Some Non-Believers on Easter in Rome [pp. 120-126]

124 SOMENOAr-BELIEVERS OK EASTER IN ROME. [April,
from Rome describing the Easter ceremonies, makes his young
hero indulge in the following remarkable outburst:
"There must be moments, in Rome especially, when every man of
friendly heart who writes himself English and Protestant must feel a pang
at thinking that he and his countrymen are insulated from European
Christendom. An ocean separates us. From one shore or the other one
can see the neighbor cliffs on clear days; one must wish sometimes that
there were no stormy gulf between us, and from Canterbury to Rome a
pilgrim could pass and not drown beyond Dover. Of the beautiful parts
of the great mother-church I believe among us many people have no idea;
we think of lazy friars, of pining cloister~ed virgins, of ignorant peasants
worshipping wood and stones, bought and sold indulgences, absolution, and
the like commonplace of Protestant satire. Lo! yonder inscription which
blazes round the dome of the temple, so great an,d glorious it looks like
heaven almost; and, as if the words were written in stars, it proclaims to
all the world that this is Peter, and on this rock the church shall be built
against which hell shall not prevail. Under the bronze canopy his
throne is lit with lights that have been burning before it for ages. Round
this stupendous chamber are ranged the grandees of his court. Faith
seems to be realized in their marble figures. Some of them were alive but
yesterday; others, to be as blessed as they, walk the world even now
doubtless, and the commissioners of Heaven, here holding their court a
hundred years hence, shall autboritatively announce their beatification.
The signs of their power shall not be wanting. They heal the sick, open
the eyes of the blind, cause the lame to walk to-day as they did eighteen
centuries ago. Are there not crowds ready to bear witness to their wonders? Isn't there a tribunal appointed to try their claims; advocates to
plead for and against; prelates and clergy and multitudes of faithful to
back and believe them? Thus you shall kiss the hand of a priest to-day
who has given his to a friar whose bones are already beginning to work
miracles, who has been the disciple of another whom the church has just
proclaimed a saint-hand-in-hand they hold by one another until the line is
lost up in heaven. Come, friend, let us acknowledge this, and go and kiss
the toe of St. Peter. Alas! there's the Channel always between us; and
we no more believe in the miracles of St. Thomas of Canterbury than that
the bones of His Grace John Bird, who sits in St. Thomas' chair presently,
will work wondrous cures in the year 2000; that ~his statue will speak or
his portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence wink."
Here is a German writer of sceptical tendency somewhat
similarly impressed, He writes under a nom depi?irne in Die Carlenlaztbe:
"When the Paschal morning pours vast populations into the vast nave,
and above an ocean of heads you see coming, his brow bearing the triple
crown and his frame dignified by the sacerdotal habit, this prince of priests
and father of kings, then the mind pictures that vast line of descent, and
all the popes appear to you in one only. That sparkling and voluminous
tiara, which makes you think of the sovereign of Nineveb; that dais high
in the air; those great fans and feathers which evoke reminiscences of