ampion of either side. I can
understand that for some minds the ideas of Church unity, of a mystic
communion of the faithful, and of an infallible head of a spiritual body
have a strange attraction, nay, even a real existence. I can understand
too, that for such persons all the pomps and pageantry of the Papal
services present themselves under an aspect to me unintelligible. Whether
these ideas be right or wrong, I am not able, nor do I care, to argue.
The Pontifical ceremonies, however, have not only a spiritual aspect, but
a material and very matter-of-fact one. They are after all great
spectacles got up with the aid of music and upholstery and dramatic
mechanism. Now, how far in this latter point of view the ceremonies are
successful or not, I think from some small experience I am pretty well
qualified to judge; and if I am asked whether, as ceremonies, the
services of the Church of Rome are imposing and effective, I answer most
unhesitatingly, No. I know that this assertion upsets a received article
of faith in Protestant England as to the seductive character of the Papal
ceremonies. I remember well the time when I too believed that the
shrines of the old faith were the haunts of sense-enthralling grandeur,
of wild enchantment and bewitching beauty; when I too dreamt how amidst
crowds of rapt worshippers, while unearthly music pealed around you and
the fragrant incense floated heavenwards, your soul became lost to
everything, save to a feeling of unreasoning ecstasy. In fact, I
believed in the enchantments of Papal pageantry, as firmly as I believed
that a Lord Mayor's feast was a repast in which Apicius would have
revelled, or that an opera ball was a scene of oriental and voluptuous
delight. Alas! I have seen all, and known all, and have found all three
to be but vanity.

Now the question as to the real aspect of the Papal pageantry, and the
effects produced by it upon the minds, not of controversialists, but of
ordinary spectators, is by no means an unimportant one with reference to
the future prospects of Italy and the Papacy. Let me try then, not
irreverently or depreciatingly, but as speaking of plain matters of fact,
to tell you what you really do see and hear at the greatest and grandest
of the Roman ceremonies. Of all the Holy Week services none have a more
European fame, or have been more written or sung about, than the
Misereres in the Sistine Chapel. Now to be present at these services you
ha