It was a lovely morning near the end of April,—and a Sunday morning, too, when, faithful to its earliest and dearest associations, my mind loves to dwell on many a sweet and sacred spot in fatherland. How often, at such seasons, have I closed my eyes and seen with all the reality of life that church tower which now rears its sacred form amid scenes where I sported in my boyhood! How distinctly have I seemed to hear the peal of those sweet silvery bells, as they called the scattered worshipers to the house of God, until, like so many converging streams, which, after pursuing their tortuous and brawling course amidst rough and desert places, infuse themselves into one another in the depths of ocean, the pilgrims of the world, the careworn and contentious, the thoughtless and the sinful, have been drawn nearer one another by some sweet attraction, till all reposed in the bosom of their God! I cannot tell you, then, what a craving I had this morning to realize some of those imaginations and religious pleasures which memory recalled, nor can I tell you how grievously I was disappointed. The Messa Cantata was being performed as I entered the church; and I had no sooner crossed the threshold, than I heard the loud reverberation of dr-r-r-um, dr-r-um, dr-um, drum, drum. What can be the meaning of all this? thought I. Is there a guard of honour in the church, and are they acknowledging the elevation of this Santissima? But no, this cannot be; for the Gloria, &c., is but just finished. In short, I was quite at a loss to explain it, until I remembered in a moment the direction of the Padre Superiore last evening. "I have heard," said he, "with sorrow, that you have danced and sung during this Carnevale. Abandon these follies. To-morrow morning, bring your tambours and guitars, and offer them to Maria Santissima; and each evening, as you retire to your homes, instead of indulging in these vain frivolities, repeat your Ave Marias and Pater Nosters." Entering the church, then, I was curious to watch the scene a little more closely. Every now and then a feeble dr-r-um, dr-r-um, announced the approach of some more timid devotee; and stealing up the nave might be seen some pretty damsel, whose jetty locks and bright black eyes had more of the angel than the saint about them. On reaching the image of the Madonna, who stood near the pulpit, she hung her broken tambour and stringless guitar on that, and then went her way, thinking, poor soul, that she had struck off I know not how many thousand years of sufferings in purgatory. Dr-r-um, dr-r-um, dr-um, drum, drum, awoke another sound, louder than any I had hitherto heard. It must be a powerful hand, thought I, which produced that sound; and so in fact it was; for, boldly advancing up the centre of the church, I saw a pezzo d'un nomo-a tall, Brobdignag kind of fellow, whose thick moustache and beard announced any thing but the saint; yet the electric fluid of fanaticism had entered into him. That which gin does as well in our country, sometimes, ranting had done for him. He had become a maudlin saint, babbled of hell and purgatory, sulphur and sinners, and, in order to give the last clenching proof of his entire conversion, had now brought up his godless guitar, which with one blow he smote in the middle, and then hung up in the arms of the Madonna. The sacrifice was completed and the sinner saved. I witnessed many such scenes, but to repeat them would be useless; and so I pass on. From my own observation, however, I have nothing more to communicate; as, to tell you the

truth, I was so thoroughly disgusted and excited that I was compelled to beat a retreat and return to Naples. Yet from friends who were present I had faithful accounts of what occurred after I left, and from them I borrow my description of what remains of this Mission. Night after night scenes similar to these were witnessed, increasing, however, in vivacity and depth of colouring as some new addition was made. "Double, double, toil and trouble;

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Fire burn and cauldron bubble !"

Every night," said a friend, "have we been shut into the church and compelled to lash our shoulders, whilst some of the lads brought with them handkerchiefs loaded with stones, and, instead of beating their bodies (wisely or wickedly, as you may take it), beat the benches, making a most agreeable addition to the common discord. We have had, as usual, five preachings a day; and one evening-will you believe it?-after lashing our shoulders, we all received the command to prostrate ourselves and lick the ground (strascinare)-literally to drag our tongues along the ground." Now, there having been perhaps near two thousand persons in the church during the early part of the service, and the Italians to a man, nay to a woman, being devoted to the horrible habit of spitting-so much so, that in places of great resort I have at times rather paddled than walked-it is easy to judge of the agreeableness of the operation commanded. "The scene was comic enough," said my friend, "but for its degradation. We were sprawling over the ground like crabs, and knocking one against another; and on rising, there was an universal clearance of the throat and mouth of the filth which had been swallowed during our involuntary abasement. Of course, I and D. Vincenzo were obliged to act our part, but with what disgust and rage I cannot tell you. We dare not shew this, however, nor act differently from the multitude; and hence it is that we are a nation of hypocrites." There was, of course, the usual conciliation scene when the preacher called up all who were at enmity with one another to embrace beneath the altar. When I first saw it, I was, as I have already told you, wonderfully affected; but I looked upon it as an Englishman, whose emotions, if they be sluggish, are deep and heartfelt and sincere; and, regarding it as a guarantee of peace and love, I thought I had scarcely ever witnessed a more touching scene. Experience, however, has taught me to look upon it as "a scene". —a piece of acting. I have heard a priest even contemptuously speak of it as the peace of the Vespers "- -a thing of short duration, a peace born of momentary excitement or fear of ecclesiastical censure; for you must know that all have been previously prepared in confession, and absolved on certain conditions. "Come, then," says the preacher, "and make peace beneath the blessed cross. I will have all in peace before I leave. Who are you?" addressing an old woman who has tottered up under the pulpit. "Maria "And with whom are

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A poor man told me afterwards, that the benches were removed from the nave of the church that there might be free space for crawling and licking; and that, starting from the entrance door, they were compelled to lick the filthy ground until they arrived at the altar. "For my part, Sir," said he, "my head was jambed in between the leg of another man who was struggling hard, and an image of Maria Santissima; and a hard job I had to liberate my head."

"Paolina

"Paolina - ! Paolina

you at enmity?" shouts the priest; but the crowd is dense, and Paolina has to plough her way through it with not a little difficulty; and on arriving, Maria who has grown impatient, has retired from the scene, so that Paolina remains alone, and looking, as we say, rather small,—or perhaps Maria has waited for her, and then there are sighs and tears and Madonna mias to your heart's content. "Who are you?" again says the priest to a weather-beaten fisherman who is leaning against the pulpit stairs. "Giovanni -—.” “And with whom are you at enmity?" "Guiseppe -;" and there Guiseppe has just arrived, and, locked in each other's embraces, they swear a peace for ever and a day. But the church is over, and all now disperse to their homes. Maria and Paolina live near one another; at so convenient a distance, indeed, that they can, as occasion requires, fire a sharp salute at one another from their respective windows; but they prefer pursuing different paths, and, returning to their houses, shut up their mouths as closely as they have shut up their hearts to one another. As for Giovanni and Guiseppe, some question has arisen between them on the church steps regarding two or three grani, and the cross and the priest and the embraces are all forgotten. It was very well as a scene; and how could it be more than a scene? The wind bloweth where it listeth, and no Lloyd's Company on earth could purchase a cap from the East or the West at will; and much the same is it with the affections. Where is the con

fessor on earth who by a simple command can change the heart of Maria or Paolina, Guiseppe or Giovanni? Now, the facts I have noted are precisely similar to those which some two or three years since so much affected me; yet how different is the colouring which I have given them! Each description, however, is equally true, the only difference arising from the different degrees of experience with which I regarded the several scenes.

Another evening had arrived, and the preacher, instead of advancing to the pulpit in his usual staid and dignified manner, entered it from the sacristy at a good sharp run through the church. He was in a state of great excitement, and soon proceeded to inform his hearers of the cause of it. "Poor Padre Superiore! poor Padre Superiore! There he is in the sacristy, sweating his very blood for a scavezzone un straccione un'ubriacone, who will not confess. Had he come to me, I would have given him a kick and sent him out of church." Curious to know the history of this affair, I made inquiries, and found that the sinner had that morning made some advantageous agreement with a brother shopkeeper. One of the priests of the country had called the shopkeeper into the church, and, by means of a small bribe, persuaded him to break the engagement in favour of his own brother. The sinner, being thus as much or more injured, perhaps, in his worldly interests as wounded in his moral feelings, refused to confess, alleging as a reason that a priest had that morning taken the bread out of his mouth, and he had no confidence. "Figlio mio," said the confessor (the confession of the men was face to face and in public), "confess." "No, I will not confess." "But you will go to the house of the Devil if you do not confess" (casa del Diavolo). "No matter, I shall go there with the priests." How the matter terminated, I know not, but this was the reason of the hasty run and the excitement of the preacher.

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Later in the evening, pointing towards two men who stood at the door, he exclaimed, 'Ah, there they are! there they are! Look at them there they are! two disperati! condannati!" The consequence was, that, overwhelmed with shame and fear, they left the church; and one was taken so ill in the night that he was obliged to be bled. It was the following morning that the communion was administered to the young, and a pretty coup d'œil it is. On such an occasion, the girls, all wearing white veils and crowned with thorns, advance to the altar, two and two, sometimes to the number of several hundreds. This morning, before partaking of the Ostia, in addition to the usual ceremonies, they were compelled, the girls to kiss the feet of their mothers and the men of their fathers, in the midst of the church. The last evening of the Mission has arrived: to-morrow, these Santi Padri are to leave, and one other effort must yet be made to keep up the excitement. "Figli miei," said the preacher, "what shall I do? I cannot take leave of you-my heart is broken. Oh, what shall I do? Padre Superiore mio, why have you chosen me to give this predica grande ? What grief have you laid up in store for me? I have formed a passion for this lovely place, and would fain remain here for ever. Leave me behind, I beseech you" (here the Padre Superiore, who had doubtless heard the same expostulations in fifty different places, gravely shook his head, as much as to say, No, brother mine, it cannot be.) “You ask me to leave something behind me. Figli miei, I have nothing to leave you. I have only four ragged shirts; my bed and linen are lent to me; these robes, they belong to Maria Santissima. I am a poor man, and have nothing to leave you-nothing but my heart, which I leave with you perforce. Think of me and pray for me when I have left, and I will pray for you. Oh, what grief-oh, what grief-is this parting!" Here the preacher, apparently unable to utter another word, threw himself on the cushions, weeping and sobbing; whilst the women, not to be behindhand, lifted up their voices and wept and shrieked at least twice as bitterly as Rachel, for not only they would not, they could not be be comforted.

Mingling with a people comparatively enlightened, and constitutionally different from the Italians, you will be half disposed to regard some of the descriptions which I now send you as mere exaggerations. The style of eloquence, the force and the publicity of the passions displayed, are so thoroughly un-English, that they may strike you first as absurd, and then, by a not unnatural train of reasoning, as impossible. Yet nothing, I assure you, can be truer than the statements which I here send you, on which, having first pointed out one or two of the peculiarities of the Mission, I shall trouble you with some remarks in conclusion. I told you at the beginning of this letter that Confession was the great object of this Mission; and so in fact it was, though I have taken up so much space in detailing the "farragine" of the preacher. Every one was literally hunted into the confessional; and farther experience tells me, that politically nothing is so enslaving, and morally nothing so degrading in its tendencies, as confession. What I have yet to tell you will be in illustration of these two points. The theory of confession is indeed beautiful, but, like some enchanted aërial castle, it has no foundations. Councils, too, have laid down rules for its proper exercise, yet experience proves that such rules are of no force in the

face of strong interests. The utmost tenderness and delicacy are ordered to be observed with regard to the conscience of the penitent. Nothing is to be extorted; everything voluntary. Well, then, compare such facts as these:-A young girl enters the confessional. She is ordered to bring her private letters to her confessor, and she brings them, suppressing, however, some of the most tender character. Thus this exorbitant and impertinent authority of the priest was acknowledged and submitted to-he yet remaining, however, deceived to a certain extent; whilst the girl, in part yielding and part deceiving, according to the theory of confession, is compelled to lie to the Holy Ghost. Two other girls went to confession, having nothing to reveal but the slight and daily peccadilloes incident to human weakness. "Tu sei un Diavolo!" says the priest; and to the other, "Tu sei la figlia del Demonio!" The poor damsels, going away mortified and discouraged, revealed what had happened to each other, and vented their anger on the confessor by abusing him. "Che brutto vecchio! che brutto vecchio!" (What an ugly old fellow!) being about the strongest reproach they could make to him; for the Italian, who dwells in a Paradise full of forms of beauty, and dreams of perpetual youth, can imagine no greater misfortune, or even disgrace, than that of being old or ugly. A few days after, they were compelled to renew their confession, previous to receiving absolution, and, having tender consciences, believed themselves obliged to confess the reproaches which they had uttered on their confessor; whereupon the venerable man asserted that he was not old. And a rich scene it must have been, to have heard the confessor thus standing up for his teens! Frequent instances, too, occur of individuals being questioned, not merely with regard to their own affairs, but to those of others, even of the most trivial as well as of the most important character, the Padri Confessori thus making themselves the receptacles of all the gossip, scandal, private and public acts of the district, and becoming as effective a police as the most arbitrary government could desire. Nor is it uncommon for the confessor to ask permission of the penitent to reveal his confession to the Padre Superiore-a request of a most reprehensible character, because having all the force of a moral obligation; for who, for instance, when kneeling in the confessional, in strict communion with this "God upon earth," and subdued by the associations of the place, could well refuse? Yet it must in justice be added, that such excesses, however they may be the common practice of the Church, are condemned expressly by the words of the 4th Lateran Council: "Caveat autem omnino ne verbo aut signo aut alio quovis modo, aliquatenus prodat peccatorem. Sed si prudentiorum consilio indiguerit, illud absque ulla expressione persona caute requirat. Quoniam qui peccatum in pœnitentiali judicio sibi detectum præsumpserit revelare non solum a Sacerdotali officio deponendum decernimus, verum etiam ad agendum perpetuam pœnitentiam in arctum monasterium detrudendum." In Danes Institutiones Doctrinæ Christianæ, too, it is stated, "Ut nullo unquam tempore, nullo prætextu, nulla de causa; directe aut indirecte ulli mortalium revelare liceat, quod ex sola confessione Sacramentali Sacerdos intellexerit." The last observation which I shall make with regard to this batch of confessions, is one which might be made with equal truth of every private confession-that it was marked by indelicacies in questions put to the 3 Y

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