Chapter X: The Dying Penitent's Disclosure (3)

There are many souls sadly in need and without a religion, which is the first want of our nature. There are many who are trying to gain time against the Spirit of God by postponing the hour of sacrifice. There are those who, in hollow mockery of their highest aspirations, are playing with shadows, and deceiving themselves with counterfeits of the truth. We pray God that this book may fall into their hands, and be a messenger from on high, bidding them look well to foundations which are built on the sand, and can never abide the tempest of human passion, much less the storm of God's judgment.

FOOTNOTE:

[176] _The Invitation Heeded; or, Reasons for a Return to Catholic Unity._ By James Kent Stone, late President of Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, and of Hobart College, Geneva, New York; and S. T. D. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 340. New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 9 Warren street. 1870.

THE FIRST ŒCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.

NUMBER SIX.

Holy-Week in Rome! How many Christian hearts have yearned for it, have looked forward to it in hope! How many recall it among the sweetest and most precious memories of the past! In this sacred city, and in this most solemn season, a spell is thrown around the faithful pilgrim; or rather, he is released in a great measure from the delusive spells of the world. Mind and heart, and, we might almost say, the body too, seem to live in a new world, in which the all-absorbing thought and affair is the grand mystery of what God has done in his infinite power and love to redeem this fallen race of man.

What emotions must fill the catholic heart as, after perhaps a long and weary journey, one is rapidly borne on by the train from Civita Vecchia, and knows at last that within one hour he will be in Rome. The yellow Tiber is flowing by the railway track, sluggishly and silently, on to the sea. At intervals, antique-looking barges, with high-peaked prows and high sterns, are floating down, heavily laden with boxes of statuary and of marbles, or of other works of art--it may be, of books or of baggage. A couple of oars suffice to keep the vessel in mid-channel, or to accelerate its motion. Perhaps, if the course of the sinuous river allows it, a huge lateen-sail on a heavy stump of a mast helps it onward. Perchance, too, a tiny steamer meets him, puffing its way downward; or the train overtakes another breasting the stream and towing up three or four barges, each larger than itself. The eye travels across the classic river, and roams over the rolling surface of the campagna, and takes notes of the many ruins that dot its surface, mostly relics of the mausoleums and massive tombs with which the Romans of old were wont to line their roads leading from the city, for miles and miles. At length Rome is at hand; across the Tiber you see the new St. Paul's _extra muros_, rising like a phœnix after the ruinous conflagration of 1823, and not yet entirely finished. The great apostle was buried here after his martyrdom. Here his body has ever been venerated. Some day, and soon, you may come hither, and in the splendor of that church look down into the confession to catch a glimpse of the interior of the underground crypt, and the sarcophagus within it, in which lie his mortal remains, and read the large letters on it, _Paullus Apostolus Martyr_, "Paul, the Apostle and Martyr." On the lofty summit of the front, plainly visible, is the gigantic statue of the apostle himself, bearing the emblematic sword--as if standing sentinel and guarding the approach to the Holy City, which he consecrated by his preaching and his death. Soon you are on the bridge over the stream, and all eyes are turned to the left, where above the city walls, now visible, and the roofs of houses, and the cupolas of many churches, you see for a moment or two the majestic dome of St. Peter's towering over all. The road runs around the walls of the city for some distance before entering, and St. Peter's is soon shut out from view, only to be replaced by the majestic front of St. John of Lateran's, near at hand. But on the other side, you see more clearly than before the campagna with its multitude of ruins, and the Sabine and Alban Mountains. In the clear atmosphere you can distinguish the vineyards and olive groves, and dark forests, and cities and towns and pleasant villas. Along the campagna, from the foot of these hills, there stretches for miles on miles, like a huge centipede, a long line of dark and jagged masonry, borne aloft on massive piers and arches. It is an old aqueduct, or, as your guide-book tells you, three aqueducts in one. You dash through one of those arches, and the panorama is changed. Other mountains in the distance, with other cities and towns, other ruins on the campagna--the ancient basilicas of St. Lawrence and St. Agnes near at hand. At length you pass through an archway of the wall into the city. St. John of Lateran's is again before you. Not distant is the church of Santa Croce; and St. Mary Major's, with its cupolas, its mediæval belfry, and its obelisk, is even nearer. The balmy breeze of the afternoon brings to your ear the sweet chime of its many bells. You are on the Quirinal hill, and can look over some portion of the city, with its belfries, and cupolas, its red-tiled roofs, and many-windowed houses. Near by are massive ruins. The excavations of the railway track have unearthed broken columns, frescoed walls of ancient rooms, and masses of travertino masonry, belonging to the walls which Servius Tullius, the fifth king of Rome, built around the city. Issuing from the depot to seek your hotel, you are at once before the ruins of the baths of Dioclesian, and the Cistercian Abbey, and the church of St. Mary degli Angioli. Your way leads by churches, palaces, ruins, obelisks, statues, and ever-gushing fountains, through a maze of narrow streets with sharp turns. You understand that these streets were not laid out, and the houses built on clear ground. The houses stand more or less on the foundations of older buildings that have perished, and follow, to a limited extent, the course of those foundations. As for the streets, they do as they can, under the circumstances, and seldom have the same breadth and direction for three hundred yards at a time. Every thing tells you of olden heathen Rome that has perished, and of a new Rome that has arisen in its place, not to be compared to its predecessor in size or in earthly magnificence, but infinitely superior in spiritual and moral grandeur.

Without an hour's unnecessary delay, you seek St. Peter's. A glance of wonder at the vastness and majesty of its approaches, of its front, and its portals, is all you will give now; for the heart is filled with a sense of that glory of which all this, great as it is, is but a figure. You pass through the vestibule, large as a magnificent cathedral, push aside the heavy curtain before the inner door, and you are within the grand basilica. The light is evenly diffused and soft, and comes through unseen windows. The temperature is pleasant. If outside you found the day cold and unpleasant, here the atmosphere seems warm and agreeable. If outside it was hot, here you feel it cool and refreshing. As you look at the vast expanse of the building, you wonder at the solitude. It seems almost vacant; although, if you could count them, there are hundreds moving about, or kneeling here and there in silent prayer, and scores are entering or going out. As you advance up the broad and lofty central nave, there come from a chapel on the left the rolling sounds of an organ, and the chorus of many voices, as canons are chanting the daily vespers in their own chapel. Further on, from the other side, you hear the murmuring of many voices. A long line of pilgrims, or the members of some confraternity, have come in procession to pray in St. Peter's; and as they kneel before the altar, perhaps a hundred devout men and women from the parish, or of those accidentally in the church, have gathered around them, and have knelt and join in their chanted hymns and prayers. On still you proceed, until you are beneath the lofty dome itself, and have approached the oval railing of marble which is united to the grand altar, and on which ever burn a hundred and forty-two lamps. You look over into the opening in the marble pavement, which is called the confession of St. Peter's, and you see below the floor of the ancient church, and immediately under the present high-altar stands the chief altar of that ancient church. Though you do not see it, you know that still deeper, and below that altar, is a small chamber in the earth, whose floor and sides and arched roof are all of large blocks of dressed stone--travertino--and that in that vaulted chamber stands the marble sarcophagus which contains the remains of St. Peter, the chief of the apostles, the founder and the first Bishop of Rome, who was crucified under Nero, in the year 67, on the hill near by, and whom pious Christian hands reverently buried in this very spot, ever since sacred to the followers of Christ. Then it was an obscure spot, outside the city, near certain brickyards on the Aurelian Way. Now it is covered by the grandest temple which the world ever saw, on which all that man can do or give of most precious is offered and consecrated to the service of religion and the glory of God.

A poor, humble, simple-minded fisherman on the Lake of Genesareth, in Galilee, whom men called Simon, was chosen by our Lord; his name was changed to Peter, a rock--for on that rock the church of Christ would be built; to him were given the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and he was charged with the duty of confirming his brethren in the faith. At the command of his Lord, and in the power of the divine commission, he went forth to his work of zeal and of trials. Like his divine Master, poor, persecuted, crucified, he was the instrument of God for mighty things. Empires and kingdoms have perished; but the church still stands. Dynasties have succeeded dynasties, and have passed away like the shadows of clouds in spring; but the line of successors to St. Peter continues unbroken. The intellect and study, the passions, the violence, and the inconstancy of men have changed all things human, again and again, within eighteen centuries; but there remaineth _one Lord_, _one faith_, _one baptism_, one church of Christ, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. And here, to-day, you stand at the earthly centre of that spiritual kingdom, by the tomb of him to whom Christ gave promises which must ever stand true, though heaven and earth pass away. You can but kneel and pray with all the fervor of your heart, taking no account of others near you, nor of the passage of time. And when at length earnest prayer has brought calm and holy joy to your soul, you may rise and look up into the dome, rising four hundred feet above you, with mosaics of evangelists, and prophets, and angels, archangels, and all the grades of the celestial host, until in the summit, amid a blaze of light, the "Ancient of Days" looks down from heaven, in power and majesty, blessing the worshippers of earth, and bending forward to receive the prayers of all who come to this holy and consecrated temple to pour forth their supplications and entreat his mercy. You may examine the grandiose proportions of nave and transept and aisle, the mosaics, and marbles, and statues, and saints; you may go forth into the vast vestibule, guarded at one extremity by an equestrian statue of Constantine, and at the other by one of Charlemagne; you may linger, as you look again at the mighty square in front of the basilica, with its magnificent ever-flowing fountains, so typical of the waters of life, its colonnades stretching away hundreds of yards on either side, like arms put forth to embrace the multitudes of the children of men, and the lofty, needle-formed Egyptian obelisk in the centre, pointing toward heaven. On its summit is a bronze casket, containing a portion of the true cross on which the Saviour suffered death; and at the base is an inscription, brief in words, and here most sublime in its appositeness. Your heart takes in the full meaning as you read, _Christ reigns. Christ rules; Christ has conquered. May Christ defend us from every ill._

This is the spirit, the key-note, as it were, of Christian life in Rome. We might say, also, that it is the animating principle of her temporal existence. For, save as the centre of the Catholic Church and the see of Peter, Rome would quickly perish. On the hills of the campagna and on the slopes of the mountains around, may still be seen faint vestiges of cities and towns that were illustrious centuries before Rome was founded. They have utterly perished. Others of the same class seem to drag out a lingering existence, as obscure villages, of no importance, whose names no one mentions, and whose ancient history is known only to antiquarians. Many a desert, forest, or plain can show ruins to rival those of the seven hills. Florence, and many a modern city, can boast of galleries of the fine arts and museums to rival, if not to surpass, most of those in Rome. No, it is not for her antiquity, nor for her grand ruins of past ages, nor for her paintings and sculpture, her marbles and mosaics, that Rome stands unrivalled in the world. These are but accessories. Neither they nor any mere human gift can suffice to explain the mystery of her survival, despite so many convulsions and shocks, and her continued and prosperous existence, where all around her has sunk into decay and ruin. Were there no other source of life, these would soon fail her. The treasures of art and antiquity in her galleries, and museums, and public buildings would soon be shattered by spoliation or conquest, and she would be left desolate and stricken like her crumbling ruins. It is the moral power of Christianity which gives her a life and a strength beyond that of the sword. It is the presence of that pontiff who is the visible head of the church, and the centre of Catholic unity and of spiritual authority, which saves her from the fate of other cities. Her true source of life is her religious position. When, centuries ago, the popes, wearied out by the tumults of the people and the turbulence of the barons, withdrew for peace' sake, and abode for seventy years in Avignon, Rome dwindled down to be little better than a village of ten or fifteen thousand souls. The Romans spoke of that time as a Babylonian captivity. With the return of the pontiffs, prosperity was again restored. When, in the early part of the present century, Pius VII. was borne away and held captive for years in France, and Rome was annexed to the French empire, the population of the city quickly sank to one hundred and thirteen thousand, and was rapidly diminishing. When he returned, in 1814, it began to rise again, and to-day Rome has nearly double that population. Were the sovereign pontiff to be driven into exile to-morrow, as Garibaldi and Mazzini, and the _Italianissimi_ of Florence desire, Rome would again, and at once, enter on a downward career of misery and ruin. In twenty years she would lose all her treasures and half of her population. All this is clear to the Romans themselves; all the more clear from the fate which has overtaken those cities of the states of the church which were annexed to the kingdom of Italy eight or ten years ago. No wonder that, in 1867, neither the artful emissaries of Ratazzi nor the military parade of Garibaldi was able to gather recruits to their attempt, either from the country around or from the city itself. The Romans would shudder at the thought of a renewal of that attempt, as at a terrible calamity.

But we must not wander away into such considerations. This theme, though most important to the Romans and often on their lips, is of too worldly a character. For this month, at least, we leave it aside, and join that immense crowd of strangers who have filled Rome, drawn hither to look on the council, and to unite in the solemn offices of Holy-Week, more solemn and imposing this year than perhaps ever before, on account of the vast number of bishops uniting in their celebration. Once, the German element used to stand prominent before all others, in the crowd of strangers that flocked to Rome for Holy-Week; afterward the English, and laterly the Americans, became conspicuous. This year, although they were probably as numerous as ever, they seemed to sink into the background before the vast number of French who filled the holy city, and who, almost without exception, had come in the spirit of earnest, fervent Catholics. They were fully as numerous and fully as demonstrative as at the centenary celebration in 1867. Their coming was announced by the ever-increasing numbers who, each day that a general congregation of the council was held, gathered at St. Peter's at half-past eight A.M., to see the bishops enter, or at one P.M., to see them come forth from the council hall.

In ordinary times, the pope and cardinals celebrate nearly all the offices of Holy-Week, not in St. Peter's, which is left to the canons and clergy of that basilica, but in the Sixtine chapel, which is the pope's court chapel, so to speak, within the Vatican palace. It is as large as a moderate American church. About one half is railed off as a sanctuary for the pontiff, and the cardinals and their attendants, and for the other clergymen who are required or are privileged to attend the services in this chapel. The remaining half, assigned to the laity, will hold four or five hundred seated or standing, as the case may be. The number desiring to enter is so great that often a seat can be obtained only by coming two or three hours before the time for commencing the services. This year, if the bishops were to be present, the whole chapel would have to be used as a sanctuary, and no room would remain for any of the laity. To avoid this embarrassment, and the consequent disappointment of thousands, it was settled that this year the papal services of Holy-Week should be celebrated, not in this Sixtine chapel, but in St. Peter's itself, where, besides all the bishops, ten thousand others might attend, and seem only a moderate-sized crowd grouped close to the sanctuary.

To St. Peter's, then, on Palm-Sunday morning, came the papal choir, and half a thousand bishops, archbishops, primates, and patriarchs, the cardinals with their attendants, and the holy father himself, for the blessing of the palms and the other services of the day. They were substantially the same as the services in ten thousand other churches of the Catholic world that day. But here, there were of course a splendor and magnificence that could be rivalled nowhere else. The palms to be blessed lay in masses regularly arranged near the throne of the pontiff. They seemed scarcely to differ from the branches of our southern palmetto. On many of them the long leaves were fancifully plaited, so as to represent a branch surrounded by roses, lilies, leaves, and crosses. The Catholic negroes that came to the United States from San Domingo years ago used to do something similar. There is an interesting story about these palms. On the tenth of September, 1586, Fontana, the architect and engineer of St. Peter's, was to lift to its present position in the middle of the square before St. Peter's, the immense unbroken mass of stone which formed an Egyptian obelisk that had been erected in the amphitheatre of Nero, and still stood not far off, its base buried in the earth that centuries had accumulated around it. It was a mighty, a perilous work, to transport this obelisk, three hundred yards, ever keeping it in its upright position, and at the end to lift it up and plant it on the lofty pedestal. Pope Sixtus V. and all Rome were there to look on. In default of steam-engines and hydraulic rams, not then invented, Fontana used a huge scaffolding, ropes, blocks and tackle, and windlasses, and hundreds of operatives. Any mistake or confusion as to orders or delay in executing them might overthrow the immense pillar, and prove disastrous to the work, and fatal perhaps to scores of lives. In view of the emergency, a kind of military law was proclaimed, whereby all lookers-on were to keep silence, under penalty of death. Fontana, standing aloft, gave his orders, the wheels were turned, the ropes tightened, the mighty mass slowly moved on, the pedestal was reached. The obelisk was lifted up. Hours rolled on, and still it rose gradually but truly. At length it stood within a few feet of its destined position. But it would go no farther. The ropes, bearing the strain of the weight for so many hours, had stretched, and some were threatening to snap. Fontana stood pale and speechless at the impending disaster, which he now saw no way of averting. Suddenly a clear, manly voice was heard from out of the crowd, "_Wet your ropes! wet your ropes!_" Fontana at once seized the happy thought. The ropes were wetted, swelled and contracted to their original state, and soon the huge obelisk stood upright and firm on the solid pedestal, and the daring work was crowned with complete success. Meanwhile, the officers had seized the man that cried out; he was brought before the pope, who thanked him and embraced him. He was asked who he was, and what reward he desired. His name was Bresca, a sailor from San Remo, near Nice. His family owned a palm-grove there, and the reward he asked was the privilege of supplying St. Peter's every year for ever with the palm-branches to be blessed and used on Palm-Sunday. It was granted. Nearly three centuries have passed, but the family of Bresca is still at San Remo, has still palm-groves, and every year there comes a small vessel from that port, laden with the palm-branches for St. Peter's. May it continue to come three hundred years hence!

The holy father, in that clear, sweet, and majestic voice, for which he is remarkable, chanted the prayers for the blessing of the palms. To the blessing succeeded the distribution. One after another, the cardinals gravely advanced, the long silk trains of their robes rustling on the carpet as they moved forward; each one received a palm-branch; the oriental patriarchs, the primates, and a number of the archbishops and bishops, as representatives of their brethren, followed after the cardinals, and received each his branch. Meanwhile the choir was singing the exquisite anthems, "Pueri Hebræorum," appointed for that occasion. It was a simple, yet a most effective and thrilling scene. The cardinals stood in their long line, the rich gold ornamentation of their chasubles shining brightly on the violet silk, on their heads the mitre or the red _calotte_ of their rank. Before each one stood his chaplain in dark purple, holding the decorated palm-branch, like a lance. In the middle, as the lines of Oriental and Latin prelates in their rich and varied robes approached the holy father, or retired, each one bearing his palm-branch, there was a perpetual changing and shifting and intermingling of colors, as in a kaleidoscope. Near the pope, stood the senator and other civil officers of Rome, in their mediæval mantles. The Swiss guard, in a military dress of broad stripes, red and yellow, or black and yellow, some of them wearing steel corselets and breastplates, and all wearing the plumed Tyrolean military hat; they stood motionless as statues, holding their bright halberds upright. The Noble Guard, in their rich uniform, stood here and there; and on both sides, line after line of bishops, robed in cappa magnas, formed a massive and imposing background. Add to all these, the religious orders, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans of every family, Augustinians, Benedictines, Cistercians, Canons Regular, Theatines, Servites, Crociferi, and many others, each in the costume of his order or congregation, and all bearing branches of blessed palm. Add still the continuous chanting of those unrivalled voices and the indistinct bass murmur or rustling of the vast crowd. It was a scene which carried one away. You did not strive to catch every note of Palestrina's beautiful composition. It was enough to drink in the sound. You scarcely thought of reciting the words of a prayer--there are none assigned for the time of distribution specifically--you found it easier to indulge a train of devotional thought, and to unite with it something of pious admiration.

Next followed the procession in commemoration of the solemn entry of our Saviour into Jerusalem, five days before his Passion. Leaving the sanctuary, the long lines of singers, of the religious orders, of bishops and prelates, and of cardinals, and finally the pope with his attendants, passed down the nave of the church, out by one door into the vestibule, and, returning by another into the church, again came up the nave and entered the sanctuary. The strains of the "Gloria, Laus, et Honor," the hymn for that procession, always beautiful, and infinitely more so when sung to-day by this choir, swelled as the procession approached you, became fainter and sweeter as it passed on. You caught but a faint murmur of melody while they were in the vestibule, and the notes rose again as the procession entered the church and moved slowly onward to the sanctuary.

Then came the high mass, which an archbishop celebrated, by special permission, at the high-altar. Without such permission, no one save the holy father himself celebrates there. During this mass the entire history of the Passion of our Lord, as given in the Gospel of St. Matthew, is sung. On Good-Friday, the same history is sung, as given by St. John. Perhaps no portion of the chants of the church in use at the present day is as ancient and venerable as the mode in which the Passion is chanted. The old classic Greek style is preserved, and, fundamentally at least, the melody must be Grecian, although perhaps somewhat changed to suit our modern gamut. The ordinary mode is to distribute the whole among three singers, one of whom chants all the narrative or historical portion. Whenever the Saviour speaks, a second singer chants his words. A third singer comes in at the proper times to chant whatever is said by others. In the Sixtine chapel, and here in St. Peter's to-day, there is a slight change made, which from its appropriateness and effective character we cannot but look on as in part, at least, a return toward the original idea of such a chant. One singer, an exquisite tenor, took up the narrative portion in a _recitativo_, closing each sentence with the modulations with which many of our readers must be well acquainted. A baritone voice, one of the richest, smoothest, most majestic, and most plaintive and sympathetic we ever heard, chanted the Saviour's part. There was not in it a note that we had not heard before scores of times, but never as they were now chanted. One could, it seemed, listen to him for ever; when he closed one sentence, your eye ran along the page to mark the verse, at which you would hear him again. As he uttered the words, you drank them in, in their sense rather than in the music, realizing something of their pathos and majesty. It was as if in truth you stood near him in Gethsemane, before Annas, and Caiaphas, before Pilate; as if you walked with him along the sorrowful way, as if you stood so near the cross on Calvary that every word he spoke, every tone of his voice, entered your heart. Years cannot efface from our minds the memory of that wondrous chant. It seems still to ring in our ears. The portions usually assigned to a third singer are here distributed among several, who chant singly, or together, as the words are spoken by one, or by several, or by a multitude. Thus, a soprano and a contralto unite to sing the words of the two false witnesses. The mutual contradiction of the witnesses is indicated by the irregularity of the time, and the discords that are repeatedly introduced. When the crowd cries out, "_Away with him; crucify him; we will have no king but Cæsar_," the whole choir bursts forth. You hear the trembling shrill tones of age, the hissing words of irate manhood, the shrill trebles of excited women, the full incisive words of the priests, and the clamors of the unthinking rabble. When they cry, "_His blood be upon us and upon our children_," the voices, full at the beginning, grow tremulous and weaker as they proceed, and some are silent, as if reluctant to pronounce the terrible words of the imprecation. And when the soldiers, after scourging the Saviour, and putting on his head the crown of thorns, place the reed in his hands and kneel before him, saluting him, _Hail, King of the Jews_, the words are sung by three or four voices with a softness, a sweetness, and an earnestness which would make you think that, for the moment, and in spite of themselves, they felt the divine truth of the words they intended to utter in mockery.

In the entire cycle of music there is nothing so sublime and so touching as the Passion of our Lord, sung by the papal choir in St. Peter's.

On Tuesday, in Holy-Week, a general congregation of the council was held in the usual form. As we stated in our last number, the fathers voted on the entire draught, then before them, either _placet_, _placet juxta modum_, or _non placet_. We need add nothing to the account we then gave.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons the bishops attended in St. Peter's at the office of the Tenebræ. On each occasion, twenty-five or thirty thousand persons about half-filled the church, to hear the lamentations, and, above all, the far-famed Misereres heretofore only to be heard in the Sixtine chapel.

The papal choir is composed of about twenty-five singers. Basses, baritones, contraltos, tenors, and sopranos, all chosen voices of the first quality, and all trained for years in the special style of singing of this choir, different from that of any other we ever heard, and in the peculiar traditions as to the precise style in which each of their principal pieces should be executed. They say themselves, that without this special training the mere notes of the score would by no means suffice to guide another choir, at least so as to produce the marvellous effects which they attain. They have in their repertory over forty Misereres, composed by their different _maestri_, or chiefs, during the last three centuries. Not more than four of these are placed by them in the first rank. On Wednesday, that by Baini was sung; on Thursday, that of Allegri, and on Friday, one by Mustafa, the present leader of the choir.

That of Allegri is acknowledged to be the best. He was born in Rome in 1560, and became a celebrated composer and singer. In 1629, he entered this choir, at the age of sixty-nine, and was its leader for twenty-three years, dying in 1652 at the ripe age of ninety-two. His Miserere is of such incontestable merit that it is always one of the three sung each year, and not unfrequently it has been sung twice in the same year.

Baini was born in Rome in 1775, entered the papal choir at about the age of thirty, became _maestro_ or leader in 1824, and died about twenty years ago. He was the most learned musical scholar of Italy in his day, and published a number of works. As a composer, he ranked very high. His Miserere is esteemed next to that of Allegri. There is a difference between them. The older composer was filled with a sense of the full meaning of the psalm as a whole, and varies the expression in each verse according to the sense of the entire verse. Baini, on the contrary, is disposed to dwell on the special sense of each word and minor phrase, bringing these points into higher relief than Allegri would. To many, on this account, his Miserere is more intelligible and more pleasing than the other. But a longer familiarity with both invariably reverses this decision.

Mustafa, the present _maestro_ of the papal choir, was likewise born in Rome, and entered the choir thirty years ago, as a soprano singer. On Baini's death, he succeeded to his post. No one in Italy has a more thorough and scientific knowledge of vocal music than he has; and his compositions are among the choicest _morceaux_ of the choir here. His Miserere has several advantages. It was written for the voices now in the choir, and its execution is directed by the composer himself. There is more of the modern style about it than we find in the other two. Hence it is always most pleasing, for style, and the precision and brilliancy with which it is sung.

But besides the artistic excellence which the few trained to analyze and examine such compositions can alone discover and discuss suitably, there is a something about these Misereres which all can feel, and which is far more religious in its character. Once enjoyed, it is never forgotten. As the long office of matins and lauds is slowly chanted, psalm succeeding psalm, and lamentation following lamentation, the lighted candles on the triangular candelabrum are all gradually extinguished, save one, and then, one by one, those on the altar. The shades of evening are coming on. The light of day has become almost a twilight, adding a mysterious indefiniteness to the immensity of the vast edifice. Only through the glory, or circular stained window in the apsis of the basilica, there comes in a golden light from the western sky. The cardinals and bishops are all kneeling in their places, the multitude of twenty-five thousand that have waited two hours for this moment are hushed to deadest silence. A wailing voice is heard--faint, sad, almost bursting into sobs--_Have mercy on me, O God!_ Another and another joins in the entreating cry. It swells and rises, sometimes in passionate, loud supplication, sometimes lowered to broken tones, scarce daring to hope, until an angel voice leads on, _According to thy great mercy_. Verse after verse the wailing, pleading prayer continues, in combinations of matchless voices, and in harmonious strains never heard or dreamed of before. The multitude listen, suppressing their breathing lest they may lose a single one of the silvery tones. Some are kneeling, others who have not room to kneel, in that closely packed crowd, stand with their heads sunk on their breasts. All are silent, yet many a moving lip tells you they are repeating the words with the singers, that they may more fully drink in the sense and the appropriateness of the music. When the last verse closes, there is a sigh, as if they waked from a trance and found themselves in this life again.

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday there were the usual services in St. Peter's, in the forenoon. On the first day, the bishops were required to attend in white copes and mitres. A cardinal sang high-mass, after which came the usual procession of the blessed sacrament, which is conveyed from the main altar to a repository prepared to receive it. This year the chapel of the canons was used for the purpose. Cross and candles and incense led the way. The canons and beneficiaries and other clergy of St. Peter's followed, each one bearing a lighted waxen candle, and responding to the chanted hymns of the choir. A certain number of archbishops and primates came next, and after them the cardinals, all likewise with their lighted tapers. The pontiff himself bore the blessed sacrament, under a rich canopy of gold cloth, upheld on eight staffs of silver gilt, borne by his attendants. Cardinals and clergy, Swiss Guard and Noble Guard, walked slowly on either side; the heads of religious orders followed, bearing their lights; and after them, not two and two, as the regular procession had walked, but more closely pressed together, came the hundreds of bishops. The church, at least the half of it toward the altar, was packed and jammed. Not without some effort had the Swiss and the lines of soldiers kept a small passage-way clear for the procession from the main altar to the chapel of the canons. As the sound of the well-known hymn, the "Pange lingua," was recognized, and the procession started, all who could knelt; those who had not room to do so bowed reverently until the pontiff had passed and had entered the chapel, and the amen of the closing prayer rang through the church.

At once there was a rushing to and fro of the thirty thousand people in the church, one half seeking to pass out to the square in front or to ascend to the broad summit of the colonnade on each side of it; for the pontiff would, in a few minutes, give the solemn pontifical blessing from the loggia or balcony over the main door of St. Peter's. The other half took the occasion to occupy the vacant space closer to the main altar, striving to secure the best positions, from which to witness, as well as they could, the ceremonies to follow in the sanctuary, after the blessing, and trusting that on Easter-Sunday they might be able to behold and to receive the blessing with grander ceremonial than to-day. The holy father and the cardinals came forth from the chapel, and, leaving for a time the basilica by a side-door, passed into the Vatican palace, and from thence to the vast hall immediately over the vestibule of St. Peter's. Borne in his curule chair, he advances to the loggia, or open balcony projecting in the middle toward the square, and looks out on the city, and on the thousands below, that kneel as he stands erect, and, raising both arms aloft toward heaven, calls down on them the blessing of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The solemn and sweet tones of that majestic voice ring through the square, and the words are heard distinctly by the multitudes. A cardinal reads and publishes the indulgence, and the pontiff and the cardinals retire.

Back into the church the mass of people come, a living torrent. In twenty minutes the cardinals and the bishops are again in the sanctuary, while the movement and rustling of the moving and struggling crowd fills the church with the sound as of a deep, continuous, and subdued bass note. At one side of the large sanctuary, which is about one hundred and thirty feet deep, and seventy-five feet broad, an ascent of eight or ten steps leads to a broad platform visible to all. On this platform attendants move about, preparing all that is necessary for the next portion of the ceremony, the _mandatum_, or washing of feet. Soon a line of thirteen figures, dressed as pilgrims in long white woollen robes reaching to the instep, ascend to the platform, and the attendants conduct them to the seats that are prepared. They are priests from abroad who have come to Rome and all eyes are turned to inspect them as they stand ranged in a line. One is an old man stooped with age, with large, piercing dark eyes, and heavy eyebrows, long aquiline nose and high cheek-bones, and ruddy cheeks. The olive tint of his skin looks darker by contrast with his ample flowing beard of patriarchal whiteness. He is from the east. Perhaps those two other younger ones, with full black beards, are from the east likewise. To judge by his almond eye, the long and regular features, and the darkish skin, another was an Egyptian. Of a fifth there could be no mistake. He was from Senegambia in Africa, and his surname was _Zamba_, or, as we call it in America, _Sambo_. His jet black skin, his negro features, the blue spectacles he wore, and his instinctive attitude of dignity made him the most conspicuous in the number. They entered, wearing tall white caps, in shape something like stove-pipe hats without any rim, and with a tuft on the summit; long white dresses of the shape you may see in the miniatures of illuminated manuscripts written a thousand years ago; and even, their stockings and shoes were white as their dress. As all were ready, the pontiff enters, and the choir intones the antiphon, "Mandatum novum"--"A new command I give you." Some preliminary prayers are chanted, and the pontiff, putting off the cope, but retaining his mitre, is girded with an apron, and ascends the platform. An attendant unlaces the shoe on the right foot of the first pilgrim, and lets down the stocking. Other attendants present the ewer of water and the towels; the pontiff, stooping down or kneeling, washes the instep, dries it with a towel, and kisses it. While the attendants raise the stocking and lace the shoe, the holy father gives to the pilgrim a large nosegay, which in former times contained a coin to aid him on his journey homeward. He did the same one by one to all of them. During this touching ceremony the choir continued to sing anthem after anthem; but few present did more than listen vaguely and enjoy the sound, so preoccupied, or rather so fascinated, all seemed to be by a ceremony so rarely used in the church, and so fully recalling our divine Saviour's act and instruction before the Last Supper. Few have ever seen it in church, save as to-day here in St. Peter's, on Holy-Thursday. It may be said to be carried out, too, on a larger scale and in a practical way, all these days in Rome. There is a large institution here called _La Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini_, where, during Holy-Week, thousands of poor pilgrims, who have come on foot, and reach Rome weary and foot-sore, are received, and supplied with two meals a day and beds for three days and nights. There is one department for the men, and another for the women and children. Each evening, after the conclusion of the services in the churches, they return to the institution. Cardinals, bishops, priests, and laymen in numbers, nobles and private individuals, are there, and wash their feet (thoroughly) and wait on them at the table. In the female department princesses, duchesses, and ladies of every degree and station, titled and untitled, are there to perform the same offices for the women and children. All these ladies belong to several charitable confraternities and associations in the city; and by one of their rules no one of them is allowed the privilege of uniting in this work in Holy-Week unless she has, during the past year, paid at least a stated number of charitable visits to the prisons and hospitals. We do not know whether the men have the same admirable rule.

After the washing of the feet in St. Peter's, the pope retired, and the pilgrims followed. The services in the church itself were over. But there was something else, which as many as could wished to see. The pope was to serve the pilgrims at table. In the large hall mentioned above as being situated over the vestibule of the church, and from which the pope went out to the loggia to give the blessing, a long table had been prepared and decorated. Soon the pilgrims entered and stood at their places; and the hall was filled with thousands of spectators. The pontiff came in, attended by three or four cardinals, his own attendants, and a number of bishops. He said the grace, and a monsignore read a portion of the Scriptures, and then continued to read a book of sermons. Meanwhile, the pope was passing to and fro, from one end of the table to the other, helping each one to soup, to fish, and to wine; and finally, giving them his special blessing, he retired. The services had commenced at nine A.M. It was now two P.M.

The holy oils were blessed, not in St. Peter's, but in St. John Lateran's; for St. Peter's is the cathedral of the pope as Pope and Bishop of the Catholic Church. St. John's is his cathedral as Bishop of Rome.

On Friday morning the offices in St. Peter's were precisely the same as in every other cathedral, differing only in the presence of the sovereign pontiff and the cardinals, and the large number of bishops, who attended robed in purple _cappa magna_. The "Improperia," sung while the pope, the cardinals, and the bishops approached to kneel and kiss the cross, is accounted the master-piece of Palestrina. It is unequalled in its expression of tenderness and of sorrowful reproach. Sung as it was by that unrivalled choir, on this day, when the church is desolate and stripped of all ornament, and the ministers at the altar are robed in sombre black; when burning lights and the smoke of incense are banished from the sanctuary; when one thing only is presented--the image of the crucified Redeemer; one theme only fills prayers, anthems, and hymns alike--the sorrows and death of our Lord on Calvary--its effect seemed overpowering. You thought not of the wondrous charm of the voices; you heeded not the antique melody or the skilful harmonies, as word after word, clearly and distinctly uttered, fell on your ear; the music but rendered more clear and emphatic their sense as it sunk into your heart. You felt that the reproaches of the loving and forgiving Saviour were addressed to you personally, and you bowed in sorrowful confusion as well as in adoration, while you saluted him in the words of early Christian worship, AGIOS O THEOS.

During the service, that portion of his Gospel in which St. John narrates the history of the Passion, was chanted in the same manner as had been the narration by St. Matthew on the preceding Sunday. Prepared as all were, by the services of the days past and by the sublime "Improperia" we had just heard, words cannot express the awe which came on them as they listened to this vivid recitation in music of that grand drama of Good-Friday on the summit of Calvary. It is on such occasions, and with singing like this, that one realizes what force and truth and majesty there is in perfect music, inspired and consecrated by religion.

On Saturday, the bishops were divided between St. Peter's and St. John's. In the latter church, besides the usual services, there were also the instruction of catechumens, the baptism of converts with the form for grown persons, and at the mass a grand ordination, at which tonsure, all the minor orders, subdeaconship, deaconship, and priesthood were conferred on those who had been examined and found worthy of the grades to which they aspired. In all, they were about sixty.

In St. Peter's, the services were only the usual ones of the church for this day--the blessing of the font, the chanting of the prophecies, the blessing of the paschal candle, and the solemn high-mass celebrated by a cardinal. The pope was present. One would have thought that, at his age, after the fatigues of the days past, and in view of the long functions of the morrow, it would be proper that he should have one day of quiet, or at least of comparative quiet. But Pius IX. never thinks of sparing himself. Many of the bishops were at St. John's. But those who were in St. Peter's heard the grand mass "of Pope Marcellus," as it is called, by Palestrina. This is the mass which was composed and sung in 1565, and which, it is said, won from the pope and cardinals the reversal of an absolute prohibition they had almost determined on, of all music and singing in church save the Gregorian chant, on account of the bad taste and abuses of musicians and singers, who introduced profane and worldly music even into the mass. No one who heard those grand religious choral strains could fail to see how solemnly, and fully, and appropriately they expressed in music the sublime character of the service. Such music does not distract; on the contrary, it fixes the thoughts, and soothes and guides the feelings into a channel of devotion. It would have been impossible for the cardinals, after listening to this exquisite mass, to arrive at a different conclusion.

From Thursday until Saturday, all the bells of Rome had been silent. There was a visible shade of sorrow on the city, a public grief, as it were, for the tragedy of Calvary. But in view of the joyous resurrection close at hand, this silence of sorrow is soon to pass away. It was near eleven A.M. when the high-mass commenced at St. Peter's. At the Gloria, a signal was given, and the gigantic Bourdon and the other bells of the basilica broke into a grand peal. The guns of St. Angelo answered, and, quick as sound could travel, all the thousand bells of all the steeples and belfrys of Rome, without exception, joined in the clamorous yet not unpleasant or unmusical chorus. The rooks, and ravens, and doves, and swallows flew to and fro, frightened from their nests, half-stunned, and utterly distracted. When the pealing chorus ended--and it lasted for a full half-hour--Rome had put off her sadness, and friends were exchanging the happy salutations of Easter.

In the afternoon an Armenian bishop celebrated high-mass, according to their rite, at four P.M. in one church, and, at the same hour, a Chaldean prelate celebrated high-mass, according to his rite, in another. In the earlier centuries, this mass of the resurrection was celebrated by all after midnight, on Saturday night. The Orientals have brought it forward to Saturday afternoon; the Latins have gradually advanced it to the forenoon. Sunday dawned, a bright, clear, pleasant, cloudless Italian spring day. At an early hour carriages of every kind were pouring in long lines over every bridge across the Tiber, and hurrying on to St. Peter's, and tens of thousands were making their way thither on foot. By nine o'clock, the sanctuary is filled with bishops robed in white copes and mitres, and with cardinals in richly adorned white chasubles. Soon the Swiss Guard take their places, and the Noble Guard appear in their richest uniform. Lines of Pontifical Zouaves and the Legion of Antibes, and other soldiers, keep a lane open up the middle of the church, through the immense crowd of, it was estimated, forty thousand persons, from the door of the sanctuary. One tribune on the south side of the sanctuary was filled with members of various royal families now in Rome, some on a visit, some staying here permanently. On the other side was a tribune for the diplomatic corps, which was filled with ambassadors, ministers resident and envoys, in their rich uniforms and covered with jewelled decorations.