March 5.--I have returned from Romayne's sermon.This double renegade--has he not deserted his religion and his wife?--has failed to convince my reason.But he has so completely upset my nerves that I ordered a bottle of champagne (to the great amusement of my friend the banker) the moment we got back to the hotel.
We drove through the scantily lighted streets of Rome to a small church in the neighborhood of the Piazza Navona.To a more imaginative man than myself, the scene when we entered the building would have been too impressive to be described in words--though it might perhaps have been painted.The one light in the place glimmered mysteriously from a great wax candle, burning in front of a drapery of black cloth, and illuminating dimly a sculptured representation, in white marble, of the crucified Christ, wrought to the size of life.In front of this ghastly emblem a platform projected, also covered with black cloth.We could penetrate no further than to the space just inside the door of the church.Everywhere else the building was filled with standing, sitting and kneeling figures, shadowy and mysterious, fading away in far corners into impenetrable gloom.
The only sounds were the low, wailing notes of the organ, accompanied at intervals by the muffled thump of fanatic worshipers penitentially beating their breasts.On a sudden the organ ceased; the self-inflicted blows of the penitents were heard no more.In the breathless silence that followed, a man robed in black mounted the black platform, and faced the congregation.His hair had become prematurely gray; his face was of the ghastly paleness of the great crucifix at his side.The light of the candle, falling on him as he slowly turned his head, cast shadows into the hollows of his cheeks, and glittered in his gleaming eyes.In tones low and trembling at first, he stated the subject of his address.A week since, two noteworthy persons had died in Rome on the same day.One of them was a woman of exemplary piety, whose funeral obsequies had been celebrated in that church.The other was a criminal charged with homicide under provocation, who had died in prison, refusing the services of the priest--impenitent to the last.The sermon followed the spirit of the absolved woman to its eternal reward in heaven, and described the meeting with dear ones who had gone before, in terms so devout and so touching that the women near us, and even some of the men, burst into tears.Far different was the effect produced when the preacher, filled with the same overpowering sincerity of belief which had inspired his description of the joys of heaven, traced the downward progress of the lost man, from his impenitent death-bed to his doom in hell.The dreadful superstition of everlasting torment became doubly dreadful in the priest's fervent words.He described the retributive voices of the mother and the brother of the murdered man ringing incessantly in the ears of the homicide."I, who speak to you, hear the voices," he cried."Assassin! assassin! where are you? I see him--I see the assassin hurled into his place in the sleepless ranks of the damned--I see him, dripping with the flames that burn forever, writhing under the torments that are without respite and without end." The climax of this terrible effort of imagination was reached when he fell on his knees and prayed with sobs and cries of entreaty--prayed, pointing to the crucifix at his side--that he and all who heard him might die the death of penitent sinners, absolved in the divinely atoning name of Christ.The hysterical shrieks of women rang through the church.I could endure it no longer.I hurried into the street, and breathed again freely, when I looked up at the cloudless beauty of the night sky, bright with the peaceful radiance of the stars.
And this man was Romayne! I had last met with him among his delightful works of art; an enthusiast in literature; the hospitable master of a house filled with comforts and luxuries to its remotest corner.And now I had seen what Rome had made of him.
"Yes," said my companion, "the Ancient Church not only finds out the men who can best serve it, but develops qualities in those men of which they have been themselves unconscious.The advance which Roman Catholic Christianity has been, and is still, making has its intelligible reason.Thanks to the great Reformation, the papal scandals of past centuries have been atoned for by the exemplary lives of servants of the Church, in high places and low places alike.If a new Luther arose among us, where would he now find abuses sufficiently wicked and widely spread to shock the sense of decency in Christendom? He would find them nowhere--and he would probably return to the respectable shelter of the Roman sheepfold."I listened, without making any remark.To tell the truth, I was thinking of Stella.
March 6.--I have been to Civita Vecchia, to give a little farewell entertainment to the officers and crew before they take the yacht back to England.
In a few words I said at parting, I mentioned that it was my purpose to make an offer for the purchase of the vessel, and that my guests should hear from me again on the subject.This announcement was received with enthusiasm.I really like my crew--and I don't think it is vain in me to believe that they return the feeling, from the sailing-master to the cabin-boy.My future life, after all that has passed, is likely to be a roving life, unless--No! I may think sometimes of that happier prospect, but I had better not put my thoughts into w ords.I have a fine vessel; I have plenty of money; and I like the sea.There are three good reasons for buying the yacht.
Returning to Rome in the evening, I found waiting for me a letter from Stella.
She writes (immediately on the receipt of my telegram) to make a similar request to the request addressed to me by her mother.Now that I am at Rome, she too wants to hear news of a Jesuit priest.