intance I had the happiness to make, but whose name
I do not here mention, I repaired one day to the Collegio Romano,--a
fine quadrangular building; and, after visiting its library, in whose
"dark unfathomed caves" lies full many a monkish gem, I passed to the
class-room of Professor Perrone. It was a lofty hall, benched after the
manner of our own class-rooms, and hung round with portraits of the
Professor's predecessors in office,--at least I took them for such. A
tall pulpit rose on the end wall, with a crucifix beside it. The
students were assembling, and mustered to the number of about an
hundred. They were raw-boned, seedy-looking lads, of from seventeen to
twenty-two. They all wore gowns, the majority being black, but some few
red. Had I been a rich man, and disposed to signalize my visit to the
Collegio Romano by some appropriate gift, I would have presented each of
its students with a bar of soap, with directions for its use. In a few
minutes the Professor entered, wearing the little round cap of the
Jesuits. With that quiet stealthy step (an unconscious struggle to pass
from matter into spirit, and assume invisibility) which is inseparable
from the order, Father Perrone walked up to the pulpit stairs, which,
after doffing his cap, and muttering a short prayer before the crucifix,
he ascended, and took his place. It may interest those who are familiar
with his writings, to know that Father Perrone is a man of middle size,
rather inclined to obesity, with a calm, pleasant, thoughtful face,
which becomes lighted up, as he proceeds, with true Italian vivacity.
His lecture for the day was on the Evidences; and of course it was not
the heretics, but the infidels, whom he combated throughout. In the
number of his students was a young Protestant American, whom I first met
in the house of the Rev. Mr Hastings, the American chaplain, where I
usually passed my Sabbath evenings. This young man had chalked out for
himself the most extraordinary theological course I ever heard of. He
had first of all gone through a full curriculum in one of the old
orthodox halls of the United States; he had then passed into Germany,
where he had taken a course of neology and philosophy; and now he had
come to Rome, where he intended to finish off with a course of Romanism.
I ventured to engage him in a conversation on what he had learned in
Germany; but we had not gone far till both found that we had lost
ourselves in a dark mist; and we wer