helped to
precipitate the Reformation. Hare closes his account of the execution
of Beatrice Cenci for complicity in the murder of her father with the
statement that "sympathy will always follow one who sinned under the
most terrible of provocations, and whose cruel death was due to the
avarice of Clement VIII. for the riches which the church acquired by
the confiscation of the Cenci property," and cites the petition of
Gaspare Guizza (1601), in which he claims a reward from the Pope for
his service in apprehending one of the assassins of Francesco Cenci,
on the ground that thus "the other accomplices and their confessions
were secured, and _so many thousands of crowns brought into the
papal treasury_." The venality of Pope Alexander VI., Rodrigo Borgia
(1492-1503), "the wicked and avaricious father of Cæsar and Lucretia,
who is believed to have died of the poison which he intended for one
of his cardinals," is thus hit off by Pasquino:
"Vendit Alexander claves, altaria, Christum;
Emerat ille prius, vendere jure potest."
Of Innocent X. (1644-'55), Pasquino says, "Magis amat Olympiam quam
Olympium," referring to the shameful relations existing between this
Pope and his avaricious sister-in-law, Olympia Maidalchini, who made
it her business to secure the profits of the papacy in hard cash.
Trollope, in his _Life of Olympia_, says: "No appointment to office of
any kind was made except in consideration of a proportionable sum paid
down into her own coffers. This often amounted to three or four years'
revenue of the place to be granted. Bishoprics and benefices were sold
as fast as they became vacant. One story is told of an unlucky disciple
of Simon, who in treating with the Pope for a valuable see, just fallen
vacant, and hearing from her a price at which it might be his, far
exceeding all he could command, persuaded the members of his family to
sell all they had for the purpose of making this profitable investment.
The price was paid, and the bishopric was given him, but, with a
fearful resemblance to the case of Ananias, he died within the year,
and his ruined family saw the see a second time sold by the insatiable
and incorrigible Olympia.... During the last year of Innocent's life,
Olympia literally hardly ever quitted him. Once a week, we read, she
left the Vatican, secretly by night, accompanied by several porters
carrying sacks of coins, the proceeds of the week's extortions and
sales, to her own palace. And during these short absences she used to
lock the Pope into his chamber, and take the key with her!" She finally
"deserted him on his death-bed, making off with the accumulated spoils
of his ten years' papacy, which enabled her son, Don Camillo, to build
the Palazzo Doria Pamfili, in the Corso, and the beautiful Villa Doria
Pamfili," west of the Janiculan Hill. This villa, with its casino,
garden, lake, fountain, pine-shaded lawns and woods, and its fine view
of St. Peter's standing out against the green Campagna beyond, and
the blue Sabine mountains in the distance, is to this day one of the
loveliest villas in Italy, and the favorite resort of the latter-day
Romans and visitors to their city on the two afternoons of the week on
which it is open to pedestrians and two-horse carriages.
The notorious Simony practiced by the popes, in which, as we have just
seen, Olympia became such an adept, gave rise to the biting Latin
couplet--
"An Petrus Romæ fuerit, sub judice lis est;
Simonem Romæ nemo fuisse negat."
Some of the modern methods of making use of the Pope for purposes
of gain are less objectionable than those of Olympia. Dr. Alexander
Robertson, in his _Roman Catholic Church in Italy_, just published,
says: "One of the very latest novelties of the 'Pope's Shop' is a
penny-in-the-slot blessing machine. Specimens of this were lately to be
seen in the Corso, Rome, about half way between the Piazza Colonna and
the Piazza del Popolo. A penny is dropped into it. The cinematograph,
or wheel of life, goes round, when, lo! there appears a long procession
of richly clothed cardinals and monsignori, and then the Pope in a
sedan chair, accompanied by his Swiss Guards. As he is carried past
the spectator, he turns towards the window of his chair, a smile
overspreads his face, he raises his hands, and gives his blessing. On
these machines there is an inscription to the effect that the blessing
thus given and received is equivalent to that given by the Pope in
person in St. Peter's. Truly a novel way of turning an honest penny!"
We hear that a rash churchman, not liking the facts just stated,
undertook to deny them in the public prints, when up spoke some English
gentlemen, who had been in Rome recently, and bowled the churchman over
with the statement that they had themselves seen this blessing machine
on the Corso.
One never touches this subject of the vast wealth of the papacy without
calling to mind the well-known rejoinder of the great theologian,
Thomas Aquinas, when the Pope was showing him all his money and riches,
and said, "You see, Thomas, the church cannot now say what it said in
early times, 'Silver and gold have I none.'" "No," answered Aquinas,
"nor can it say, 'Rise up and walk'" (Acts iii. 6). This loss of
spiritual power, this loss of ability to minister salvation to others,
is one of the most melancholy results of the corruption of the papacy.
[Sidenote: Some Ugly Things in the Lives of the Popes.]
Dr. Alexander Robertson, in his recent book on _The Roman Catholic
Church in Italy_, which has received the hearty approval of the King
of Italy and his Prime Minister, says: "There are few, I daresay,
who have looked into the history of the popes, no matter what their
religious faith may be, who will not agree with me when I say that it
does not afford pleasant reading. One's intellect rebels against their
preposterous claims and pretensions, and one's moral sense against
their character and lives. Amongst them there were some good men, some
learned men, and some really able men; but, taking them all in all,
they were, beyond doubt, amongst the lowest class of men to be found
on the pages of history. To wade through their lives is to cross a
pestiferous moral swamp of worldliness, simony, nepotism, concubinage,
personal animosities, sanguinary feuds, forged decretals, plunderings,
poisonings, assassinations, massacres, death."[17]
One may smile at such papal peccadilloes as the vanity of Paul II.,
who was chiefly remarkable for his personal beauty, and was so vain
of his appearance that, when he was elected Pope, he wished to take
the name of Formosus. One may be amused at the intense self-esteem of
Urban VIII., of whose spoliation of ancient Rome Pasquino says, "Quod
non fecerunt barbari, fecerunt Barberini," and who, in the Barberini
palace, had the Virgin and angels represented as bringing in the
ornaments of the papacy at his coronation, and in another room a number
of the Barberini bees (the family crest) flocking against the sun, and
eclipsing it--to symbolize the splendor of the family. But our feeling
changes when we read that "he issued a bull by which the name, estates
and privileges of his house might pass to any living male descendant,
legitimate or illegitimate, whether child of prince or priest," lest
the family of Barberini might become absorbed in that of Colonna. And
we do not go far in our reading about such popes before the feeling of
amusement yields to one of sadness, indignation and horror. We need
not insist upon the story of the female Pope Joan, who is said to have
secured her election to the papal throne disguised as a man, and to
have reigned two years as John VIII., and then to have died a shameful
death; for, notwithstanding the indisputable fact that till 1600 her
head was included among the terra cotta representations of the other
popes in the Cathedral of Sienna, and was inscribed "Johannes VIII.,
Femina de Anglia," and that it was then changed into a head of Pope
Zacharias by the Grand Duke, at the request of Pope Clement VIII.,
the story is now generally discredited. But there are many other
facts, established beyond controversy, which explain fully the feeling
of the great majority of the Italian people and the verdict of the
accredited historians of the world. When the penitential Pope, Adrian
VI. (1522-'23), died of drinking too much beer, "the house of his
physician was hung with garlands by midnight revellers, and decorated
with the inscription, Liberatori Patriæ, S. P. Q. R.'" The nepotism of
the learned, brilliant and witty Paul III. "induced him to form Parma
into a duchy for his natural son Pierluigui, to build the Farnese
Palace, and to marry his grandson Ottavio to Marguerite, natural
daughter of Charles V." John XII., the first Pope who took a new name,
"scandalized Christendom by a life of murder, robbery, adultery and
incest." Of the tombs of the eighty-seven popes who were buried in the
old basilica of St. Peter's, only two were replaced when the present
building was erected, those of the two popes who lived in the time and
excited the indignation of Savonarola--"Sixtus IV., with whose cordial
concurrence the assassination of Lorenzo de' Medici was attempted,
and Innocent VIII., the main object of whose policy was to secure
place and power for his illegitimate children," sixteen in number, and
who is represented on his tomb as holding in his hand the spear of
"St. Longinus," which had pierced the side of Christ. This spear was
sent to Innocent VIII. by the Sultan Bajazet, nearly fifteen hundred
years after the crucifixion, and, as we have already seen, is now
preserved in St. Peter's as one of its four chief relics. Guicciardini
says of the death of Alexander VI.: "All Rome ran with indescribable
gladness to visit the corpse. Men could not satiate their eyes with
feeding on the carcase of the serpent who, by his unbounded ambition
and pestiferous perfidy, by every demonstration of horrible cruelty,
monstrous lust and unheard-of avarice, selling without distinction
things sacred and profane, had filled the world with venom."
"Pope Paul V. granted dispensations and pensions to any persons who
would assassinate Fra Paolo Sarpi; Pope Pius V. offered, as Mr. Froude
tells us, 'remission of sin to them and their heirs, with annuities,
honors and promotions, to any cook, brewer, baker, vintner, physician,
grocer, surgeon, or others,' who would make away with Queen Elizabeth;
and Pope Gregory XIII. offered a high place in heaven to any one who
would murder the Prince of Orange; and the poor wretch, Balthazar
Gerard, who did the infamous deed, actually told his judges 'that he
would soon be a saint in heaven, and would have the first place there
next to God,' whilst his family received a patent of nobility, and
entered into the possession of the estate of the Prince in the Franche
Comté--rewards promised for the commission of the crime by Cardinal
Granvelle." (Dr. Alexander Robertson's _Roman Catholic Church in
Italy_, p. 94.)
These are some of the things that help to explain not only the tone
of the pasquinades, not only the indictments of the world's leading
historians, which are to be presently cited, but also the present
attitude of something like twenty millions of the thirty-odd millions
of Italy's inhabitants, who have forsaken the church altogether.
What idea the people have of the Jesuits in particular is well shown
by the legend connected with the Piazza del Gesu, the great open space
in front of the Jesuit church, which is considered the windiest place
in Rome. The story is that the devil and the wind were one day taking a
walk together. "When they came to this square, the devil, who seemed to
be very devout, said to the wind, 'Just wait a minute, mio caro, while
I go into this church.' So the wind promised, and the devil went into
the Gesu, and has never come out again--and the wind is blowing about
in the Piazza del Gesu to this day."
[Sidenote: Pasquino's View of the Pope.]
One of the interesting objects in Rome is a mutilated statue called
Pasquino, which stands at the corner of the Orsini Palace, one of
the most central and public places in the city. The reason for the
interest attaching to this almost shapeless piece of marble is that
for centuries it was used for placarding those satires upon the popes
which, by their exceeding cleverness and biting truth, have made the
name of pasquinade famous the world over. No squib that was ever
affixed to that column had a keener edge than the one known as "The
Antithesis of Christ," which appeared at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, and runs as follows:
Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world."
The Pope conquers cities by force.
Christ had a crown of thorns:
The Pope wears a triple diadem.
Christ washed the feet of his disciples:
The Pope has his kissed by kings.
Christ paid tribute:
The Pope takes it.
Christ fed the sheep:
The Pope wishes to be master of the world.
Christ carried on his shoulders the cross:
The Pope is carried on the shoulders of his servants in liveries
of gold.
Christ despised riches:
The Pope has no other passion than for gold.
Christ drove out the merchants from the temple:
The Pope welcomes them.
Christ preached peace:
The Pope is the torch of war.
Christ was meekness:
The Pope is pride personified.
Christ promulgated the laws that the Pope tramples under foot.
[Sidenote: What the Italians now Think about it.]
"But," some one may say, "the pasquinades were written long ago, and,
while they are doubtless true descriptions of the papacy of the past,
surely no one would take the same view now." For answer I may quote
the statement of Dr. Raffaelle Mariano, Professor of Philosophy in the
University of Naples, who is not a Protestant, but, as he tells us, was
"born in the Roman Catholic Church," and was "a fervent Catholic from
infancy." Speaking of the vast difference which he found between the
teachings of the church and those of the New Testament as to what is
necessary to salvation, he says, "Therefore, Roman Catholicism is not
only not Christianity, but it is the very antithesis of Christianity,"
a statement every whit as strong as Pasquino's. Some American
Protestants, especially those who have personal friends in the Roman
Catholic Church whom they honor and love--and there are many people in
that church who are richly worthy of honor and love, and who do not
approve of the evils we have been describing any more than we do--are
sometimes disposed to think that Protestant writers are too severe in
their condemnation of the Romish Church as a system. A visit to Italy,
the centre of Romanism, would quickly disabuse these overcharitable
Protestants of that impression. We have all read of such things as
are described above in connection with the relics and legends, but
they seem far away and unreal, and almost impossible, until we come
to the home of Romanism and find them all around us. Then it ceases
to surprise us that so large a proportion of the most intelligent men
in Italy occupy a position of indifference and unbelief, or hostility
and scorn, towards the Christian religion, for Romanism is the only
Christianity that most of them know. Let it be remembered, too, that
the King, able, conscientious, patriotic, devoted to the welfare of
his people, and the Prime Minister, Zanardelli, like his predecessor,
Crispi, and the members of Parliament, and the army and navy, and the
whole government which has given Italy such wonderful stability and
prosperity since the overthrow of the papal dominion and opened before
the nation a future of so much promise, are all standing aloof from
the Pope. Let any one see one of the great pilgrimages from every
part of the country to the tomb of Victor Emmanuel, who freed Italy,
as we saw it the other day, and observe the immense popularity of the
great liberator and his successors of the house of Savoy, and let him
note the firm opposition of Italy's leading men to the papacy, and he
will see that the view of the Pope which the secular newspapers so
persistently seek to force upon the people of the English-speaking
world simply cannot be that of the thoughtful men of Italy.
By the way, I see plenty of women confessing to the priests, but
very, very few men. The textbook used in the training of priests
as father-confessors, and the standard work of the church on that
subject, approved by Pope Leo XIII., is Liguori's _Moral Philosophy_.
"On July 14, 1901, the _Asino_, a daily newspaper published in Rome,
printed in its columns, and also in the form of large bills, which it
caused to be posted up in public places in the chief cities of Italy, a
challenge offering one thousand francs to any Roman Catholic newspaper
which would have the courage to print the Latin text, with an Italian
translation, of two passages in Liguori's book, which it specified.
The challenge was never taken up, and it never will be, for any one
daring to publish the passages named would certainly be prosecuted for
outraging public decency" (Dr. Alexander Robertson, _Roman Catholic
Church in Italy_, p. 149). Hare says, "It was a curious characteristic
of the laxity of morals in the time of Julius II. (1503-'13), that her
friends did not hesitate to bury the famous Aspasia of that age in
this church (St. Gregorio), and to inscribe upon her tomb: 'Imperia,
cortisana Romana, quæ digna tanto nomine, raræ inter homines formæ
specimen dedit.'... But this monument has now been removed."[18]
Most of the facts above cited, especially those concerning the legends
and the Popes, except where specific acknowledgment is made to other
writers, have been drawn from Hare's invaluable _Walks in Rome_. Let us
conclude the list with the testimonies of a few eminent men of
unimpeachable competence and veracity as to the character and influence
of the Roman Catholic Church as a system.
[Sidenote: Macaulay, Dickens and Gladstone on the Influence of
Romanism.]
In the first chapter of his _History of England_, Lord Macaulay says:
"From the time when the barbarians overran the Western Empire to the
time of the revival of letters, the influence of the Church of Rome
had been generally favorable to science, to civilization, to good
government. But during the last three centuries, to stunt the growth
of the human mind has been her chief object. Throughout Christendom,
whatever advance has been made in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth,
and in the arts of life, has been made in spite of her, and has
everywhere been in inverse proportion to her power. The loveliest and
most fertile provinces of Europe have, under her rule, been sunk in
poverty, in political servitude, and in intellectual torpor, while
Protestant countries, once proverbial for sterility and barbarism,
have been turned by skill and industry into gardens, and can boast of
a long list of heroes and statesmen, philosophers and poets. Whoever,
knowing what Italy and Scotland naturally are, and what, four hundred
years ago, they actually were, shall now compare the country round Rome
with the country round Edinburgh, will be able to form some judgment
as to the tendency of papal domination. The descent of Spain, once
the first among the monarchies, to the lowest depths of degradation,
the elevation of Holland, in spite of many natural disadvantages, to
a position such as no commonwealth so small has ever reached, teach
the same lesson. Whoever passes in Germany from a Roman Catholic to
a Protestant principality, in Switzerland from a Roman Catholic to a
Protestant canton, in Ireland from a Roman Catholic to a Protestant
county, finds that he has passed from a lower to a higher grade of
civilization. On the other side of the Atlantic the same law prevails.
The Protestants of the United States have left far behind them the
Roman Catholics of Mexico, Peru and Brazil. The Roman Catholics of
Lower Canada remain inert, while the whole continent round them is
in a ferment with Protestant activity and enterprise. The French
have doubtless shown an energy and intelligence which, even when
misdirected, have justly entitled them to be called a great people.
But this apparent exception, when examined, will be found to confirm
the rule, for in no country that is called Roman Catholic has the
Roman Catholic Church, during several generations, possessed so little
authority as in France."
Charles Dickens, in a letter written from Switzerland, in 1845, to
his friend and biographer, Forster, says: "In the Simplon, hard
by here, where (at the bridge of St. Maurice over the Rhone) the
Protestant canton ends and a Catholic canton begins, you might
separate two perfectly distinct and different conditions of humanity
by drawing a line with your stick in the dust on the ground. On the
Protestant side--neatness, cheerfulness, industry, education, continued
aspiration, at least, after better things. On the Catholic side--dirt,
disease, ignorance, squalor and misery. I have so constantly observed
the like of this since I came abroad that I have a sad misgiving that
the religion of Ireland lies at the root of all its sorrows." Writing
from Genoa, in 1846, Dickens says, "If I were a Swiss, with a hundred
thousand pounds, I would be as steady against the Catholic canons and
the propagation of Jesuitism as any Radical among them; believing the
dissemination of Catholicity to be the most horrible means of political
and social degradation left in the world."
In connection with Dickens' remark about Ireland, we may quote the
remarkable statement of Mr. Michael McCarthy, himself a Roman Catholic,
in his book, _Five Years in Ireland_, pp. 65 and 66, where, after
describing the welcome of the Belfast Corporation to Lord Cadogan on
his first visit, in 1895, to the Protestant North of Ireland, and
their glowing statements about the peaceful and prosperous condition
of their city and district, he contrasts this happy condition with
the unhappy state of the "rest of Ireland," meaning by that the
Roman Catholic parts. "In the rest of Ireland there is no social or
industrial progress to record. The man who would say of it that it
was 'progressing and prospering,' or that 'its work people were fully
employed,' or that there existed 'a continued development of its
industries,' or that its towns 'had increased in value and population,'
would be set down as a madman. It is in this seven-eighths of Ireland
that the growing and great organization of the Catholic Church has
taken root."
Mr. Gladstone, in an article on "Italy and her Church," in the _Church
Quarterly Review_ for October, 1875, says: "Profligacy, corruption and
ambition, continued for ages, unitedly and severally, their destructive
work upon the country, through the Curia and the papal chair; and in
doing it they of course have heavily tainted the faith of which that
chair was the guardian." Elsewhere he says, "There has never been any
more cunning blade devised against the freedom, the virtue and the
happiness of a people than Romanism."
Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his _Marble Faun_, which, by the way, contains
the most charming of all the descriptive writing about Rome, put
the case none too strongly when he spoke of being "disgusted with
the pretense of holiness and the reality of nastiness, each equally
omnipresent" in the city of the popes. The new government has wrought
a great change in this respect, and Rome is in many parts of it now
quite a clean city.
There, then, are the facts as to the influence of the Roman Catholic
Church. I am, of course, very far from saying that there are no good
people in that church. As I have already stated, I believe that there
are many good people in it, but my own observation has satisfied me
that the verdict of history as to the baleful influence of the system
is absolutely correct.
"What, then," some one may ask, "do the good people in that church
think of all the immoralities and frauds that it has condoned and
fostered?" The answer is that the really good people in that church
must grieve over them and deplore them just as the good people in other
churches do.
* * * * *
_P. S._--It is generally believed, and apparently with good reason,
that the new Pope, Pius X., is a better man than many of his
predecessors, and that he cannot be charged with the immoralities or
the ambition and avarice which characterized them. Let us hope that he
will have the courage to attempt some real reform in the lives of many
of his clergy.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] It was a bad day for the cause of truth when Foxe's _Book of
Martyrs_ was allowed to go out of general circulation. When I was a boy
it was no uncommon thing to see copies of it in American homes. Now it
is rarely seen. A new and corrected edition of it ought to be brought
out and given wide circulation. There have been not a few indications
this year that our people are forgetting some of the most instructive
history of all the past, and those who seem to be most oblivious of it
are the editors of some of the secular newspapers.
[18] There are other indications of some improvement in this matter,
but an Anglican resident in Italy, quoted by the _Review of Reviews_ as
"a painstaking and fair-minded" witness, says, "People are not shocked
by clerical immorality, but regard it as natural and inevitable." To an
Anglican friend a Roman prelate lamented that a certain cardinal was
not elected at the late conclave. But the Anglican replied, "He is a
man of conspicuous immorality." "No doubt," was the answer, "but you
Americans seem to think there is no virtue but chastity. The Cardinal
has not that, but he is an honest man."
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE OLD FORCES AND THE NEW IN THE ETERNAL CITY.
[Sidenote: An Audience with the Pope.]
Well, we have seen the Pope. Hearing that a body of Italian pilgrims
were to be received by the pontiff at the Vatican, and having assured
ourselves that the function was one which would involve no official
recognition of the Pope on our part, and that we should be merely
Protestant spectators, we gladly accepted the offer of tickets for the
audience, and, supposing in our simplicity that, as the reception was
set for noon, we should be sufficiently early if we went at eleven
o'clock, we drove up to the main entrance of the Vatican at that hour.
There was a great throng of people about the door, but our tickets
obtained for us immediate entrance along with a stream of other ladies
and gentlemen. The regulation attire for these functions is full
evening dress for gentlemen, while ladies wear black, with no hat, but
with a lace mantilla on the head. We first passed through a double line
of the famous Swiss Guards, in their extraordinary uniform of crimson,
yellow and black, designed by no less a person than Michael Angelo.
Then we were shown up the great stairway, and passing through a couple
of large rooms, one of which was adorned with Raphael's frescoes, we
found ourselves at the entrance of a long and spacious hall, already
densely crowded, as it seemed to us, but with a space kept open down
the centre between the rows of seats on either side. Looking down
this open space, we could see at the other end, on a slightly raised
platform, the pontifical throne, upholstered in red velvet, with
golden back and arms, effectively set in the midst of crimson hangings,
which swept in rich masses from the lofty ceiling to the floor.
Preceded by guards, we travelled the whole length of the hall, and
found, to our great gratification, that our seats were quite close to
the throne, so that we had an excellent position for seeing and hearing
all that was going on. We soon noticed that many of the hundreds of
people present, like some of us, had not observed the regulations as
to dress. Many others had. Mingled with the soberer attire of the
spectators, pilgrims and priests, we saw now and then a violet cassock,
as one bishop after another drifted in. Apart from these vestments,
there was no semblance of a religious gathering. It was more like a
social function, and the people were chatting gaily, the jolliest and
noisiest crowd being a group of young seminarians, prospective priests,
who occupied the same bench with us and the two or three nearest to
it. After we had been there an hour the great clock of St. Peter's
struck twelve. Instantly all the noisy young seminarians rose to their
feet and began to recite, in a lower, humming tone, their _Ave-Marias_
and _Pater-Nosters_. As soon as the reciting and counting of beads
was over, as it was in a minute, they struck in again with their gay
conversation. We had plenty of time to take it all in. The Pope is
always late, and it was an hour after the time fixed for the audience
when he appeared; but at last he did, and instantly everybody, men and
women, sprang up on the benches and chairs, frantically waving their
handkerchiefs and shouting at the top of their voices, "_Evviva il
Papa-Re! Evviva il Papa-Re!_"--"Long live the Pope-King! Long live the
Pope-King!"--the ablest performer in this part of the ceremony being a
leather-lunged young priest at my elbow, with a voice as powerful and
persistent as that of a hungry calf, and who made known his desire
for the restoration of the temporal power to the Pope with such energy
that the perspiration rolled down his fat face in shining rivulets.
I never heard anything like it except in a political convention or a
stock exchange. Accompanied by the Noble Guard, a body of picked men
renowned for their superb physique and clad in resplendent uniform, the
Holy Father was borne in on an arm-chair, carried by twelve men, also
in uniform. Occasionally he would rise to his feet with evident effort,
leaning on, or rather grasping, one arm of his chair, and bless the
people he was passing, with two fingers outstretched in the familiar
attitude that we have seen in the pictures. At such times the furious
acclamations, and waving of handkerchiefs, and clapping of hands,
would be redoubled. He passed within arm's length of us, a little knot
of Protestants, silent amid the uproar. It was a pitiful spectacle.
A pallid, feeble, tottering old man, with slender, shrunken neck,
and excessively sharp and prominent features, nose and chin almost
meeting--we now understood Zola's description: "The simious ugliness of
his face, the largeness of his nose, the long slit of his mouth, the
hugeness of his ears, the conflicting jumble of his withered features."
But out of this waxen face peered a pair of brilliant dark eyes, the
only sign of real vitality about him. When he had been carefully
lowered by the chair-bearers, and had taken his throne on the platform,
with his attendants ranged round him, the spokesman of the pilgrims
came forward and read an address, to which the Pope's amanuensis,
standing by his side, read a brief reply. Then the Pope pronounced the
benediction in a surprisingly clear voice, after which the pilgrims
were introduced individually, not all of them, but a certain number of
representative persons among them. These all knelt and kissed his hand.
When this ceremony was over the audience closed, and the Pontiff was
borne out as he came in, amid wild applause.
[Sidenote: The Pope's Last Jubilee in St. Peter's.]
On the third of March, while I was in Egypt, our party in Rome saw a
much more imposing ceremony than the one I have just described. Every
one has noticed how numerous the papal jubilees have been during the
last quarter of a century, every year or so seeing the celebration of
some jubilee of the Pope's official life. In twenty-one years he has
had no less than fourteen of them. Their frequency should not surprise
us when we remember that each of them turns a vast stream of gifts and
money into the papal treasury from every part of the world. One of my
correspondents writes me that for the celebration of March 3rd both
sides of the nave of St. Peter's were lined with pens or boxes, all
free except those near the high altar, and in the middle of the nave
a passage about fifteen feet wide was railed off for the procession.
"We drove to St. Peter's through a pouring rain about 7:45 A. M. The
building was already packed with people. It is estimated that there
were fifty thousand of us by eleven o'clock. We walked down the left
aisle and took our position at the base of a pillar, where we could
see the Pope as he entered from the right aisle. There we waited from
eight o'clock till after eleven. He was an hour late. Finally, we heard
the silver trumpets sounding from the gallery in the dome. His guards
preceded him, and other attendants bearing swords, maces and a cross.
The caps indicating the offices he filled before he became Pope were
carried on cushions by three cardinals. He was himself carried on the
shoulders of twelve men, dressed in rich red costumes. The Pope sat in
his red and gold chair, richly robed in white satin embroidered with
gold. He wore a crown of the same materials, white silk mits, and a
large ring. When he entered the nave he stood and blessed the people,
holding up two fingers. The music was fine. We heard the singing as it
came nearer and nearer, but as soon as the Pope appeared the people
broke into shouts, waving handkerchiefs, and making so much noise that
we could no longer hear the music. We left after five hours."
[Illustration: EDWARD VII. OF ENGLAND, AND VICTOR EMMANUEL III. OF
ITALY, IN ROME.]
Later in the season those members of our party who remained in Rome
while we were travelling through Egypt and Palestine, had very
satisfactory views of King Edward VII. of England and William II.,
the Emperor of Germany, on their visits to Rome. As they had seen the
Prince of Wales in London, and young Prince Edward, who will also be
King of England some day if he lives, and the other royal children
at Marlborough House, and as they have repeatedly seen King Victor
Emmanuel and Queen Helena, they have had unusual opportunities for
seeing for themselves whether the royalties are made of common clay. I
must say for them that they are stauncher than ever in their devotion
to the republican ideals of our own country. Their opportunities for
seeing these royalties were better than those enjoyed by most visitors
to Rome, because their rooms overlooked the palace and grounds of the
Queen mother, Marguerita, and King Edward and the Kaiser, like other
royal visitors to Rome, made it their first business to call on her.
She is still the most beloved woman in Italy.
[Sidenote: Our Quarters on the Pincian Hill.]
The location of our rooms was advantageous in many other respects.
They were high up in the southwestern corner of a tall building on
the Pincian Hill, so high that we could look clear across the city
to the Sabine Mountains. As soon as the sun rose over the eastern
hills he looked cheerily into our windows, and continued his genial
companionship with us till he sank into the Mediterranean at night. We
had selected the rooms with a view to this particularly, remembering
the Italian proverb that "When the sun goes out of the window, the
doctor comes in at the door." A room on the north side of a building
should never be taken. The Roman winter is short but sharp. We could
see snow on the mountains during nearly the whole of our stay, which
in the case of the majority of us was five months. Then, too, we were
close to the city wall, and to the gate which led out into the lovely
Borghese Gardens, "whose wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful
than the finest English park scenery," where "the stone pines lift
their dense clumps of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high
that they look like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow
upon the turf so far off that you scarcely know which tree made it";
where there are "avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge
funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them,
instead of cheerful radiance"; and where ancient and majestic ilex
trees "lean over the green turf in ponderous grace.... Never was
there a more venerable quietude than that which sleeps among their
sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that which gladdens
the gentle gloom which these leafy patriarchs strive to diffuse over
the swelling and subsiding lawns." Moreover, our quarters were within
so short a walk of the park on the Pincio (where the band plays every
afternoon, and where all Rome drives round and round the little circle
at the top), and of the terrace of the Villa Medici, that we were
drawn thither day after day to watch the picturesque groups of models
lounging in the wintry sun on the great flight of steps that lead
from the Church of Trinita de' Monti down to the Piazza di Spagna,
to muse over the Eternal City spread out below us, with the dome of
St. Peter's, in the distance, standing out against a sky of gold,
and, above all, to watch "the light that broods over the fallen sun."
Nowhere in the world, at least so far as my observation of it extends,
is this wonderful glow which suffuses all the western sky with crimson,
orange and violet lights after the sun goes down--nowhere else is this
afterglow at once so rich and so delicate as at Rome.
[Sidenote: The Sweep of History Seen from the Janiculan.]
But it is from the Janiculan Hill, on the other side of the Tiber,
that one gets the most comprehensive view of the city. Among other
things that take the eye from that commanding point there are three
hills which may be said to epitomize the history of Rome: on the east
the Palatine, where, as its name intimates, the palaces of the Cæsar's
stood, representing the culmination of the glory of pagan Rome; on
the west, the Vatican, where, as its name suggests, a prophet ought
to dwell, though I fear he does not, and where St. Peter's, with its
"insolent opulence of marble" and its colossal apotheosis of the
popedom, represents the culmination of the glory of papal Rome; and,
immediately in front, in the centre of the city, the Quirinal, where
Victor Emmanuel's royal house stands, representing the new government
of free and united Italy. From his windows in the Quirinal Palace, the
King can look across the intervening city to the windows of that other
palace where the relentless foe of his government lives, that vast,
luxurious "prison" of the Vatican, with its eleven thousand rooms, the
largest palace in the world, with its museums and libraries filled with
priceless treasures, and with its extensive gardens and grounds.
Zola has pointed out how persistent, through all these three periods
of Rome's history, has been that passion for cyclopean building, the
"blossoming of that ancient sap, peculiar to the soil of Rome, which in
all ages has thrown up preposterous edifices, of exaggerated hugeness
and dazzling and ruinous luxury." First, the pagan emperors set the
pace, and of their work we may take the Colosseum and the Baths of
Caracalla as specimens.
[Sidenote: The Colosseum and the Baths of Caracalla.]
"The Colosseum. Ah! that colossus, only one-half or so of which has
been destroyed by time as with the stroke of a mighty scythe, it rises
in its enormity and majesty like a stone lacework, with hundreds of
empty bays agape against the blue of heaven! There is a world of halls,
stairs, landings and passages, a world where one loses one's self amid
the death-like silence and solitude. The furrowed tiers of seats, eaten
into by the atmosphere, are like shapeless steps leading down into some
old extinct crater, some natural circus excavated by the force of the
elements in indestructible rock. The hot suns of eighteen hundred years
have baked and scorched this ruin, which has reverted to a state of
nature, bare and golden-brown like a mountain side, since it has been
stripped of its vegetation, the flora which once made it like a virgin
forest. And what an evocation when the mind sets flesh and blood and
life again on all that dead osseous framework, fills the circus with
the ninety thousand spectators which it could hold, marshals the games
and the combats of the arena, gathers a whole civilization together,
from the emperor and the dignitaries to the surging plebeian sea, all
aglow with the agitation and brilliancy of an impassioned people,
assembled under the ruddy reflection of the giant purple _velum_. And
then, yet further on the horizon, were other cyclopean ruins, the Baths
of Caracalla, standing there like relics of a race of giants long
since vanished from the world: halls extravagantly and inexplicably
spacious and lofty; vestibules large enough for an entire population;
a _frigidarium_, where five hundred people could swim together; a
_tepidarium_ and a _calidarium_ on the same proportions, born of a
wild craving for the huge; and then the terrific massiveness of the
structures, the thickness of the piles of brick-work, such as no feudal
castle ever knew; and, in addition, the general immensity which makes
passing visitors look like lost ants; one wonders for what men, for
what multitudes, this monstrous edifice was reared. To-day you would
say a mass of rocks in the rough thrown from some height for building
the abode of Titans."
[Sidenote: The Papal Passion for Terrestrial Immortality.]
Then the Popes, when they came to power, followed this pagan example,
moved by the same spirit of conquest, the same human vanity, the same
passionate desire to set their names on imperishable walls, and, after
dominating the world, to leave behind them indestructible traces,
tangible proofs of their passing glory, eternal edifices of bronze
and marble, to attest that glory till the end of time. "Among the
illustrious popes there has not been one that did not seek to build,
did not revert to the traditions of the Cæsars, eternizing their reigns
in stone and raising temples for resting-places, so as to rank among
the gods. Ever the same passion for terrestrial immortality has burst
forth: it has been a battle as to who should leave the highest, most
substantial, most gorgeous monument; and so acute has been the disease
that those who, for lack of means and opportunity, have been unable
to build, and have been forced to content themselves with repairing,
have, nevertheless, desired to bequeath the memory of their modest
achievements to subsequent generations by commemorative marble slabs
engraved with pompous inscriptions. These slabs are to be seen on every
side; not a wall has ever been strengthened but some pope has stamped
it with his arms, not a ruin has been restored, not a palace repaired,
not a fountain cleaned, but the reigning pope has signed the work with
his Roman and pagan title of 'Pontifex Maximus.'[19] It is a haunting
passion, a form of involuntary debauchery, the fated florescence of
that compost of ruins, that dust of edifices whence new edifices are
ever arising. And given the perversion with which the old Roman soil
almost immediately tarnished the doctrines of Jesus, that resolute
passion for domination, and that desire for terrestrial glory which
wrought the triumph of Catholicism in scorn of the humble and pure, the
fraternal and simple ones of the primitive church, one may well ask
whether Rome has ever been Christian at all."
[Sidenote: The Building Boom under the New Government.]
And, finally, the new government of Victor Emmanuel, for a time at
least, was caught in the same current, infected with the same mania for
building that seems to exhale from the very soil of the Eternal City.
As the popes had not become masters of Rome without feeling impelled
to rebuild it in their passion to rule over the world, so young Italy,
"yielding to the hereditary madness of universal domination, had in
its turn sought to make the city larger than any other, erecting whole
districts for people who never came." But, fortunately for Italy,
the old idea was not unmixed with newer and better ones. Their first
delirious outburst of huge building operations has been explained as "a
legitimate explosion of the delight and the hopes of a young nation
anxious to show its power. The question was to make Rome a modern
capital worthy of a great kingdom, and before aught else there were
sanitary requirements to be dealt with; the city needed to be cleansed
of all the filth which disgraced it. One cannot nowadays imagine in
what abominable putrescence the City of the Popes, the _Roma sporca_
which artists regret, was then steeped: the vast majority of the houses
lacked even the most primitive arrangements, the public thoroughfares
were used for all purposes, noble ruins served as store-places for
sewage, the princely palaces were surrounded by filth, and the streets
were perfect manure beds, which fostered frequent epidemics. Thus, vast
municipal works were absolutely necessary; the question was one of
health and life itself. And in much the same way it was only right to
think of building houses for the new comers who would assuredly flock
into the city. There had been a precedent at Berlin, whose population,
after the establishment of the German Empire, had suddenly increased
by some hundreds of thousands. In the same way the population of Rome
would certainly be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, for, as the new centre
of national life, the city would necessarily attract all the _vis viva_
of the provinces. And at this thought pride stepped in; the fallen
government of the Vatican must be shown what Italy was capable of
achieving, what splendor she would bestow on the new and third Rome,
which, by the magnificence of its thoroughfares and the multitude of
its people, would far excel either the imperial or the papal city." We
need not follow the melancholy story of this delusion. The boom had a
disastrous collapse, and the city was left full of vast, pretentious,
flimsy, deserted palaces. The best thing about them is that they are
perishable. The lesson, happily, was not lost on the men of the new
order in Italy, and they seem at last to have extricated themselves
from the toils of that miasmatic megalo-mania. The government is sane,
sound, conservative, proceeding with care and deliberation in its
upbuilding of the country, understanding the meaning of the proverb
that "Rome was not built in a day," and it has already given the
country more security and prosperity than it has enjoyed for many, many
centuries. If it can continue to maintain itself against the priests,
there is undoubtedly a bright future before Italy.
But can it maintain itself against the priests? I think so. Yet a
man would be blind indeed who could not see their number, power and
activity. Rome swarms with them. Speaking of the incredible number of
cassocks that one encounters in the streets, Zola says: "Ah! that ebb
and flow; that ceaseless tide of black gowns and frocks of every hue!
With their processions of students ever walking abroad, the seminaries
of the different nations would alone suffice to drape and decorate
the streets, for there are the French and the English all in black,
the South Americans in black with blue sashes, the North Americans
in black with red sashes, the Poles in black with green sashes, the
Greeks in blue, the Germans in red, the Scots in violet, the Romans in
black or violet or purple, the Bohemians with chocolate sashes, the
Irish with red lappets, the Spaniards with blue cords, to say nothing
of all the others with broidery and bindings and buttons in a hundred
different styles. And, in addition, there are the confraternities, the
penitents, white, black, blue and gray, with sleeveless frocks and
capes of different hue, gray, blue, black or white. And thus, even
nowadays, papal Rome at times seems to resuscitate, and one can realize
how tenaciously and vigorously she struggles on in order that she may
not disappear in the cosmopolitan Rome of the new era." Yes, Italy will
escape from the clutches of the papacy, but she will have to work.
There must be no relaxation of vigilance or energy on her part--or on
ours. For this multitude of young priests from every part of the world
spells menace for other lands besides Italy.
FOOTNOTE:
[19] On the Appian Way, beyond the tomb of Cecilia Metella, a marble
tablet has been placed, informing all men that here Pius IX. once ate
his lunch.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION IN ROME.
[Sidenote: The Cappuccini Cemetery.]
Only three or four blocks from our hotel stands the Church of the
Cappuccini, which contains one of the most gruesome sights in Rome,
the celebrated cemetery of the Cappuccini monks, the soil of which was
brought from Jerusalem. All Roman Catholic cemeteries have a peculiarly
melancholy aspect. They have none of that gentle beauty which is so
characteristic of our cemeteries, where the grass grows green under the
open sky or great trees cast their peaceful shade over "God's acre."
But this is the most weird and ghastly of them all. There are four
recesses or chapels underneath the church, the pillars and pilasters
of which are made of thigh-bones and skulls, the architectural
ornaments being represented by the joints of the spine, and the more
delicate tracery by the smaller bones of the human frame. "The summits
of the arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if they
were wrought most skillfully in bas-relief. There is no possibility
of describing how ugly and grotesque is the effect.... On some of
the skulls there are inscriptions, purporting that such a monk, who
formerly made use of that particular head-piece, died on such a day
and year; but vastly the greater number are piled up undistinguishably
into the architectural design.... In the side walls of the vaults are
niches where skeleton monks sit or stand, clad in the brown habits that
they wore in life.... Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it
deserves. There is no disagreeable scent, such as might have been
expected from the decay of so many holy persons, in whatever odor of
sanctity they may have taken their departure. The same number of living
monks would not smell half so unexceptionably." So Hawthorne says, and
I have spared my readers the most disagreeable parts of his description.
The allusion in his last sentence is one which is justified by the
olfactory organs of every visitor to Rome. The vices which were
encouraged in the magnificent baths of the emperors, and which
have given the word _bagnio_ an evil signification the world over,
"found their reaction in the impression of the early Christians that
uncleanliness was a virtue, an impression which is retained by several
of the monastic orders to the present day." We sometimes weary of
the superabundant advertisements of the different kinds of soap in
the advertising pages of our monthly magazines. But what a wholesome
sign it is! And what a difference it marks between us and the average
Italian! And what a field for their business would be opened to
Mr. Pears and the rest if only the monks would adopt the view that
"cleanliness is next to godliness," and that, therefore, soap might be
regarded as a sort of means of grace!
[Sidenote: Some Differences between America and Italy.]
Mark Twain once described what he would say, if he were a native of
Italy, and had been on a visit to the United States, and had come back
to the Campagna for the purpose of telling his Italian countrymen
what he had seen in America: "One hardly ever sees a minister of the
gospel going around there in his bare feet, with a basket, begging for
subsistence. In that country the preachers are not like our mendicant
orders of friars--they have two or three suits of clothing, _and they
wash sometimes_."... "I saw common men and common women who could
read; I even saw small children of common country people reading
from books; if I dared think you would believe it, I would say they
could write, also.... I saw real glass windows in the houses of even
the commonest people. Some of the houses are not of stone, nor yet
of bricks; I solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses there will
take fire and burn, sometimes--actually burn entirely down, and not
leave a single vestige behind. I could state that for a truth upon my
death-bed. And, as a proof that the circumstance is not rare, I aver
that they have a thing which they call a fire-engine, which vomits
forth great streams of water, and is kept always in readiness, by night
and by day, to rush to houses that are burning. You would think one
engine would be sufficient, but some great cities have a hundred; they
keep men hired, and pay them by the month to do nothing but put out
fires.[20]... In that singular country if a rich man dies a sinner,
he is damned; he cannot buy salvation with money for masses. There is
really not much use in being rich there. Not much use as far as the
other world is concerned, but much, very much, use as concerns this;
because there, if a man be rich, he is very greatly honored, and can
become a legislator, a governor, a general, a senator, no matter how
ignorant an ass he is--just as in our beloved Italy the nobles hold all
the great places, even though sometimes they are born noble idiots.
There, if a man be rich, they give him costly presents, they ask him
to feasts, they invite him to drink complicated beverages; but if he
be poor and in debt, they require him to do that which they term to
'settle.'... In that country you might fall from a third-story window
three several times and not mash either a soldier or a priest.... Jews
there are treated just like human beings, instead of dogs.... They
never have had to run races naked through the public streets against
jackasses to please the people in carnival time; there they never have
been driven by the soldiers into a church every Sunday for hundreds of
years to hear themselves and their religion especially and particularly
cursed."[21]
[Sidenote: The Playful Inquisition.]
While I have Mark Twain in hand, I will make two more quotations from
him, and then dismiss him for good. Looking from the dome of St.
Peter's upon the building which was once the Inquisition, he says: "How
times are changed, between the older ages and the new! Some seventeen
or eighteen centuries ago, the ignorant men of Rome were wont to put
Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder, and turn the wild
beasts in upon them for a show. It was for a lesson as well. It was
to teach the people to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers
of Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims limb from limb,
and made poor mangled corpses of them in the twinkling of an eye. But
when the Christians came into power, when the holy Mother Church became
mistress of the barbarians, she taught them the error of their ways
by no such means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisition, and
pointed to the blessed Redeemer, who was so gentle and so merciful
toward all men, and they urged the barbarians to love him; and they
did all they could to persuade them to love and honor him--first by
twisting their thumbs out of joint with a screw; then by nipping their
flesh with pincers--red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable
in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a little, and finally by
roasting them in public. They always convinced those barbarians. The
true religion, properly administered, as the good Mother Church used to
administer it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully persuasive,
also. There is a great difference between feeding parties to wild
beasts and stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition. One is
the system of degraded barbarians, the other of enlightened, civilized
people. It is a great pity the playful Inquisition is no more."
[Sidenote: The Relative Rank of the Deities Worshipped in Rome.]
Speaking of a mosaic group at the side of the Scala Santa which
represents the Saviour, St. Peter, Pope Leo, St. Silvester, Constantine
and Charlemagne, he says: "Peter is giving the _pallium_ to the Pope,
and a standard to Charlemagne. The Saviour is giving the keys to St.
Silvester, and a standard to Constantine. No prayer is offered to the
Saviour, who seems to be of little importance anywhere in Rome; but
an inscription below says, '_Blessed Peter, give life to Pope Leo
and victory to King Charles_.' It does not say, '_Intercede for us_,
through the Saviour, with the Father, for this boon,' but 'Blessed
Peter, _give it_ us.'
"In all seriousness--without meaning to be frivolous, without
meaning to be irreverent, and, more than all, without meaning to be
blasphemous--I state, as my simple deduction from the things I have
seen and the things I have heard, that the Holy Personages rank thus in
Rome:
"_First._ 'The Mother of God'--otherwise the Virgin Mary.
"_Second._ The Deity.
"_Third._ Peter.
"_Fourth._ Some twelve or fifteen canonized popes and martyrs.
"_Fifth._ Jesus Christ the Saviour (but always an infant in arms).
"I may be wrong in this--my judgment errs often, just as is the case
with other men's--but it _is_ my judgment, be it good or bad.
"Just here I will mention something that seems curious to me. There are
no 'Christ's Churches' in Rome, and no 'Churches of the Holy Ghost,'
that I can discover. There are some four hundred churches, but about a
fourth of them seem to be named for the Madonna and St. Peter. There
are so many named for Mary that they have to be distinguished by all
sorts of affixes, if I understand the matter rightly. Then we have
churches of St. Louis, St. Augustine, St. Agnes, St. Calixtus, St.
Lorenzo in Lucina, St. Lorenzo in Damaso, St. Cecilia, St. Athanasius,
St. Philip Neri, St. Catherine, St. Dominico, and a multitude of lesser
saints whose names are not familiar in the world--and away down, clear
out of the list of the churches, comes a couple of hospitals; one of
them is named for the Saviour and the other for the Holy Ghost!"
[Sidenote: The Fee of the Visitor more Important than the Soul of the
Worshipper.]
But we have allowed this clean, shrewd, racy American with his biting
satire and his outspoken common sense, to lead us far away from our
subject. Let us come back to the Church of the Cappuccini. For, besides
its horrible cemetery, it contains another object of great interest,
though of a very different character, viz., Guido's great picture of
the Archangel Michael trampling upon the devil. The devil's face is
said to be a portrait of Pope Innocent X., against whom the painter had
a spite. It is not for the purpose of describing the picture that I
refer to it, for I am not competent to do that, but for the purpose of
quoting the animadversions of another American writer upon the custom
of concealing this picture and others of special interest in Romish
churches with closely drawn curtains, requiring the presence of an
attendant to unveil them and the bestowment of a fee by the visitor.
"The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of sacrificing the very purpose
for which a work of sacred art has been created, that of opening
the way for religious sentiment through the quick medium of sight,
by bringing angels, saints and martyrs down visibly upon earth--of
sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught they know, the welfare of
many souls along with it, to the hope of a paltry fee. Every work by
an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a veil, and seldom revealed,
except to Protestants, who scorn it as an object of devotion, and value
it only for its artistic merit."
[Sidenote: Sensuality versus Spirituality in Art.]
The same author (Hawthorne), speaking of the terrible lack of variety
in the subjects of the great Italian masters, says a quarter part,
probably, of any large collection of pictures consists of Virgins and
infant Christs.... Half of the other pictures are Magdalens, Flights
into Egypt, Crucifixions, etc. "The remainder of the gallery comprises
mythological subjects, such as nude Venuses, Ledas, Graces, and, in
short, a general apotheosis of nudity.... These impure pictures are
from the same illustrious and impious hands that adventured to call
before us the august forms of apostles and saints, the Blessed Mother
of the Redeemer, and her Son, at his death, and in his glory, and even
the awfulness of him to whom the martyrs, dead a thousand years ago,
have not dared to raise their eyes. They seem to take up one task or
the other--the disrobed woman whom they call Venus, or the type of
highest and tenderest womanhood in the mother of the Saviour--with
equal readiness, but to achieve the former with far more satisfactory
success. If an artist sometimes produced a picture of the Virgin
possessing warmth enough to excite devotional feelings, it was probably
the object of his earthly love, to whom he thus paid the stupendous
and fearful homage of setting up her portrait to be worshipped, not
figuratively as a mortal, but by religious souls in their earnest
aspirations towards divinity. And who can trust the religious sentiment
of Raphael, or receive any of his Virgins as heaven-descended
likenesses, after seeing, for example, the "Fornarina" of the Barberini
Palace, and feeling how sensual the artist must have been to paint
such a brazen trollop of his own accord, and lovingly? Would the
Blessed Mary reveal herself to his spiritual vision, and favor him
with sittings alternately with that type of glowing earthliness, the
Fornarina?"
[Sidenote: The Kind of Character Produced.]
True, Hawthorne proceeds at once to weaken the force of this criticism
somewhat by referring to the throng of spiritual faces, innocent
cherubs, serene angels, pure-eyed madonnas, and "that divinest
countenance in the Transfiguration"--all of which we owe to Raphael's
marvellous brush. But the criticism above quoted is sound. And that
Hawthorne himself saw how little such "sacred art" had availed to lift
the representatives of this kind of worship out of gross sensualism,
let the following passage witness: "Here was a priesthood, pampered,
sensual, with red and bloated cheeks, and carnal eyes. With apparently
a grosser development of animal life than most men, they were placed
in an unnatural relation with woman, and thereby lost the healthy,
human conscience that pertains to other human beings, who own the sweet
household ties connecting them with wife and daughter. And here was an
indolent nobility, with no high aims or opportunities, but cultivating
a vicious way of life, as if it were an art, and the only one which
they cared to learn. Here was a population, high and low, that had no
genuine belief in virtue; and if they recognized any act as criminal,
they might throw off all care, remorse and memory of it, by kneeling
a little while at the confessional, and rising unburdened, active,
elastic and incited by fresh appetite for the next ensuing sin."
Of course all the priests are not such as above described, as Eugene
Sue has endeavored to show in the character of Gabriel in _The
Wandering Jew_, and Victor Hugo in the character of the good bishop
in _Les Miserables_, and Marie Corelli in the character of the good
Cardinal Bonpre in _The Master Christian_. Hawthorne simply describes
the prevailing type. Let it be observed, too, that he is speaking of
the priests in Italy, not of those in America, among whom we are glad
to believe there is a much larger proportion of good men. Moreover, it
should not be forgotten that the present Premier of Italy has himself
stated publicly, in a passage which I have quoted in Chapter XXIX.,
that there has been some improvement, at least in the outward conduct
of the clergy, since the overthrow of the papal government, and that
the immorality of the priests and cardinals is not so shamelessly
flaunted in Rome as it used to be under the popes.
[Sidenote: The Other Type.]
On the 20th of September, 1870, the Italian army entered Rome,
after a slight resistance. This event, which marked the downfall of
the temporal power of the papacy, the unification of Italy, and
the establishment of religious liberty under the enlightened and
progressive government of Victor Emmanuel, is properly commemorated
in the name of a handsome street, Via Venti Settembre, which extends
from the Porta Pia, where the army entered, to the Quirinal Palace,
where the King resides. Appropriately placed on a street which thus
commemorates the establishment of civil and religious freedom in Italy,
are several of the Protestant churches, which for the last thirty years
have caused a pure river of water of life to flow once more through
Rome as in the days when the great Apostle of the Gentiles preached
there the kingdom of God, and taught the things concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him.
At No. 7 on this high and pleasant street we find a tall, clean,
handsome building, standing well back from the street, with a spacious,
green yard in front, the whole occupying a portion of what were once
the gardens of the Barberini Palace. A neat notice-board on the high
iron picket fence informs us that this attractive building is the
Presbyterian Church, and that the pastor is the Rev. J. Gordon Gray, D.
D.
[Sidenote: An Apostolic Preacher in Rome.]
When you enter the church on Sunday morning, a few minutes before
eleven o'clock, you find it filled with a congregation of exceptionally
intelligent people, mostly English-speaking residents in Rome and
English-speaking visitors from every part of the world, including
many Christians of other denominations besides our own--for it does
not take visitors in Rome long to find out how strong and wholesome
is the spiritual nourishment here furnished, how broad-minded and
large-hearted the minister is, and how surely he declares the whole
counsel of God, without ever a syllable that can offend any of those
who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. If you return in the
afternoon, as you will do if you are wise, and as everybody does, in
fact, after hearing him once, you will find the house full again,
and, while you will see no splendid pageant, no rows of bishops and
archbishops in purple and lace and furs, no robing and disrobing, no
intoned service in Latin, no choral responses from high and gilded
choir loft, no clouds of incense filling the air--you will hear the
old sweet gospel in all its pristine purity--you will see the great
apostle and his friends before you, instinct with life and love and
zeal, as the minister lectures, with astonishing fullness and accuracy
of information and sympathetic understanding, on Roman Sites which
can be identified with St. Paul's Sojourn Here, The Saints of Cæsar's
Household in the light of the Columbaria, The Site and probable
incidents of Paul's Roman Trial, The First Martyrdoms and the probable
Site of Nero's Circus, Paul's Two Years in his Hired House, Paul's
Travels and Labors between his First and Second Roman Imprisonments,
The Closing Years of Paul's Ministry, The Jews in Rome in Paul's
Time--and you will hear things that make for the peace of your soul and
for your upbuilding on your most holy faith as he expounds The Chief
Elements of Paul's Teaching; Christ in Early Christian Art as found
in the Roman Catacombs; The State after Death, Prayers to the Dead,
and Prayers for the Dead, in the light of the testimony of the Roman
Catacombs; The Place and Efficacy of the Sacraments in the light of the
testimony of the Roman Catacombs; and The Ministry in the Early Church
of the Catacombs.
[Sidenote: A Wise and Loving Pastor.]
Surely never was Christian workman better adapted to his work than Dr.
Gray. The sturdy frame, the massive head, the clear eye, the kindly
voice, the genial manner, the transparent sincerity, and the ready
sympathy of the man, invite one's confidence from the first, and the
longer you know him the more you value him for his rare combination of
strength and tenderness, and for his wisdom, piety and learning. We
had the good fortune to hear his sermon on the eighteenth anniversary
of the formation of his pastorate in Rome, in which he reviewed the
history of his church during those eighteen years, and the years
immediately preceding, and the growth of Protestantism in Rome since
the downfall of the papacy--and a deeply interesting discourse it was.
It lifted one's hopes for the future of Italy. Undoubtedly the day is
breaking over the darkness which has so long lain like a pall over this
lovely land.
A good man is known by his prayers. There is a fullness, propriety
and fervor about Dr. Gray's public prayers that are seldom equalled.
The homesick stranger, with the wide ocean between him and his native
land--the professional man wavering in health and doubtful as to the
future--the stricken widow, who has lost her husband by the sudden
stroke of death--as well as those who bear the usual burdens of the
human heart, find themselves strangely comforted and cheered, strangely
relieved of their toils and cares and anxieties and fears, strangely
upborne and strengthened, as this man of God pours from a sympathetic
heart the needs of his people into the ear of him who careth for us.
Among the usual petitions on Sunday morning there is invariably one
for the King of England and the royal family, the President of the
United States, and the King and Queen of Italy. We had two reminders
on the 22nd of February that it was Washington's birthday: one was the
flags hanging out at the American Embassy, and the other was Dr. Gray's
prayer of thanksgiving for the character and services of Washington. He
never forgets anything.
Yet his activities are multifarious. His resourcefulness, adequacy
and strength have long since made him the real dean of the fine force
of Protestant ministers in Rome. His advice is sought by them, and
by all manner of visitors to Rome, on all manner of subjects. He is
deeply interested in the matter of excavating the house of Priscilla
and Aquila, the Apostle Paul's friends, on the Aventine, and hopes
to raise the necessary funds and have that done--a valuable service
to archæological and biblical learning. He ought by all means to
be allowed to find time to publish a volume on The Apostle Paul in
Rome. Dr. Gray is another of the many good gifts of Scotland to the
world, and, like Dr. Alexander Whyte, of Edinburgh, and other eminent
Scotchmen, is an Aberdeen man. They are some of the Aberdonians who
almost tempt us at times to agree with the Aberdeen man of whom our
good Scotch physician in Rome told me the other day, who said, "Tak'
awa' Aberdeen and sax miles around it, and what would you have left?"
FOOTNOTES:
[20] Few things struck our boys so much as the non-occurrence of fires
in Rome, and the absence of all apparatus for extinguishing them, and
on our return to America few things seemed so strange to us at first
as the frame houses in the New Jersey towns along the Pennsylvania
railroad.
[21] This custom of compelling Jews to listen to Christian sermons
was only abolished in 1848, under Pius IX., through influence of
Michelangelo Caëtani, Duke of Sermoneta.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE INEXHAUSTIBLENESS OF ROME.
Rome is easily the most interesting city in the world. The subject is
simply inexhaustible. Ampere said that by diligence one could obtain
a superficial knowledge of it in ten years. Just what terms should
be used to characterize the seventy pages or so that I have written,
from the basis of the desultory reading and observation of only a few
months, I must leave to the decision of the reader. "Presumptuous
sciolism," perhaps. And, yet, though I have filled these seventy
pages with what I regarded as pertinent descriptions, salient facts
and suggestive quotations from the best authorities, all subjected to
as much compression as was consistent with a fair statement of the
particular points which I wished to make, I have restricted myself
almost exclusively to one phase of the subject, viz., Ecclesiastical
Rome, and have had almost nothing to say of Classical Rome and Artistic
Rome.
Even when confining myself to this one line, I have found no
opportunity to give you any description of the Appian Way, over the
paving-stones of which the Apostle Paul entered Rome in 56 A. D. (Acts
xxviii. 14-16); or of the Pyramid of Cestius, still standing beside
the road, just outside the gate which now bears the apostle's name--a
sepulchral monument upon which his eyes must have rested for a moment
as he passed out to his own execution--"Among the works of man, that
pyramid is the only surviving witness of the martyrdom of St. Paul";
or of the Catacombs, those vast labyrinths of subterranean galleries,
the aggregate length of which is estimated at nearly six hundred miles,
so that if placed end to end they would extend the whole length of
Italy--where the bodies of thousands of the early Christians were laid
in full hope of the resurrection; or of the bronze statue of St. Peter
in the great cathedral, the extended foot of which has been largely
worn away by the kisses of Roman Catholic devotees--the figure which,
on the occasion of Pope Leo's Jubilee, our party saw dressed up in a
mitre and pontifical robes; or of Houdon's marvellous statue of St.
Bruno in the Church of St. Maria degli Angeli, of which Clement XIV.,
the Pope who is supposed to have died of poison administered by the
Jesuits, in 1774, used to say, "He would speak, if the rule of his
order did not forbid it"; or of the statue of that other Bruno who now
stands in the Campo de' Fiori, on the spot where he was burnt as a
heretic in 1600 for his advocacy of the Copernican system.
I have been able to say nothing of the remains of Classical Rome, such
as the palaces of the Cæsars, the Arch of Titus--with its bas-reliefs
of the golden candle-stick and other treasures from the Temple at
Jerusalem, which were borne among the spoils of that Emperor's
triumph--the monuments of the Forum, the Column of Trajan, the tomb of
Hadrian, the much lauded equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the
Capitoline Hill, the immensely impressive Pantheon, and the majestic
statue of Pompey, at the foot of which Julius Cæsar was assassinated.
I have not been able even to mention such masterpieces of sculpture
as the Dancing Faun, the Dying Gaul--"butchered to make a Roman
holiday"--the Laocoon, the Apollo Belvedere, the Young Augustus,
and scores of others, or such paintings as Guido's "Aurora,"
Michelangelo's "Last Judgment," and the scarcely less wonderful
creations of Botticelli, Titian and Domenichino.
I have had to pass unnoticed such tempting details as the Tarpeian
Rock, the site of the bridge which Horatius kept in the brave days of
old, the walls of the Paedagogium under the Palatine cliff, where a
school boy had drawn, for the encouragement of his successors, a sketch
of an ass turning a corn-mill, with the superscription in Latin, "Work,
little donkey, as I have worked, and it will profit thee"; the famous
Keyhole View of St. Peter's from the Aventine, and many others, for
which I must refer you to other books.
[Sidenote: The Best Books about Rome.]
Besides the books on Rome, such as Hare's _Walks_, and Hawthorne's
_Marble Faun_, to which I have tried to introduce my readers by
appetizing quotations from time to time in former letters, I must
mention also Dennie's _Pagan Rome_, Story's _Roba di Roma_, Mrs. Ward's
_Eleanor_ (which contains the best descriptions of the wonderful
scenery around Lake Nemi), and the standard works of Professor
Lanciani. These are much better for home reading, and even for reading
on the spot, than the guide books. In a sumptuously bound and profusely
illustrated copy of Lanciani's _New Tales of Old Rome_, which was
presented to me by a friend last Christmas, I find a criticism of the
well-known passage in which Lord Mahon refers to the fact that the
last of the Stuarts, the Old Pretender, his wife, and his two sons,
are buried in St. Peter's, and where, Lord Mahon says, "a stately
monument from the chisel of Canova has since risen to the memory of
James III., Charles III., and Henry IX., kings of England, names which
an Englishman can scarcely read without a smile or a sigh." Lanciani
says, "Lord Mahon could have saved both his smiles and his sighs if
he had simply read with care the epitaph engraved on the monument,
which says: 'To James III., son of James II., King of Great Britain,
to Charles Edward, and Henry, Dean of the Sacred College, Sons of
James III., the last of the Royal House of Stuart.'" This is the only
statement, so far as I have observed, in Professor Lanciani's writings
which is not scrupulously fair. That the criticism is not perfectly
fair is clear from the very inscription which he cites, where the Old
Pretender is twice called James III.; from the inscription on the
tomb of his wife, close at hand, where she is called "Queen of Great
Britain, France and Ireland"; from the fact that the canopy under which
the body of the Old Pretender lay in state at Rome for five days,
crowned, sceptred, and in royal robes, was inscribed, "Jacobus, Magnæ
Britanniæ Rex, Anno MDCCLXVI."; and from the fact, stated by Lanciani
himself in the same volume, that when Charles Edward, the Young
Pretender, died, Cardinal York, his brother, proclaimed himself the
legitimate sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland, under the name of
Henry IX. Lord Mahon was substantially correct.
St. Peter's is a peculiarly appropriate place of sepulture for the
line of tyrannical kings who tried so hard to fasten the yoke of
Romanism upon Great Britain. They went to their own place. England
and Scotland will do well to remember that the same forces which the
Stuarts represented, and which endangered their liberties then, still
constitute the gravest menace to the true freedom of their island
empire.
One other book I must mention before finishing what I have to say
about the literature of this vast subject: the volume entitled _Ave
Roma Immortalis_, by Francis Marion Crawford, son of the sculptor to
whom we are indebted for the superb equestrian statue of Washington
at Richmond, with its circle of illustrious Virginians in bronze. Let
no one be deterred by the Latin title. The book itself is written
in the most delightful English. It is not to be commended without
qualification, for this prolific author who bears the name of the
immortal Huguenot partisan of South Carolina, and ought by every
consideration, so far as we know, to be a sturdy Protestant, has
suffered somewhat in his religious faith by his Italian birth and
rearing. But his book is full of good things culled from wide and
discriminating reading, the feature that is really of most value in a
book of travel.
But I must not forget that, while there is no limit to such a subject
as Rome, there is a limit to the patience of my readers. So we will
now take leave of Rome abruptly, and pass at once to Naples and its
environs, where we spent the concluding days of our sojourn in Italy.
CHAPTER XXXV.
NAPLES, CAPRI, VESUVIUS, AMALFI AND POMPEII.
Naples is the largest, dirtiest and most beautiful city in Italy. From
the balconies of our hotel, which stands high on the thickly-built
hillside, we have a matchless view--the cream-colored city at our feet,
with its red roofs and blue domes, rising from the water's edge and
climbing the embayed mountain like half of a vast amphitheatre; the
volcano of Vesuvius beyond, lifting its white plume of warning smoke by
day, and sometimes glaring red at night; the brown ruins of overwhelmed
but disentombed Pompeii a little to the right; then the cliffs of
Sorrento; and, stretching between us and them, the bay itself, with its
incomparable crescent of contiguous cities running like a fringe of
snow round its blue waters. There--
"The bridegroom Sea is toying with the shore,
His wedded bride; and in the fullness of his marriage joy
He decorates her tawny brow with shells,
Retires a space to see how fair she looks,
Then proud runs up to kiss her."
[Illustration: PANORAMA OF NAPLES.]
[Sidenote: Street Scenes in Naples.]
The contrast between the heavenly scenery of this bay and that
awful volcano, which stands over it like an ever-present threat of
destruction, reminds one of the cherubim which stood at the gate of
Eden to guarantee the restoration of redeemed and glorified humanity
to communion with God, along with the self-revolving sword which
symbolized the certainty and terribleness of divine vengeance upon
sin. But neither by the promises of his grace nor by the threat of
his vengeance do these people seem to be restrained from sin. Many
of them are sunk in vice. The contrast between splendor and squalor,
superfluous wealth and abject poverty, which characterizes all large
cities, is sharper, if possible, here than anywhere else. But it is the
latter, the picturesque misery of Naples, that makes most impression
upon the visitor. Some of the narrow streets, often not more than ten
or twenty feet wide, are indescribably filthy, and they swarm with
bareheaded, untidy women and half-naked children, yelling hucksters and
pertinacious beggars, dirty monks and gowned priests. All this, and
more which cannot here be set down, in one of the loveliest places on
this beautiful earth.
An observant and witty friend of mine says: "The people live outdoors,
and for the best of reason--they would die indoors.... Into most of
the living rooms on their narrowest streets the sun never shines....
At the best, the ordinary buildings feel sepulchral, and an overcoat
is to be worn here in the house, and not on the streets! Lining the
sides of many, if not most of the streets, are shops or booths. They
are, as far as one can see, single rooms, furnished about the door with
vegetables, or meats, or maccaroni, or wine bottles, or charcoal, or
bread, the rest of the room filled with beds and tables and dressers,
with dishes and food, and shrines and highly-colored chromos of the
saints and apostles. The children are washed and dressed in the
doorways, and their heads constantly watched and investigated, much
after the friendly fashion of monkeys. By the way, peddlers are forever
thrusting small boxes of combs into our faces, insisting upon our
buying. We have not purchased any yet--but who can tell? The people
do much of their cooking in small braziers outside the doors, on the
sidewalk, burning charcoal and fanning the fires with hats or aprons.
They have no hesitancy about eating out of the same dish and in the
public eye. Cows and goats are driven along the street and milked at
the doors into glasses or bottles, which seems a fair guarantee for the
milk being fresh. The calves and kids come to town, too, and take in
the ways of the city, along with what they get of their mothers' milk.
Women wash clothes at the public fountains, some bringing wash-boards
or flat stones, some treading the clothes in tubs with their feet. From
windows and balconies, on lines stretched along the streets and on
cane poles that almost touch the opposite houses, the wet things drip
and dry. Squads of soldiers in various uniforms pass and repass at all
times of day; old women knit and rest in the doorways; vegetable and
fish venders proclaim their wares in high, hard voices. At their cries
baskets are let down from upper windows, and the sharpest bargains
in the shrillest accents are driven in midair. If the goods are not
satisfactory, down go the baskets to the sidewalk."
Of course we visited the aquarium, said to be the finest in the world,
and the museum, with its two thousand mural paintings brought from
Pompeii, and its collection of ancient bronzes--also the finest in the
world.
But the things that interested us most were not in Naples, but around
it--such as Puteoli, where, many centuries ago, on a balmy spring day
like this, when the south wind was blowing softly over the sea, the
Apostle Paul landed, with Luke and Aristarchus, on his way to Rome; and
where the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, bearing sea-marks
at various levels and having its columns perforated by lithodomites
and containing imbedded shells, shows how the building, by gradual
subsidence of the land, was first let down into the water, and then by
volcanic upheaval lifted again to the higher level.
[Sidenote: The Blue Grotto at Capri.]
Directly in front of us as we look from our windows, but far out over
the expanse of sunlit water, twenty-two miles away, we can see Capri,
lying like a turquoise gem on the bosom of the bay. Our party returned
from their visit to this enchanting island with quite new conceptions
of the color effects that may be produced by the combination of
sunlight and sea water. When the steamer stops at Capri, a short
distance beyond the town of Capri, the passengers get into small boats
and are rowed up to a lofty cliff, in the base of which, at the water
level, there is a small hole, four feet high and four feet wide, so
small, indeed, that it cannot be entered at all when the tide is up
or the water is rough. Even under favorable conditions, passengers
have to sit on the bottom of the boat and duck their heads. This is
the entrance to the wonderful Blue Grotto. "Once within, you find
yourself in an arched cavern about one hundred and sixty feet long,
one hundred and twenty wide, and about seventy high. How deep it is no
man knows. It goes down to the bottom of the ocean. The waters of this
placid subterranean lake are the brightest, loveliest blue that can be
imagined. They are as transparent as plate glass, and their coloring
would shame the richest sky that ever bent over Italy. No tint could be
more ravishing, no lustre more superb. Throw a stone into the water,
and the myriad of tiny bubbles that are created flash out a brilliant
glare like blue theatrical fires. Dip an oar, and its blade turns to
frosted silver, tinted with blue. Let a man jump in, and instantly he
is cased in an armor more gorgeous than ever kingly crusader wore." Two
boys, in the scantiest possible attire, who were standing on a ledge
when we entered, clothed themselves repeatedly in this celestial armor
for our delectation and their profit, by diving for the pennies flung
into the water by the passengers.
[Sidenote: The Ascent of Vesuvius.]
When you visit Vesuvius, make an early start and give yourself plenty
of time. It took our party four hours and a half, with a good team, to
drive from Naples to the foot of the steep cone at the top. The journey
takes you through some of the disagreeable parts of the city and gives
you a new impression of its extent. When at last you do turn from the
squalid streets and begin the ascent of the mountain, your enjoyment
begins. The fresh breeze, laden with the fragrance of orange blossoms,
tempers the heat, and at every turn of the winding, climbing road you
have the most entrancing views of the city and the bay. The mountain
itself is partly covered with the luxuriant greenery of orchards and
villas, and partly by the gloomy beds of lava thrown out by successive
eruptions--"a black ocean, which was tumbled into a thousand fantastic
shapes--a wild chaos of ruin, desolation and barrenness--a wilderness
of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature mountains
rent asunder--of gnarled and knotted, wrinkled and twisted masses of
blackness that mimicked branching roots, great vines, trunks of trees
all interlaced and mingled together; and all these weird shapes, all
this turbulent panorama, all this stormy, far stretching waste of
blackness, with its thrilling suggestiveness of life, of action, of
boiling, surging, furious motion, was petrified!--all stricken dead and
cold in the instant of its maddest rioting!--fettered, paralyzed and
left to glower at heaven in impotent rage for evermore!"
[Illustration: A WINDY DAY ON MOUNT VESUVIUS.]
I had had the good fortune on a former visit to see the process of its
formation. At that time the lava was actually flowing from a breach
in the side of the mountain, a little below the cone which surrounds
the great crater, and a party of us walked over a half mile or so among
the wild rocks and congealed lava to get a sight of it. The rocks over
which we walked were too hot to touch with the naked hand, and scorched
the bottoms of our shoes. The fumes of sulphur escaping through the
crevices made the air almost suffocating. These conditions became more
aggravated the nearer we came to the object of our search, so that one
or two of the party became quite unnerved, gave up the expedition, and
returned. We felt like we were walking in a furnace. Then the guide
made a turn round some great boulders, and there it was--a slowly
moving stream of liquid fire, issuing from under a great rock, and
flowing down the side of the mountain. Every one threw his hands before
his face to protect it from the blistering heat. The guide, standing
behind a big rock, reached over with a long pole into this fearful red
river and lifted out a glob of the molten lava on the end of it, as you
would dip up a bit of hot molasses candy on the end of a fork, then,
withdrawing a little way, he disengaged the lava from the end of the
pole with a smaller stick, and, asking me for a penny, he laid the coin
on the lump of lava and pressed it well down into the mass which rose
round the edges of the coin, holding it firmly in its place--and thus
made for me a paper weight, which is my best souvenir of Vesuvius.
The ascent of the cone to the crater is next thing to trying to climb a
church steeple. Thanks to the enterprise of Thomas Cook & Sons, there
is an inclined railway which takes you from the foot of the cone up the
steep breast of the mountain nearly to the top--a dizzy ride, one that
makes you shut your eyes and grip the arms of your seat. Then comes
the worst of it--the final climb through warm cinders ankle deep, which
furnish very bad footing and come over your shoe tops at every step.
There are rude sedan chairs on poles, and chair-bearers who will gladly
carry you up for an additional fee--and there are often ludicrous
scenes when timid ladies essay this mode of ascent. The distance
is very short, so the ladies of our party determined to climb it
themselves, but, when about half way up, they were glad enough to take
hold of the looped ends of ropes while men at the other end pulled, and
so at last they stood on the very top of the great volcano. Not for
long, however, for, after they had walked round the edge of the great
crater and gotten a view of the new crater, formed within, and looking
like the heaped hole of a gigantic "doodle bug," with its slopes
made of cinders instead of sand, and sprinkled with orange-colored
sulphur, the wind veered suddenly and swept the stifling sulphur fumes
right into their faces. They ran, coughing, back over the cinders and
down again to the upper station of the railway, fully convinced that
Vesuvius, though not perhaps so impressive, was decidedly more pleasant
at a distance than at such close range.
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD FROM CASTELLAMARE TO AMALFI.]
[Sidenote: The Loveliness of Amalfi.]
Perhaps the most beautiful drive in the world is the drive from
Castellamare to Amalfi. Castellamare is about an hour and a half by
rail from Naples, and not far from Pompeii. It was here, indeed, that
the elder Pliny lost his life in the eruption of 79 A. D., which
destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Taking a wagonette there about the
middle of the day, we followed this magnificent road nearly all the
afternoon, as it wound in and out along the mountainside, with the
towering cliffs on one hand and the intensely blue bay on the other,
seen ever and anon through openings between the silvery olive trees
which clothed all the slopes, the view backwards being terminated by
the majestic uplift of Vesuvius, wearing a soft plum-colored tinge that
we had never seen it have before. The soil here is wonderfully fertile,
and every hillside is terraced and cultivated with the utmost care.
The orange and lemon groves, with the trees trained over trellises
and protected from too intense heat by straw, laid on frames above,
were still blooming, though the trees were heavily laden with green
and golden fruit. Every now and then little boys and girls from the
villages which are perched on the rocks or cling to the hillsides would
run after us, throwing nosegays into the carriage and expecting "soldi"
in return. After a while the scenery became more rugged, not unlike
Switzerland, with little waterfalls trickling down the cliffs, and
Scotch broom and other wild plants taking the place of the vineyards
and orchards on the towering rocks. And now we begin to drive through
tunnels cut through the cliffs and to pass over solid stone bridges,
spanning glorious ravines at a dizzy height, with the transparent sea
making in far below us, and the mountains of gray rock towering skyward
above us. And at last, in the soft evening light, we reached the
culmination of all this wonderful beauty at Amalfi. When we stopped at
the foot of the cliff on which the Cappuccini Hotel stands, overlooking
the town and the sea, we found the uniformed portiere and other
attendants in a little lodge or office at the bottom of a long, zigzag
flight of stone steps, which leads up to the high perched hotel. But
there were sedan chairs and chair-bearers to spare the ladies and the
youngest of the children the long, lung-taxing climb, and we were soon
comfortably installed in the most romantically situated hotel I have
ever seen. It was a Cappucin monastery once, and the cloisters are
still there, but the cells are now used as bed-rooms. From the windows
and balconies, and from the long and lovely arcade, covered with grape
vines and lined with the most beautiful marguerites, lilies, roses
and geraniums, the guests look down upon the picturesque little city,
the boats drawn up on the beach, the burnished Mediterranean, and the
opaline islands in the offing. And how we Protestants did sleep in the
comfortably furnished cells of those ousted monks! Amalfi is the place
I wish to come to if I am ever again in Italy.
[Sidenote: The Ruins of Pompeii.]
When we tore ourselves away from Amalfi, we drove on around by Salerno,
another feast of beauty, and took the train at La Cava for Pompeii.
For days we had been reading, or re-reading, Bulwer's _Last Days of
Pompeii_ with breathless interest, or plodding through the dryer, but
hardly more accurate, details of the guide book--we had been to the
museum at Naples, where the mural paintings and other disentombed
relics of the city are shown, and we had stood on the crater of the
volcano that wrought its destruction--so that we came to the exhumed
ruins with as thorough preparation as we had found it possible to
make. But what description can prepare one for the impression of that
appalling catastrophe which one receives when he stands in the midst of
the ruins themselves, and _sees_ how sudden and terrible the overthrow
was?
[Illustration: COLONNADE OF THE HOTEL CAPPUCCINI, AMALFI.]
Pompeii had been shattered by an earthquake sixteen years before the
final catastrophe, but the warning had been disregarded. The place was
rebuilt with lavish outlay, and embellished with all the resources of
contemporary art, so that it was a new and splendid city which was
buried by the eruption of 79 A. D. On the 23rd of August in that year,
about two o'clock in the afternoon, terrible detonations were heard in
the mountain, and shortly afterwards an enormous column of watery
vapor issued from the top of it, remained suspended for a time in the
air, then condensed and fell in boiling rain on the mountain sides,
creating an irresistible torrent of mud, which quickly engulfed the
city of Herculaneum. Following this, later in the evening, apparently
about dark, came a roaring eruption of red hot pumice stones and
volcanic dust, succeeded quickly by other showers of the same material,
which covered Pompeii to the depth of fifteen or twenty feet. Thus was
the brilliant city, in all the exuberance of its gay life, plunged
into death in a single night. And all the inhabitants of that part of
Italy believed that they were about to share the same dreadful fate.
The air was so thick that for many miles from the volcano it was almost
stifling. It is said to have extended as far as Africa. It certainly
reached as far as Rome, and covered that city with a pall of darkness
so deep that the people took it for a sign of impending doom. They said
to each other, "The end of the world is come! the sun is going to fall
to the earth, or the earth mount up and be set on fire by the heavens."
The most graphic account of the horrors of that awful night at Pompeii
is to be found in the two letters of the younger Pliny to Tacitus.
Speaking of his efforts to remove his mother out of reach of harm,
while she was begging him to leave her to perish and save himself, he
says: "By this time the murky darkness had so increased that one might
have believed himself abroad in a black and moonless night, or in a
chamber where all the lights had been extinguished. On every hand were
heard the complaints of women, the wailing of children, and the cries
of men. One called his father, another his son, another his wife, and
only by their voices could they know each other. Many in their despair
begged that death would come and end their distress. Some implored the
gods to succor them, and some believed that this night was the last,
the eternal night which should engulf the universe! Even so it seemed
to me--and I consoled myself for the coming death with the reflection,
_Behold the world is passing away!_"
No one saw the sun rise on the morrow. The clouds of volcanic matter,
still pouring their pitiless rain upon the ruins, so darkened the sky
that people could not tell when the day came.
And there, under the superincumbent mass of stones and dust, the
city slept undisturbed till a few years ago, with everything as it
was in the days of Titus. "It was like a clock that stopped when the
householder died. Meats were on the table and bread was in the oven;
sentries were in their boxes and dogs on guard at house doors." Most of
the inhabitants escaped, but it is estimated, from the skeletons found
in the ruins, that not less than two thousand lost their lives. In the
museum by the entrance at the Marine Gate we are shown the blackened
loaves of bread, recovered from the bakeries, the beans and eggs, the
chickens and dogs, or their shapes from the moulds they left--and, most
distressing of all, human figures. "Plaster of Paris had been poured
into the hollows where bones were found, and in all the contortion of
suffocation or convulsion appeared the forms of men and women. How
little the ones whose brawny or whose delicate outlines we gazed upon
dreamt that they would be their own monuments to-day, and be seen by
the eyes of other races and ages, eyes curious, but not unsympathetic!
It was good to be in the warm sunshine again. A cloud of smoke floated
like a gray scarf--how gracefully and innocently!--from Vesuvius."
[Illustration: POMPEII.]
We walked up the narrow streets, paved with blocks of hard lava,
deeply rutted by chariot wheels, passing the Basilica, the Forum, the
Triumphal Arch, the temples, the theatres, the baths, the bakeries,
and the houses of Pansa, Diomedes, and the Tragic Poet--all laid bare
and clean to the view. We had the good fortune to see the process of
excavation itself--for while most of the city has been disentombed,
some of it still remains under the layers of small grayish white pumice
stones and brown dust. Three or four men were shovelling these away as
we passed. From most of the houses the furniture and wall paintings
have been taken away to the museums. But in the last large residence
exhumed, one which has only recently been brought to light, nearly
everything has been left as it was, except for a new roof of mica or
some such substance, which has been built over it for its protection.
Nearly all the frescoes are as fresh as on the day when they were
painted, and the fountain in the peristyle and its connecting pipes are
so perfectly preserved that, when the water was turned into them by the
excavators, the fountains began to play as they did on that fateful day
eighteen hundred years ago. "For as in the days that were before the
flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,
until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the
flood came, and took them all away," so it was with the careless
dwellers in this opulent city--and so it is with the careless dwellers
in many an opulent city to-day.
* * * * *
From Naples we turned our faces homeward, taking passage on the
_König Albert_, and coming by way of Gibraltar and the Azores. We
had a delightful ship's company, including Dr. Andrew D. White, the
accomplished ex-president of Cornell University and our late Ambassador
to Berlin, whom we found full of illuminating talk about Fra Paolo
Sarpi and other great men and great subjects. After a quiet and restful
voyage, affording a pleasant contrast with our experience of the
preceding summer when outward bound, we arrived at New York on the 10th
of June, 1903, deeply thankful for all the pleasure and benefit the
year had brought us, and fully convinced that, after all, ours is the
best country in the world.
INDEX.
Aberfoyle, 110.
Addison, Joseph, funeral of, 159.
Alfred the Great, 28, 147, 148.
Amalfi, 352-354.
America and England, proposed alliance of, 47.
America's future, English view of, 50, 51.
American Revolution, British view of, 42-45.
Amsterdam, islands and canals, 226.
built on piles, 227.
business activities, 227.
Jewish quarter, 228.
Aquinas, Thomas, retort to the pope, 303.
Ayr, 136.
Balfour, Arthur J., Prime Minister, 59.
Bibles, in Edinburgh churches, 84, 88.
Black, Rev. Hugh, 84.
Blackie, Prof. Stuart, on Jenny Geddes, 91.
on Oban, 119.
Blowing Stone of King Alfred,
148, 149.
Blue Grotto at Capri, 349.
Bologna, colonnades, 248.
leaning towers, 249.
University, 249.
Galvani's frog, 249.
House of the Virgin, 264.
Booth, General, and Salvation Army, 80.
Buddha canonized by Rome, 295.
British Government a republic, 55, 56.
Burns, Robert, birthplace, 136.
Burns, Rev. Thos., 84.
Caledonian Canal, 123.
Cambridge, 62-67.
Canterbury Cathedral, 187, 188.
Carnegie, Andrew, on America's future, 50, 51.
on intemperance, 104, 105.
Cathedrals in England, original significance, 177.
æsthetic influence, 178.
Romanizing tendency, 179-185.
Cenci, Beatrice, 300.
Charles I., "the martyr," 139.
Charles II., wax effigy of, in Westminster Abbey, 170.
defied by Bishop Ken, 33.
Chester, 137.
Church-going in Edinburgh, 88.
Claverhouse, victory and death at Killiecrankie, 133.
Coblentz, 238.
Coligni, Admiral, 201-203.
Cologne, cathedral, 238.
accident to baggage, 257.
Commons, House of, 57-61.
Confession of Faith, 153.
Confessional, the, in Rome, 309, 310.
Crieff, 135.
Crockett, S. R., author, 109.
Cromwell, Oliver, portrait at Sidney Sussex College, 62.
slandered by royalists, 174.
body disinterred and hanged, 175, 176.
statue at Westminster, 176.
Culloden Moor, battle of, 126.
Davis, Jefferson, name erased by Gen. Meigs, 173, 174.
Delft, 217.
Dickens, Charles, on the influence of Romanism, 312, 313.
Disruption of 1843 in Scotland, 93.
Dods, Marcus, D. D., 82, 83.
Drumtochty, 135.
Edinburgh and environs, 100.
slums, 101.
English Channel, 199.
English Education Bill, a sectarian measure, 51-54.
English lakes, 135.
English pronunciations, 140, 141.
English rural scenery, 23.
Episcopalians in Virginia, 192, 193.
Erasmus, statue of, 218.
Farrar, Dean, sermon in Westminster Abbey, 77.
Fingal's Cave, 121, 122.
Florence, art treasures, 250.
Savonarola, 251, 252.
Foxe, _Book of Martyrs_, 304.
Geddes, Jenny and her stool, 91, 92.
German steamships, 12.
Gibson, Mrs. Margaret D., LL. D., 65, 66.
Gladstone, on the papacy, 313.
Glasgow, 111.
cathedral, 115, 116.
Gray, Rev. Dr. J. Gordon, in Rome, 337-340.
Haarlem, flowers, tulip mania, 225.
Hague, The, 218.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, on Borghese Gardens, 320, 321.
on sensual and spiritual art, 334, 335.
on the priests of Rome, 335, 336.
Heidelberg, 241.
Henry IV., death of, 157.
Henry V., tomb of, 271.
Henry VII.'s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, 161.
Henry VIII. detaches Church of England from the papacy, 181.
Henson, Canon, on Anglican narrowness, 190-192.
Holland, wrested from the sea, 212, 213.
dykes, canals, windmills, polders, 213-215.
scenery, 217.
art, 219.
Presbyterian faith and un-presbyterian church buildings, 220, 221.
queer customs, 228, 229.
cleanliness, 230, 231.
mother of America, 231-237.
Huguenots, worshipping in Canterbury Cathedral, 187, 188, 207.
origin of name, 201.
massacre of St. Bartholomew, 202.
other persecutions, 204, 205.
the world's debt to them, 205, 206.
revival in France, 208-210.
Intemperance in Scotland, 103-105.
Inverness, 124.
Iona, 120.
Iron Crown of Lombardy, 265-269.
Jerusalem Chamber Westminster Abbey, 154-160.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, opinion of London, 40.
prejudice against Scotland, 71.
visits Flora Macdonald, 130.
house and monument at Lichfield, 137.
buried in Westminster Abbey, 165.
Kelvin, Lord, 116, 117.
Ken, Thomas, 31-33.
Knox, John, greatest of Scotchmen, 80.
comments on the ominous advent of Mary Queen of Scots, 85.
Kruger, Oom Paul, at Utrecht, 228.
Kuyper, Rev. Dr. A., Prime Minister of Holland, 220.
Lewis, Mrs. Agnes S., LL. D., 65, 66.
Leyden, siege, 222.
University, 223, 224.
Pilgrim Fathers, 224.
horse flesh as food, 224, 225.
interest in an American baby, 255.
Lichfield, 137.
Liguori's Moral Philosophy approved by Leo XIII., 309, 310.
Loch Katrine, 110.
Loch Leven, 135.
Loch Lomond, 111.
Loch Tay, 111.
London, soot, 34, 35.
brick houses, 36.
compared with Glasgow and Paris, 37-39, 200.
immensity, 38.
charm, 39, 40.
Lucerne, Lake, 243.
Lion of, 242.
Luther, monument at Worms, 241.
disenthrallment at Rome, 280.
Macaulay, Lord, on Romanism, 311, 312.
Macdonald, Flora, statue at Inverness, 125.
saves Prince Charlie, 126-128.
arrested, 128.
confined in Tower of London, 129.
marries, 130.
entertains Dr. Johnson and Boswell, 130.
moves to North Carolina, 130.
her husband defeated at Moore's Creek, 131.
returns to Scotland, 132.
Mal de mer, 11, 199.
Martyrs of Scotland, 100, 107-9.
Matheson, Geo., D. D., 82, 83.
Milan, cathedral, Leonardo's great picture, 244.
Milton, John, monument in Westminster Abbey, 173.
Miracles, alleged, of Christ's portrait, 280, 291.
Christ's footprints, 286.
Ghislieri, 298, 299.
Santissimo Bambino, 276-278.
St. Anne's bones, 264.
Sts. Cosmo and Damian, 299.
St. Dominic, 296, 297.
St. Giovanni de Matha, 299.
St. Gregory, 299.
St. Januarius' blood, 262.
St. Martin I., 299.
St. Paul's head, 284, 285.
St. Peter's head, 284.
St. Peter's knees, 283.
St. Veronica's napkin, 291.
the Virgin's house, 264.
the Virgin's image, 300.
Wafer, 279.
Monza, Iron Crown of Lombardy, 265-269.
Moravian Mission Agency, London, 79.
More, Sir Thos., imprisonment and death, 158.
McNeill, Rev. John, 112.
Naples, scenery and scenes, 346-348.
blood of St. Januarius, 262.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 159.
Oban, 119.
Ocean, a modern highway, 13.
Overtoun, garden party, 112.
Oxford, compared with Cambridge, 63-65.
Palissy the Potter, 202, 203.
Papal mania for building, 324.
Paris, beauty of, 37, 38, 199, 201.
customs in, 200.
Parker, Joseph, D. D., 78.
Parliament Houses, London, 56, 57.
Pasquinades, 301, 302, 307, 308.
_Penelope's Progress_, quoted, 88.
Perth, 133, 134.
Pisa, four monuments, 252.
Pompeii, 354-357.
Popes, general character of, 303.
retort of Thos. Aquinas, 303.
Pasquinades, 301, 302, 307, 308.
Adrian VI., excessive drinking of, 305.
Alexander VI., crimes of, 300, 306.
Clement VIII. and Beatrice Cenci, 300.
Gregory XIII. and assassination of Prince of Orange, 306.
Innocent VIII., illegitimate children of, 305.
Innocent X. and Olympia, 301, 302.
Joan, woman pope, legend of, 304, 305.
John XII., crimes of, 305.
Leo XIII., appearance, 317.
approval of Liguori's Moral Philosophy, 309.
audience, 315-318.
blessing machine, 302, 303.
last jubilee, 318.
Paul II., vanity of, 304.
Paul III., nepotism of, 305.
Paul V. and assassination of Paolo Sarpi, 306.
Pius V. and assassination of Queen Elizabeth, 306.
Pius X., a good man, 314.
Sixtus IV., enemy of Medici, 305.
Urban VIII., self-esteem of, 304.
Prayers, written, in Presbyterian churches, 186, 187.
Presbyterian Church, largest Protestant church in the world, 114.
Presbyterian Queen of Holland, 220.
Presbyterian services, 183, 184, 196-198, 220, 221.
Prestonpans, battle of, 87.
Prince Charlie, unique prayer for, 87.
victory at Prestonpans, 87.
defeat at Culloden, 126.
flight to Hebrides, 126.
saved by Flora Macdonald, 127, 128.
ingratitude, 128.
burial in St. Peter's Cathedral, 128.
Protestantism contrasted with Romanism by Macaulay, Dickens and
Gladstone, 311-313.
Queen Elizabeth, wax effigy in Westminster Abbey, 170.
Queen Wilhelmina, 220.
Quhele, Shoe Heel, Maxton, 134.
Relics--
Abraham's stone, 283.
Aaron's rod, 279, 281.
Bambino, Santissimo, 276-278.
Christ's blood, 281.
communion table, 278.
cross, 280, 291.
footprints, 286.
loaves and fishes, 279.
pillar, 282, 289.
portrait, 280, 291.
sandals, 280.
seamless coat, 278.
towel, 279.
devil's, the, missile against St. Dominic, 297.
John the Baptist's tooth, 265.
Maccabees, 286.
Santa Culla, 273-275.
Santissimo Bambino, 276-278.
Scala Santa, 279, 280.
St. Andrew's head, 291.
cross, 286.
St. Anne's bones, Quebec, 264.
St. Dominic's orange tree, 298.
St. Edmund's bones, 261.
St. Januarius' blood, 262.
St Lawrence's bones, 295, 296.
fat, 281.
St. Longinus' spear, 291.
St. Mark's bones, 260.
St. Paul's body, 290.
head, miraculous springs, 284, 285.
St. Peter's body, 290.
chains, 286-288.
chair, 290.
cross, 286.
head, 278.
knees, 283.
spring, 284.
St. Philomena's bones, 293, 294.
St. Stephens's bones, 295, 296.
St. Thomas' finger, 281.
St. Veronica's napkin, 291.
Virgin's hair, 281.
house, 263.
milk, 281.
stone seat, 283.
veil, 265, 281.
Rembrandt's "School of Anatomy," 217.
Renwick, James, martyr, 107.
Rhine, vintage, 239.
Robertson, Rev. Alex., quoted, 246, 261, 276, 280, 302, 303, 310.
Roman Catholicism in Italy, Dr. Mariano on, 308.
Macaulay, Dickens and Gladstone on, 311-313.
(See also Robertson.)
Rome--
Appian Way, 341.
Arrival at night, 253.
Art, sensual and spiritual, 334, 335.
Baths of Caracalla, 323.
Books on Rome, 343-345.
Borghese Gardens, 320, 321.
Building boom, 325, 326.
Cappucin Cemetery, 328, 329.
Catacombs, 341, 342.
Colosseum, 322, 323.
Deities worshipped, 332, 333.
Domine Quo Vadis, 286.
Fees before souls, 334.
Gray, Rev. Dr. J. Gordon, 337, 340.
Guido's "Michael," 333.
Inquisition, 331, 332.
Janiculum, view from, 321, 322.
Jesuit Church and the devil, 307.
Mamertine Prisons, 284.
Michael Angelo's "Moses," 287.
Morals of clergy, 269, 270, 310, 335, 336.
Pasquino, 307.
Piazza Scossa Cavalli, 282.
Pincian Hill, 320.
Pompey, statue, 342.
Presbyterian Church, 337-'40.
Priscilla and Aquila, house of, 340.
Quirinal, 322, 337.
Raphael, 335.
Royalties, visiting, 319, 320.
Rosary presented to St. Dominic by the Virgin, 297.
St. Peter's Cathedral, 289-291.
Tre Fontane, 284, 285.
Unwashed monks, 329.
Vatican, 315, 322.
Villa Doria Pamfili, 302.
Villa Medici, view from, 321.
(See also Miracles, Popes, Relics, and Roman Catholicism.)
Rosaries, introduced by Dominicans, 298.
Rugby, 143.
Sabbath observance in Scotland, 102.
Salisbury Cathedral, 21, 22.
Sanquhar Declaration, 109.
Sarpi, Fra Paolo, 247, 248.
Savonarola, 251, 252.
Sayce, Prof. A. H., 84.
Scotland, character of people, 80, 81, 102.
cities solid and stately, 37.
humor, 113.
oatmeal, 70, 71.
public worship, 71-90, 184-'5.
scenery, 68, 69.
sermon taster, 94.
weather, 84, 85.
Scott, Sir Walter, 69, 70, 100.
on superiority of Presbyterian worship, 183, 184.
Scottish and American repartee, 96-98.
Shorter Catechism, 151-156.
Simon Magus, discomfited by St. Peter, 283.
Simony at Rome, 302.
Southampton, 16.
Staffa, 121, 122.
Stirling, 107, 108.
Stonehenge, 24, 25.
Strasburg, clock, 241, 243.
Stratford-on-Avon, 138.
American window, 139.
sing-song of children, 140.
Stuart kings, buried in St. Peter's, 343, 344.
St. Peter's Cathedral, 289.
Switzerland, scenery in summer and winter, 241, 242.
Twain, Mark, on relics, 259, 260, 262, 263.
on differences between America and Italy, 329, 330.
on the Inquisition, 331, 332.
on the relative rank of the deities of Rome, 332, 333.
Venice, palaces, 245.
fallen Campanile, 245, 246.
Church of Jesuits, 246.
gondolas, 246, 256, 257.
Fra Paolo Sarpi, 247, 248.
bones of St. Mark, 260.
Vesuvius, ascent of, 350-352.
Victor Emmanuel, liberator of Italy, 309.
Wallace, Sir William, 107.
Walton, Izaak, 29, 30.
Watson, Rev. John, D. D.--
Financial Agent of Westminster College, 65.
Drumtochty Stories, 135.
_Young Barbarians_, 142.
Watts, Isaac, 17-20.
Westminster Abbey--
architectural interest, 160-'1.
burials, 163, 164.
coronations, 161, 162.
decorated for coronation, 152, 153.
Edward the Confessor's tomb, 171.
Henry VII.'s Chapel, 161.
Jerusalem Chamber, 154-161.
monuments, 164-167.
monuments denied to notable persons, 172, 173.
mutilated monuments, 171.
Poets' Corner, 164.
royal chapels, 168, 169.
wax effigies, 169, 170.
Westminster Assembly of Divines, 153-155.
Westminster College, Cambridge, 64.
White, Dr. Andrew D., on canonization of Buddha, 295.
on Fra Paolo Sarpi, 357.
White Horse Hill, 145-149.
Wiesbaden, 239, 240.
Wilson, Margaret, martyr, 107-109.
Winchester, Cathedral, 28-30.
college, 30, 31.
Worms, Luther monument, 241.
Zanardelli, Prime Minister, on the morality of the priests, 269, 270.
opposition to the papacy, 309.
Zola, Emile, on Roman megalo-mania, 322-326.
on the multitude of priests in Rome, 326, 327.
+----------------------------------------------------------------- +
| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. |
| |
| Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant |
| form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. |
| |
| Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. |
| |
| Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs |
| and some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that |
| references them. The Illustrations paginations were changed |
|accordingly. |
| |
| Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, |
| _like this_. |
| |
| Ligatures are surrounded by brackets, like this: Ph[oe]nician. |
| |
| Superscripts are enclosed in brackets like this N{r}. |
| |
| Footnotes were moved to the end of chapters and numbered in one |
| continuous sequence. |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Year in Europe, by Walter W. Moore
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YEAR IN EUROPE ***
***** This file should be named 47644-8.txt or 47644-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/6/4/47644/
Produced by Josep Cols Canals, Christian Boissonnas and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809
North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email
contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
