Romanism, or the religion of the senses-the other is Christianity, or the religion of God. Now the natural effect of an excessive admiration of art, as connected with worship, is to warp the faculties and dim the clear-sighted vision of the eye of faith. This is the effect it has ever had upon minds of superior cultivation— hence this inquiry of a clear-sighted writer.

"How comes it to pass,' some may perhaps ask, 'that though so thoroughly a Protestant in principle, as Mr. Ruskin undoubtedly is, he should thus step out of his way to excuse certain ceremonies of a Romish nature?' We answer by a query. May not this be one of the effects of his residence so much in Roman Catholic cities, amidst idolatrous associations? We all know how familiarity softens down the most offensive objects and acts, till at length we become insensible to their odiousness and wrong.

"Mr. Ruskin's earliest volumes on Archæology were marked by the features of a sturdy Protestantism, which it strengthened one's principles to read; and it speaks not well, we think, for the influences under which he has long been living, that in his last work he should have been drawn forward as an apologist both for Austrian tyranny and Roman idolatry.” 1

Thus on

That which distinguished the ceremonies of pagan worship more than any other religion, was the ornate character they possessed ; calculated frequently to reproduce to the senses the reputed life of the gods; they addressed themselves to the eye and the ear, rather than to the understanding and the heart. Neither was it in the ceremonies alone of their religion that the Romans evinced that want of spirituality—even the attributes of the gods were exhibited to their senses in a material dress. The same observation applies to the inhabitants of Italy and Sicily to this very day. the Wednesday in Passion week, one of the famous 'Misereres' is sung in the Sistine chapel. The low, and solemn, and piteous tones in which it is chanted, are asserted, in the office for the week, to be expressive of the fear which the Apostles felt when our Saviour was seized by the Jews. Meanwhile, lighted tapers are successively extinguished at long intervals, till at last one only is left burning; those which are put out indicate the base desertion of the twelvethat which remains unquenched, the exemplary constancy of the Virgin.

"At the conclusion of the chant, a stamping is made by the cardinals and their attendants: this, too, is not without its meaning. It is declared to signify either the tumult with which the Jews sought our Saviour in the garden, or those convulsions of

1 Jenner, p. 351.

I

nature which accompanied His crucifixion. Here is the dramatic effect of which I have spoken. On another day in the same week, the pope performs the ceremony of washing the feet of thirteen pilgrims, who are dressed in white, and are ranged along an elevated bench on the left side of the Sala Clementina.

"This act is of course intended as a lively representation of a similar office performed by our Saviour to His Apostles. Again, there is a remarkable service in the churches of Rome on a Good Friday, called the 'Agonié.' On that occasion it is the duty of the preacher to enlarge upon the words uttered by the Saviour when hanging upon the cross. This address represents the three hours of the Passion, during which time curtains are drawn over the windows, which create a gloom significant of that darkness which prevailed from the sixth to the ninth hour. In all this there is much dramatic effect. But, in fact, the ordinary mass, as it is explained in the 'Tenore della devozione,' a little book put into the hands of all the Italians who can read, and answers the purpose of our Prayer-book, is a lively representation of the last scene of our Saviour's life and suffering. When the pope approaches the altar, Christ's entrance into the garden is to be understood, and to the prayer which he offers then the offering of the mass alludes. When the pope kisses the altar, allusion is made to that kiss with which our Saviour was betrayed. When he turns to the people and says to them Dominus vobiscum,' he is representing Christ when He turned and looked upon Peter. When he washes his hands, he figures Pilate, when declaring that he washed his hands of the blood of the innocent man. When he elevates the wafer, he expresses the elevation of Christ on the cross. When he breaks it, he displays Him expiring. These are no interpretations of mine, but are every one taken from the volume I have mentioned, sanctioned and recommended by the Church of Rome. Now surely all this partakes greatly of the dramatic character. Further, there is a very curious ceremony at Messina, on the day of the Assumption.

6

"The image of the Virgin is carried about the town in procession, as if she were in search of her son. At length, when she is on the point of entering the Great Piazza, a figure of our Saviour is suddenly presented from a street opposite to that by which the Virgin appears. The latter instantly recoils in an ecstasy of surprise and joy at this meeting, and forthwith half a dozen goldfinches are let loose from her bosom, which fly away, and are supposed to bear the glad tidings to heaven. dramatic than this? I have seen in the churches, during the period representing the forty days when our blessed Lord remained

What can be more

upon earth after His resurrection, a large wax taper, highly ornamented, placed near the altar. On the day of His ascension it was removed; whilst at the same time, to render it more strikingly emblematical, five pieces of wax or wood, shaped like hearts, and fixed to it by pins, have served to represent the five wounds He received on the cross from the nails and the spear.

“Again, it is not enough for the Italians to read in the Bible the circumstances of Christ's apprehension and crucifixion; that 'a band of men came to seize Him, with lanterns and torches and weapons,' that, after Peter's denial of Him, the cock crew,-that one of the spectators of His sufferings took a sponge and filled it with vinegar, and put it upon a reed and gave Him to drink,—that 'Joseph took the body down;' but all these particulars must be impressed upon their feelings by some material shape.

66

Accordingly, we find the crucifixes, so numerous by the sides of the high-roads, decorated with the figures of a lantern, a cock, a sponge, a reed, a ladder-nay, even of pincers and spikes.

“At Christmas may be seen in public places of worship, and in private houses, grotesque models of the stable at Bethlehem, called Persepi, commonly adorned with foil and tinsel, and branches and artificial flowers; whilst Joseph, the Infant, the Virgin, the wise men from the East, together with the cows, manger, crutches, and other appropriate furniture, are all carefully introduced. Such has ever been the tendency of the inhabitants of Italy to embody every religious conception in some corporeal form.” 1

Bishop Jewell, in his reply to Harding, makes this very pertinent remark 66 :- Verily to ascribe felicity, or remission of sin, which is the inward work of the Holy Ghost, unto any manner of outward action whatever, is a superstition, a gross and a Jewish error."

This process of symbolism is the favourite plan of Rome. Hence, speaking of the means of spreading Romanism in India, Father Strickland observes: "Another most effectual means for conversion is the representation of the passion of our Saviour, either by means of transparent pictures, shown at night with a light behind, or by a sort of illuminated exhibition, accompanied by a sermon. Here, again, the eye must be filled-nothing is said about the heart. God's religion is not quite fine enough for man. Man makes just such an improvement on it as suits his taste; he develops it just as we have seen men do in Rome, Egypt, Syria, India, and Otaheite. Ay! he develops it just as the painter and his brush develop the rose or the lily, by laying his impious colours on the purity of God's creation. Men of the senses are

1 Blunt's Vestiges of Antiquity.

not synonyms for sensible men. Let them know that the proper thing upon which to daub their colours is upon an inanimate object a dead mechanical agent. A gardener does not practise on the life of his flowers by plastering them over with paint. The life of Christ in man is beyond the reach of these spiritual poisoners. If their congregation be indeed Christians, they will leave them; they will shudder at the impious exhibition of heathen rites the feast of candles and the flow of holy water. He who has the complexion of health-a cheek where bloom its roseswill feel the insult of that paltry perfumer, who presumes to daub its genuine glow with a rouge that is used only as the scarlet cloak of disease. The Christian knows he is spiritually healthy, just as the healthy man knows that he is well.

Do not insult him, then, by proffering a cosmetic which, even could it be accepted, would be ruinous to his spiritual constitution. Your cosmetic would do just what many other cosmetics have done— it would only drive disease inward-it would not expel it. Christianity must breathe the free vital air, or it cannot live; a hot-house atmosphere will not suit its being; it lives and thrives under the cope of heaven and beneath the sun of righteousness.

Men of the senses! pursue your path. You have been taught Christianity, yet you go back to heathenism; your God and Saviour has pointed you the way to the city of immortality, and you basely walk the dusty road of Pagan Rome. Listen to what a noble-minded Christian has written :

"In the shadow of Christianity, in the very bosom of the Church itself, there flourish certain religions, without a soul, without a life, which with many persons take the place of Christianity; and it is worthy of remark, that these different religions are particularly those of cultivated minds, who wish to find a neutral ground between Christianity—which appears to them too simple and unintellectual—and atheism, by which they are appalled." 1

Behold then Italy-the land of symbolic worship. Let honesty say what is her Christianity. Let her road-side crucifixes, her images of saints, and all her throng of holy materialities, say how far she is advanced in the life of the soul. There, under the very shadow of the sacred symbol of the wayside crucifix, the murderer stabs his victim. He invokes the Virgin to bless his horrible attempt, and the materialities by which his religion is surrounded, block up the entrance of spiritual light to his heart. The very cross itself becomes as it were the sanctified handle of a dagger in his grasp. It is thus that the paganized monk of Oxford lies in

1 Vinet, The Religion of Man and the Religion of God.

wait at this day for his victims, in our Protestant churches, where he has stealthily raised an altar for their sacrifice. Nay, startle not, he stabs at the life of the soul, and the cross forms the very hilt of his sword. He never uses "the sword of the Spirit."

And what was the consequence of the political ascendancy of that treacherous Caste in the Church of England, who have been, and are still, doing their utmost to undermine its foundations, nay, to sweep them away, and on their site to build the heathen temple of Rome?

The last effort that witnessed the final exhaustion of its strength, witnessed also the final overthrow of despotism in England. The priest and the tyrant rose and fell together.

The true origin of England's mighty framework of civilization and liberty, its press, its literature, its independence, its grand mechanical agencies, its glorious missions, and its God-like philanthropy, dates from the overthrow of the Laudian spirit. That was the great political and religious birthday of England!

Here parts off her history from that of all other European nations. The distinctive characteristic of that partition was the earnest-mindedness produced by individual Christianity. This individuality, in the sequel, became the aggregated basis of the noble temple of that veritable Ecclesia-the sublime Christian community. Now began the active working of a principle, whose law, unlike the legislative enactments of man, contemplated no special statute for a special object, but whose whole tendency was to give birth to a living, harmonious action; just as though it had been some mighty parent, whose progeny were endowed with the power, the intellectuality, and the beneficence of their original.

Let us then for a moment revert to the result of that hieratic spirit in the days of Charles I., that offers so serious a warning to the æsthetic bigotry of our day. What says Marsden, an impartial historian, relative to the great spiritual despot of that day? He thus writes :

"Laud no doubt was a great delinquent. More than any living man, he was responsible for the destruction of the Church of England which had recently taken place, and for the war which was then raging. He had tampered with popery, and forced upon a Protestant people its detested symbols.

hat.

"The pope had even shown his gratitude by the offer of a cardinal's The archbishop, indeed, declined it- he did not mean, we are persuaded, that England should actually submit herself to the popes of Rome ;-but the offer itself was infamy. In civil affairs he had invariably urged those measures which were most opposed to liberty. He would have governed with an iron sceptre. He was