PURGATORIAL BOX-CARRIERS.

163

"Because,” says King Stephen, "through the providence of Divine mercy, we know it to be ordered, and by the Church's publishing it far and near, everybody has heard, that by the distribution of alms persons may be absolved from the bonds of sin, and acquire the rewards of heavenly joy, I, Stephen, by the grace of God king of England, being willing to have a share with those who, by a happy kind of commerce, exchange heavenly things for earthly, and smitten with the love of God, and for the salvation of my soul, and the souls of my father and mother, and all my forefathers and ancestors, do give unto God and to the Church of St. Peter"-(here follows an enumeration of gifts). What teaching was this! Alas! it remains unchanged to this day.

In the "Catholic Directory" for 1842, it is announced that "monthly masses will be said for such benefactors as will aid in paying off the debts upon the chapels and schools" situated in Wadestreet, Poplar; and, in addition to this privilege, that "mass shall be said every quarter for those who are interred in the burialground." At Duckingfield, St. Mary's, near Manchester, there is a society attached to the chapel, termed St. Marie's Society, which has for its object the liquidation of the heavy debt upon the building, the members participating in the advantages of two masses, offered up on the first Monday and Tuesday of every month. The subscription to be made by a member is but one penny per week.

"In many places in Italy," says a writer of the seventeenth century, "especially in the great cities, in order to have a settled income, they let to farm this 'purgatory-money' to some layman or other, as I have seen at Milan, in that famous confraternity of the souls in purgatory, established in the church of St. John de Casa Botta."

The "farmer" here pays 4,000 crowns every year to the priests of the church, and makes his profit of the rest. He maintains for this purpose forty box-carriers, who are clothed in white, and wear upon their short white cloaks the arms of the confraternity to distinguish them.

They have each of them a shilling a day allowed them, and their business is to run through all the streets of the city, and beg money for the souls in purgatory. These box-carriers are picked men, very cunning and skilful at their trade of begging. Sometimes they are so importunate and impertinent, that they follow a man the length of two or three streets, without quitting him, to force him by their importunity to give them something. Neither is it without danger to give them a rude or churlish reply; for in that case they have the malice to tell you to your face that they see well enough that you have no consideration for the souls in purgatory,' and, should you continue to revile them, might probably

get you recommended to the Inquisition to learn more manners The farmer of the souls in purgatory has the keys of all these boxes and they are bound once or twice a week to bring them to him when at any time they bring them full and well lined, he gives them something over and above their ordinary pay, to encourage them to perform their quest with so much more application and dexterity. He takes care to place some of his boxes in all inns ordinaries, taverns, victualling-houses, and other public places Those that have travelled in Italy know that the host doth commonly, at the end of every meal, bring in his box for the souls in purgatory, and desire his guests to put in their charity.

"At the time of harvest and vintage the farmer sends some of his emissaries into the field, to carry on the quest there for the said souls. They have great waggons with them, and beg some portion of what is gathered, in corn, wood, wine, rice, hemp, even to the very eggs and hens. Which done, they either spend what they have got themselves, or else sell it and turn it into money."

"1

In papalism Christ is the professed theme of the music of the Christian's soul; but in fact He occupies not even such a proportion of the treatment as the ordinary musical "tema" or subject does to the variations.

Thus, the Christian's "Home, sweet Home," is the professed basis: but the varieties of the Virgin, the saints, purgatory, indulgences &c., have the slightest possible connection with the sweet theme The fact is, in the Western superstition the rich melody is from God, and the variations by men; and these variations are very bad There is not a passage, not a single bar, but what is false to the spirit of the subject. A vile staccato here, and false harmonies there, which would have shocked the sweet harper of Zion, disguise or destroy the grand flow of the sublime melody. We are told that "bodily exercise (asceticism) profiteth nothing;" yet this has ever been one of the grand Roman roads to heaven.

In the twelfth century a regular tariff was established, denoting the equivalent in money for the various penances which the Church was in the habit of imposing. "Another system of compounding for penance was adopted during this period, by admitting as an equivalent the repetition of a prescribed number of Paternosters or other forms of worship. Thus, sixty Paternosters, repeated by a penitent on his knees, or fifteen Paternosters and fifteen Misereres repeated with the whole body prostrated on the ground, were accepted instead of one day's fast. A fast of twelve days was compensated by causing one mass to be said; of four months, by

1 Frauds of Rom. Priests, Lond. 1687, p. 260.

ASCETICISM ON THE GANGES AND THE EXE.

165

ten masses; of a whole year, by thirty masses. A penance and fast of seven years could be despatched in one year, provided the penitent repeated the whole Psalter once in twenty-four hours." 1

The doctrine of works of supererogation, and the corollary that atonement may be made for crime by vicarious penance, exist in Hindustan at the present hour, carried to an excess which has never been entertained in western countries. The writings of Origen show us that opinions so gratifying to our corrupt nature were extensively spread over the East in the early ages of Christianity.2

Hence we need not be surprised to find the same system carried out, and far more rigorously, by the ascetic or Yogee of India. Some of these go naked all their lives, suffering their hair and beard to grow till they cover their whole bodies; standing motionless in the sun, in the most painful attitudes, for years, till their arms grow fast above their heads, and their nails pierce through their clenched hands; scorching themselves over fires; inclosing themselves in cages; and enacting other incredible horrors on themselves, for the hope of attaining everlasting felicity.

This spirit of ascetic Caste is as strong among the Anglo-Catholic Sisters of Mercy at Devonport as on the banks of the Tiber and those of the Ganges. Confession to the spiritual director or guide and to the mother superior is permitted and encouraged in the sisterhood. The superior speaks as Jesus Christ; the thoughts are written in a book called the "Little Soul," for the superior's inspection; the director reads them in the Soul before they are expressed in writing. The superior degrades a "sister" to the rank of a “novice," for nine months taking away the sister's dress, which is held sacred; the director tells the sinning sister to make the sign of the cross with her tongue on the floor of the Oratory.

A religious service called a "chapter" is held in the Oratory when the lady superior pleases, at which, after that portion of the Scripture has been read where the washing of the disciples' feet by our Lord is recorded, she, in imitation, washes the feet of all the sisters.3

Here, then, is the medieval Lady-à-Becket system, beautifully harmonizing with our modern "dim religious light." But asceticism does not cease with this life. It has a mummylike virtue in its embalmed spiritual pride. It is said in the Rituale Romanum: "If any heretic have given signs of penitence

I W. Elfe Taylor.

2 W. C. Taylor.

See Colles's "Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Misery ;" Spurrell's "Miss Sellon and the Sisters of Mercy;" Bishop of Exeter's Letter to Miss Sellon; and Campbell's "Miss Sellon and the Sisters of Mercy."

The

before he died, he is, when dead, to be absolved in this manner :If his body has not been yet buried, the dead body shall be scourged with rods, and be absolved in the above manner. If, however, the dead body of the heretic, who gave some sign of repentance when dying, has been buried in a profane place, let it be exhumed, and then let it be scourged with rods in the same manner. If, however, it cannot be exhumed, then let the grave be beaten with rods." Mohamedan system of penance in one of their holiest brotherhoods is far more locomotive, and well calculated to "get up the steam." It is the celebrated performance of the dancing dervishes, of which Dr. Clarke has given a very lively account in his "Travels." This performance is divided into five acts, in the last of which they lick red-hot swords, cut and wound themselves with knives, and lacerate their bodies, until they sink exhausted. The superior then, going round, breathes upon the wounds, after which they are carefully dressed.

"Most of the order," says Taylor, "have convents; the married members are not permitted to bring their wives into the monastery, where they must sleep twice a week; but especially on the nights preceding their holy dances.

"Only one order—that of the Baktaschies—can properly be called mendicant; many of these profess to live on alms alone, after the example of their founder. They, for the most part, beg for their food in the crowded streets, shouting out, 'Relief for the love of God !'"

False religion is ever filled to repletion with a mass of minute orders and nice regulations, laying a stress upon absurd trifles and neglecting the " weightier matters of the law." It hangs, in the England of Mary, its four men for eating goose on a fast-day. In Madagascar, it finds out that chicanery, cheating, and defrauding are mere trifles compared with the enormous offence of trampling or dancing upon a grave, eating pork in certain districts where it is prohibited, running after an owl or wild cat, or preparing enchantments. How apt is the human conscience to become coleopterous where the Divine law is concerned; and how ready to expand its duplicate wings, when the twilight darkness of its own religious Caste has come over its special locality. The following Mohamedan system of "ghasl," or salvation by washing, is almost as minute and as nicely graduated as that at St. Barnabas.

The traditional laws of the lustral purification (wodu) are ten. 1. The preparatory bismillah. 2. The palms must be washed before the hands be put in the water. 3. The mouth must be

6. If

cleansed. 4, 5. The entire head and ears must be rubbed. the beard be thick, the fingers must be drawn through it. 7. The

toes must be separated. 8. The right hand and foot should be washed before the left.

The worshipper should stand in a pure place-the stated time must be observed; the face must be turned to the Keblah, or temple of Mecca; and prayers should be offered five times in the day-1. At morn, when five genuflexions are necessary. 2. In the afternoon, which requires five also. 3. In the evening, which demands three. 4. The night, which requires four; and 5. The morning, when two genuflexions are sufficient.1

But if false religion has its fashionable griefs, and sorrows, and niceties, it has been well aware that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Accordingly, alongside of the penances, and fasts, and ritual of the cabinet-maker's sanctuary, it has taken care to provide occasional " innocent recreations," as our modern Christianity calls them. Of such a nature were, and are still, the farfamed "mysteries," or religious theatricals. "At Naples," says

Blunt, "I have seen advertised on the walls, that on a certain night there would be represented at one theatre 'The Murder of the Innocents;' at another, 'The Sacrifice of Abraham;' whilst enormous pictures, a good deal resembling those in front of a wildbeast or mountebank show, illustrated the respective subjects, and attracted the attention of the public.

"Gregory of Nazianzen, in the fourth century, in a temporizing spirit, which much prevailed at that period, and which sowed the seeds of so many abuses in the Church, determined to introduce dramatic stories derived from the Old and New Testament. Of these, one is still extant, entitled Christ's Passion. The characters in it are, Our Saviour, the Virgin, Joseph of Arimathea, Mary Magdalene, Pilate, John, a Nancius, the Synagogue, a chorus of women, and some others. It is expressly declared in the argument, that it was the first time the Virgin Mary had been brought upon the stage."

"Even

In the Middle Ages these "mysteries" were sometimes acted in churches, and sometimes on stages in the open air. Chester and Coventry were especially famous for these performances. as late as the twenty-fourth year of Henry VIII., a proclamation was issued respecting the Chester plays, in the Whitsun weeks, in which it was stated that Henry Frances, sometime a monk, obtained" and got of Clement, then bishop of Rome, one thousand days of pardon, and of the bishop of Chester at that time, forty days of pardon, granted from thenceforth to every person resorting

1 W. Cooke Taylor, in loco. For a very full account, see Herklot's Quanoon-i-Islam.