The New Church of St. Anthony.--Sprightly Music.--Enthusiastic
Sermon.--The good Prior of Avis.--Visit to the Carthusian Convent
of Cachiez.--Spectres of the Order.--Striking effigy of the
Saviour.--A young and melancholy Carthusian.--The Cemetery.
June 13th, 1787.
I slept better than I expected: the Saint was propitious, and during the
night cooled the ardour of his votaries and the flames of their bonfires
by a vernal shower, which pattered agreeably this morning amongst the
vineleaves of my garden. The clouds dispersed about eight o’clock, and
at nine, just as I ascended the steps of the new church built over the
identical house where St. Anthony was born, the sun shone out in all its
splendour.
I cannot say this edifice recalled to my mind the magnificent sanctuary
of Padua, which five years ago on this very day impressed my imagination
so forcibly. Here are no constellations of golden lamps depending by
glittering chains from a mysterious vaulted ceiling, no arcades of
alabaster, no sculptured marbles. The church is supported by two rows of
pillars neatly carved in stone, but wretchedly proportioned. Over the
high altar, where stands the revered image in the midst of a bright
illumination, was stretched a canopy of flowered velvet. This drapery,
richly fringed and tasseled, marks out the spot formerly occupied by the
chamber of the saint, and receives an amber-light from a row of tall
casement windows, the woodwork gleaming with burnished gold.
A great many broad English faces burst forth from amongst the crowd of
profane vulgar at the portal of the church, and all their eyes were
directed to their enthusiastic countryman, but he was not to be stared
out of a decent countenance.
The ceremony was extremely pompous. A prelate of the first rank, with a
considerable detachment of priests from the royal chapel, officiated to
the sounds of lively jigs and ranting minuets, better calculated to set
a parcel of water-drinkers a dancing in a pump-room, than to direct the
movements of a pontiff and his assistants.
After much indifferent music, vocal and instrumental, performed full
gallop in the most rapid allegro, Frè Joaô Jacinto, a famous preacher,
mounted the pulpit, lifted up hands and eyes, and poured forth a torrent
of sounding phrases in honour of St. Anthony. What would I not give for
such a voice?--it would almost have reached from Dan unto Beersheba!
The Father has undoubtedly great powers of elocution, and none of that
canting, nasal whine so common in the delivery of monkish sermons. He
treated kings, tetrarchs, and conquerors, the heroes and sages of
antiquity, with ineffable contempt; reduced their palaces and
fortifications to dust, their armies to pismires, their imperial
vestments to cobwebs, and impressed all his audience, except the
heretical squinters at the door, with the most thorough conviction of
St. Anthony’s superiority over these objects of an erring and impious
admiration.
“Happy,” exclaimed the preacher, “were those gothic ages, falsely called
ages of barbarism and ignorance, when the hearts of men, uncorrupted by
the delusive beverage of philosophy, were open to the words of truth
falling like honey from the mouths of saints and confessors, such words
as distilled from the lips of Anthony, yet a suckling hanging at the
breast in this very spot. It was here the spirit of the Most High
descended upon him, here that he conceived the sublime intention of
penetrating into the most turbulent parts of Europe, setting the
inclemency of seasons and the malice of men at defiance, and sprinkling
amongst lawless nations the seeds of grace and repentance. There, my
brethren, is the door out of which he issued. Do you not see him in the
habit of a Menino de Coro, smiling with all the graces of innocence, and
dispensing with his infant hands to a group of squalid children the
portion of nourishment he has just received from his mother?
“But Anthony, from the first dawn of his existence, lived for others,
and not for himself: he forewent even the luxury of meditation, and
instead of retiring into a peaceful cell, rushed into the world,
helpless and unprotected, lifting high the banner of the Cross amidst
perils and uproar, appeasing wars, settling differences both public and
domestic, exhorting at the risk of his life ruffians and plunderers to
make restitution, and armed misers, guarding their coffers with bloody
swords, to open their hearts and their hands to the distresses of the
widow and the fatherless.
“Anthony ever sighed after the crown of martyrdom, and had long
entertained an ardent desire of passing over into Morocco, and exposing
himself to the fury of its bigoted and cruel sovereign; but the commands
of his superior retain him on the point of embarkation; he makes a
sacrifice of even this most laudable and glorious ambition; he traverses
Spain, repairs to Assisi, embraces the rigid order of the great St.
Francis, and continues to his last hour administering consolation to the
dejected, fortifying their hopes of heaven, and confirming the faith of
such as were wavering or deluded by a succession of prodigies. The dead
are raised, the sick are healed, the sea is calmed by a glance of St
Anthony; even the lowest ranks of the creation are attracted by
eloquence more than human, and give marks of sensibility. Fish swim in
shoals to hear the word of the Lord; and to convince the obdurate and
those accursed whose hearts the false reasoning of the world had
hardened, mules and animals the most perversely obstinate humble
themselves to the earth when Anthony holds forth the Sacrament, and
acknowledge the presence of the Divinity.”
The sermon ended, fiddling began anew with redoubled vigour, and I,
disgusted with such unseasonable levity, retired home in dudgeon. This
little cloud of peevishness was soon dissipated by the cheering presence
of the good Prior of Avis, than whom there exists not, perhaps, in this
world a more benign, evangelical character; one who gives glory to God
with less ostentation, or bears a more unaffected goodwill towards men.
This excellent prelate had been passing his morning, not in attending
pompous ceremonies, but in consoling the sick and relieving the
indigent; climbing up to their miserable chambers to afford assistance
in the name of the saint whose festival was celebrating, and whose fame,
for every charitable beneficent act, had been handed down by the
inhabitants of Lisbon from father to child, through a long series of
generations.
Our discourse was not of a nature to incline me to relish pomps and
vanities. I waved seeing the procession which was expected to pass
through the principal streets of the city, and, accompanied by my
reverend friend, enjoyed the serenity of the evening on the shore of
Belem. We stopped as we passed by the Marialva palace, and took up Don
Pedro and his nursing father, the old Abade, who proposed a visit to the
Carthusian convent of Cachiez.
In about half an hour we were set down before the church, which fronts
the royal gardens, and were ushered into a solemn, silent quadrangle.
Several spectres of the order were gliding about the cloisters, which
branch off from this court. In the middle is a marble fountain, shaded
by pyramids of clipped box; around are seven or eight small chapels; one
of which contains a coloured image of the Saviour in the last dreadful
agonies of his passion, covered with livid bruises and corrupted gore.
Whilst we were examining this too faithful effigy, some of the monks, by
leave of their superior, gathered around us; one of them, a tall
interesting figure, attracted my attention by the deep melancholy which
sat upon his features. Upon inquiry, I learned he was only
two-and-twenty years of age, of illustrious parentage, and lively
talents; but the immediate cause of his having sought these mansions of
stillness and mortification, the Grand Prior seemed loth to communicate.
I could not help observing, as this young victim stood before me, and I
contemplated the evening light thrown on the arcades of the quadrangle,
how many setting suns he was likely to behold wasting their gleams upon
these walls, and what a wearisome succession of years he had in all
probability devoted himself to consume within their precincts. The eyes
of the good prior filled with tears, Verdeil shuddered, and the Abade,
forgetting the superstitious part he generally acts in religious places,
exclaimed loudly against the toleration of human sacrifices, and the
folly of permitting those to renounce the world, whose youth
incapacitates them from making a due estimate of its sorrows or
advantages. As for Don Pedro, his serious disposition received
additional gloom from the objects with which we were environed.
The chill gust that blew from an arched hall where the fathers are
interred, and whose pavement returned a hollow sound as we walked over
it, struck him with horror. It was the first time of his entering a
Carthusian convent, and, to my surprise, he appeared ignorant of the
severities of the order.
The sun set before we regained our carriage, and our conversation the
whole way home partook of the impression which the scenery we had been
contemplating inspired.