"Mais où sont les vertus qui dementent les tiennes?
Pour éclipser ton jour quel nouveau jour parait?
Toi qui les remplaças,[F] qui te remplacerait?"
[F] (Les faux dieux.)
DE LAMARTINE, _Harmonies, Hymne au Christ_.
The Cara Vita is a small church situated in the Corso, and not
possessing within itself any thing to attract the stranger's
particular attention. It is interesting, however, from the solemn
services which take place there every Friday in Lent. On these
occasions, after an exciting harangue from the officiating priest, the
lights are extinguished, knotted scourges are handed round by the
sacristan, and each individual of the congregation takes one and
begins to flagellate himself. We have been told--for we were never
present at these exhibitions--that the noise and excitement are
terrible--every penitent seeking to ease his inner at the expense of
his outer man, and proportioning the amount of his physical suffering
to that of the moral evil which it is intended to counteract. But all
the ceremonies in the Cara Vita are not of this character; and the
same friend who described the above, informed us that the preaching
there was often eloquent, and the music always fine; so, when we read
in the _Diario di Roma_, that at twelve o'clock on Good Friday there
was to be a solemn _funzione_, or Service in commemoration of our
Saviour's Passion, and that in all probability the church would be
crowded, we repaired thither on that day an hour before the time
mentioned in the paper, in order to secure a place. Doubtful of the
propriety of witnessing, as a pageant, a representation of the most
awful and affecting scene that the mind of man can contemplate, yet
fearing, from some experience in Roman ceremonies, that our visit
might issue merely in _that_, we lingered some time about the porch;
then, pushing aside the heavy curtain, irresolutely entered; and what
a contrast presented itself between the two sides of that matted door!
It seemed the portal between life and death: light, noise, confusion,
reigned without; within, all was dark, solemn, still. The ear that had
been stunned by the babel of the streets, was startled at the unwonted
calm; and the eye, dazzled by the splendour of the meridian sun upon
the pavement, experienced a temporary blindness, and required some
time before it could accommodate its powers to the obscurity of the
interior. By degrees, however, it was, apparent that the church,
notwithstanding the voiceless quiet which prevailed, was full. The
whole assembly sat as if spell-bound; not a whisper was to be heard;
an awful curiosity tied every tongue. The business and pleasures of
life were forgotten; the sexes exchanged no furtive glances; men and
women, alike unobservant of their neighbours, counted their beads and
bent their eyes upon the ground; while each new comer, awed by the
deep silence, entered with cautious tread, and took his seat
noiselessly. When our eyes had become somewhat familiarised with the
artificial light, they were attracted to two elevated extempore
side-boxes, brilliantly illuminated with wax, and filled with
choristers in full costume. Between them was stretched a voluminous
curtain, not so opaque but that a number of tapers might be seen
faintly glimmering through it; and before this curtain a dark
temporary stage was erected. The, religious calm that prevailed around
was at length gently broken by some soft and plaintive notes,
proceeding from the white-robed choir. In a few minutes these died
away again upon the ear, and a figure, suddenly rising from the stage,
exclaimed in a voice of strenuous emotion--"Once again, ye faithful
ones! ye are assembled here to accompany me to Calvary! Yes! another
Good Friday has come round, another anniversary of the day announced
by God himself for man's deliverance from the wages of his sin; this
is the great day when typical sacrifice was done away with, and our
blessed Lord made of 'himself a full and sufficient sacrifice for the
sins of the' _faithful_. But in order to triumph, my brethren, we must
conquer--to conquer we must contend; there is no warfare without
wounds, and our Saviour, while in the flesh, must partake of our
infirmities: he must be 'the man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief,' before he can 'lead captivity captive, and receive gifts' _for
his holy Church_; the ransom of his faithful followers must be at the
expense of his own blood. He bled, as you know, on Good Friday; and
accordingly, we are met here--not to celebrate a triumph, but to learn
humility, patience, and forgiveness of injuries at the foot of the
cross, in order that _we_, like our great Head, may become perfect
_through suffering_. Permit me, then, to ask you, with the Psalmist,
'Are your hearts set upon righteousness, O ye congregation?' and are
your minds prepared to follow the Lord to Calvary? Have you, for
instance, been studying lately his sufferings at _the different
stations of the cross_? have you been thinking at all upon his
passion? thinking what it must have been to be hooted at, spit upon,
reviled, buffeted, and friendless upon earth? If not, ponder well
these things now; _now_, at _this moment_; for are we not arrived at
the most sacred _hour_ of this most sacred but sad and solemn day?
About this hour was the Saviour condemned by his unjust judge,
delivered up to the rabble to be crucified. Go back in your minds to
that moment; see him crowned with thorns, and bearing the cross upon
his shoulder, till, lo! he faints under its weight, and his
persecutors compel a stranger to carry it to the fatal spot. Then see
him toiling onward, surrounded by his deadly enemies; his chosen
friends have forsaken him and fled! a few women follow him afar off,
bewailing his fate; he turns and speaks; listen to his words--'Daughters
of Jerusalem! weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and _for your
children_!' Well might the merciful Saviour speak thus, when he had
just heard the mad shout of the multitude, 'his blood be upon us and
_upon our children_.' The crowd approaches Golgotha! they halt to rear
the fatal tree; methinks I hear the exulting outcries of his
vindictive murderers as they fix it in the ground!" Here the curtain
drawn between the preacher and the back of the stage fell, revealing
three wooden crucifixes lit up by a lurid red light from above. The
effect was startling, and produced a shudder of horror throughout the
whole auditory. After a breathless pause, the preacher, turning
towards the cross, exclaimed, "What! are we too late for the beginning
of this tragedy! Is the Redeemer of mankind already nailed to the
cross? Oh, cruel and fiendlike man, is this your triumph! surely he
who came to save will reject you now! Such might be our feelings, but
they were not Christ's. No, my brethren, far from it. Oh, let us
contemplate, for our own future guidance, the behaviour of Jesus to
his murderers, not _after_ but at the _moment_ of his extreme torture;
and may the Holy Spirit give us grace to profit by the exercise. Look
on your crucified Redeemer writhing and maddened with suffering; and
listen to the first words uttered in the depth of his agony: he
imprecates no curse upon these guilty men, but exclaims, 'Father,
forgive them; they know not what they do!' _Caro Jesu!_" Here there
was much emotion both in the preacher and in the congregation; when it
had subsided, he added persuasively, "You have heard Christ pray that
his _murderers_ may be forgiven, and shall you hesitate to forgive one
another?" Then, taking the words of our Saviour for a text, he
delivered a short animated sermon upon the forgiveness of injuries;
after which came a prayer for grace to perform this duty; the pause
which succeeded being filled with music and chanting. Then again the
dark form of the preacher rose up. "What, my brethren! did not Christ
pass _three hours_ in his agony, and shall we leave him in the midst?
He has still more gracious words in store. My dear brethren and fellow
sinners, now hear his dying address to the penitent thief, 'Verily I
say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise!' _Ladro
felice!_ but was _he_ then _predestinated_ to salvation, and his
companion to be the victim of God's wrath? _Niente, niente_; believe,
not a word of this false and heretical creed." Then followed a second
discourse, with a diatribe against Calvin (who deserved it!) and
_all_ heretics (who might not deserve it), with an anathema against
heresy in general, and a prayer for the pardon and acceptance of the
true Catholic, _id est_ ROMAN, Church. In like manner the preacher
continued to set before his hearers all the circumstances of our
Saviour's passion; pronouncing a short discourse upon every sentence
uttered by him in his agony. Each sermonette was succeeded by prayer;
and that by an interlude of music and chanting, which enabled him to
recover himself, and proceed with undiminished energy during a three
hours' service. We had listened attentively, not always agreeing with
his doctrine, but without any great shock to our Protestant
principles, when, in conclusion, he exclaimed, "Now, brethren, before
we disperse, let us do homage to the blessed Virgin, and sympathise
with the afflicted and inconsolable Mother of our Lord. Think of her
sufferings to-day; think and weep over them; and forget not the
worship due to her holy name; whom Christ honoured, shall not we
honour too? Sons of the blessed Virgin! is not your brother Christ her
son also? make her then your friend; propitiate her, in order to
obtain pardon from him! Let us all, then, fall down upon our knees
before the _Indolorata_." A long prayer to the Madonna followed, then
a hymn in her honour; and after a last glorious outburst of the organ,
accompanying the ardent and sustained Hallelujahs of both choir and
congregation, the curtain falls, the doors are thrown open, daylight
rushes in through the no longer darkened windows; and presently the
thronged and noisy Corso has absorbed the last member of the much
moved, slowly dispersing crowd.
A heartfelt and affecting ceremony was that we had just witnessed;
every body had shed tears, and there had been evidently great
_at_trition, and probably some _con_trition also. The strong appeals
of the priest had _told_, though they were not legitimate; for what
could be less so than, in the end, his misdirecting the thoughts from
the _true_ object of worship, to _her_, who was, after all, but a mere
mortal like ourselves?
Yet devotional feelings had been called forth, and in this it was
unlike, and surely better than, the ordinary cold, formal, glittering,
shifting pantomimic service of Te-Deums, and high masses, which,
instead of "filling the hungry with good things," send all "empty
away;" or worse, _satisfied_ with "that which is not bread." Could
piety really be appealed to through the senses, then might the
ceremonies of the Romish Church hope to reach it, captivating as they
are to most of them. The ear is pleased with exquisite music; the eye
is dazzled with pictures, processions, scenic representations,
glittering colours, gorgeous robes, rich laces, and embroidery; and
even the nostril is propitiated by the grateful odour of frankincense;
but the only address to the heart and intellect is a barbarous Latin
prayer, unintelligible (were it to be heard) to most of the
congregation, and rendered so to all by the mode in which it is gone
through. On returning from such exhibitions as these, we feel more
forcibly than ever, how much reason we have to thank those pious
compilers of our expurgated English prayer-book, who, renouncing an
_unknown tongue_, and rejecting all unscriptural interpolations, drew
from the rich stores of Rome herself, and from the primitive Church,
an almost faultless Liturgy,[G] where every desire of the human heart
is anticipated, and every expression so carefully weighed, that not an
unbecoming phrase can be found in it.
[G] "We were not" (says Jeremy Taylor) "like women and children when
they are affrighted with fire in their clothes; we shook off the coal,
indeed, but not our garments; lest we should expose our Church to that
nakedness which the excellent men of our sister Churches complained to
be among themselves."
It is impossible for any one who has been much in Roman Catholic
countries, to avoid drawing comparisons between the two services; and
especially at this time, when many of our countrymen are halting
between two opinions, and almost persuading themselves that there was
no need of a Reformation, it behoves those not under the influence of
"That dark lanthorn of the Spirit
Which none see by but those that bear it;"
nor yet led away
"By crosses, relics, crucifixes,
Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pyxes;
Those tools for working out salvation
By mere _mechanic_ operation,"
to protest against the return of Popery to this land, to the surrender
of our consciences and our Bibles again into the hands of a fellow
sinner.[H] "Quis custodet custodem?"--who shall watch our
watcher?--was a question that men had been asking themselves for many
years in England, but hitherto without result; till our pious
Reformers, addressing themselves to the study of the Scriptures,
received the sword of the Spirit, with which they were enabled to wage
successful war against that wily serpent, coiled now for centuries
round the Church of Christ, and waiting but a little further
_development_ to crush her in his inextricable folds. Alike unallured
by concessions and unterrified by threats, they boldly denounced the
_heretical_ usurpation of Rome; opposing an honest conscience, and
Christ the only mediator, to the caprice of councils, and the false
unity of a pseudo-infallible head;[I] refusing to purchase their lives
by rendering homage to any Phalaris of the Triple Crown.
[H] Bellarmine asserts (and who but a heretic shall dispute it with
him?) that men are bound so far to submit their consciences to the
Pope, as even to believe _virtue_ to be _bad_ and _vice_ to be _good_,
if it shall please his Holiness to say so. (BELLAR. _de Rom. Pontif_,
lib. iv. cap. v.) When things came to this pass, were we not justified
in the insertion of that rough deprecatory clause that stood in our
Litany--"From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his
detestable enormities, Good Lord deliver us!"
[I] "We must seek to enter into the real divine unity; if not, the
_pseudo_ unity to which Mr Newman would bring us back will be
attempted once more among us; only to be followed, when its
hollowness, its nothingness, its implicit infidelity, is laid bare, by
an explicit infidelity, an anarchical unity, without a centre, without
a God." (MAURICE'S _Lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews_, p. 111.)
Their perjured faith, though zealot Popes command,
Point to _their_ Bull, and raise the threatening hand:
They deem'd those souls consummate guilt incurr'd,
At conscience' fearful price, who life preferr'd:
No length of days for bartered peace can pay,
And what were life, take life's great end away?[J]
[J] Imitated from JUVENAL, _Satire_ viii.