Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber Part 12

The second street,--that on the right,--is the Via Ripetta, which leads off in the direction of St Peter's and the Vatican. It takes one nigh the tomb of Augustus, now converted into a hippodrome; the Pantheon, whose pristine beauty remains undefaced after twenty centuries; the Collegio Romano; and, towards the foot of the Capitol, the Ghetto,--a series of mean streets, occupied by the Jews. The third street,--that on the left,--is the Via Babuino. It traverses the more aristocratic quarter of Rome,--if we can use such a phrase in reference to a city whose n.o.bles are lodging-house keepers, and live--

"Garreted In their ancestral palace,"--

running on by the Piazza di Spagna, which the English so much frequent, to the Quirinal, the Pope's summer palace, and the form of Trajan, whose column, after the many copies which have been made of it, still stands unrivalled and unapproached in beauty.

"And though the pa.s.sions of man's fretful race Have never ceased to eddy round its base, Not injured more by touch of meddling hands Than a lone obelisk 'mid Nubian sands."

On the Corso there is considerable bustle. The little buying and selling that is done in Rome is transacted here. Half the population that one sees in the Corso are priests and French soldiers. The population of Rome is not much above an hundred thousand; its ecclesiastical persons, however, are close on six thousand. Let us imagine, if we can, the state of things were the ecclesiastics of all denominations in Scotland to be doubled, and the whole body to be collected into one city of the size of Edinburgh! Such is the state of Rome. The great majority of these men have no duty to do, beyond the dreary and monotonous task of the daily lesson in the breviary. They have no sermons to write and preach; they do not visit the sick; they have no books or newspapers; they have no family duties to perform. With the exception of the Jesuits, who are much employed in the confessional, the whole fraternity of regulars and seculars, white, black, brown, and gray, live on the best, and literally do nothing. But, of course, six thousand heads cannot be idle. The amount of mischief that must be continually brewing in Rome,--the wars that shake convents,--the gossip and scandal that pollute society,--the intrigues that destroy families,--may be more easily imagined than told.

Were the secret history of that city for but one short week to be written, what an astounding doc.u.ment it would be! and what a curious commentary on that mark of a "true Church," _unity_! Well were it for the world were the plots hatched in Rome felt only within its walls.

On the streets of the Eternal City you meet, of course, every variety of ecclesiastical costume. The eye is at first bewildered with the motley show of gowns, cloaks, cowls, scapulars, and veils; of cords, crosses, shaven heads, and naked feet,--provoking the reflection what a vast deal of curious gear it takes to teach Christianity! There you have the long black robe and shovel hat of the secular priest; the tight-fitting frock and little three-cornered bonnet of the Jesuit; the shorn head and black woollen garment of the Benedictine;--there is the Dominican, with his black cloak thrown over his white gown, and his shaven head stuck into a slouching cowl;--there is the Franciscan, with his half-shod feet, his three-knotted cord, and his coa.r.s.e brown cloak, with its numerous pouches bulging with the victuals he has been begging for;--there is the Capuchin, with his bushy beard, his sandaled feet, his patched cloak, and his funnel-shaped cowl, reminding one of Harlequin's cap;--there is the Carmelite, with shaven head begirt with hairy continuous crown, loose flowing robe, and broad scapular;--there is the red gown of the German student, and the wallet of the begging friar. This last has been out all morning begging for the poor, and is now returning with replenished wallet to his convent on the Capitol, where dwell monks now, as geese aforetime. After dining on the contents of his well-filled sack, with a slight addition from the vineyards of the Capitol, he will scatter the crumbs among the crowd of beggars which may be seen at this hour climbing the convent stairs.

But however these various orders may differ in the colour of their cloaks or the shape of their tonsure, there is one point in which they all agree,--that is, dirt. They are indescribably filthy. Clean water and soap would seem to be banished the convents, as indulgences of the flesh which cannot be cherished without deadly peril to the soul, and which are to be shunned like heresy itself. They smell like goats; and one trembles to come within the droppings of their cloak, lest he should carry away a few little _souvenirs_, which the "holy man" might be glad to part with. A fat, stalwart, bacchant, boorish race they are, giving signs of anything but fasting and flagellation; and I know of nothing that would so dissipate the romance which invests monks and nuns in the eyes of some, like bringing a ship-load of them over to this country, and letting their admirers see and smell them.

Even the ordinary priest appears but little superior to the monk in the qualities we have named. Dirty in person, slovenly in dress, and wearing all over a careless, fearless, bullying air, he looks very little the gentleman, and, if possible, less the clergyman. But in Rome he can afford to despise appearances. Is he not a priest, and is not Rome his own? Accordingly, he plants his foot firmly, as if he felt, like Antaeus, that he touches his native earth; he sweeps the crowd around with a full, scornful, defiant eye; and should Roman dare to measure glances with him, that brow of bra.s.s would frown him into the dust. In Rome the "priest's face" attains its completest development. That face has not its like among all the faces of the world. It is the same in all countries, and can be known under every disguise,--a soldier's uniform or a porter's blouse. At Maynooth you may see it in all stages of growth; but at Rome it is perfected; and when perfected, there is an entire blotting out of all the kindly emotions and human sympathies, and there meets the eye something that is at once below and above the face of man. If we could imagine the scorn, pride, and bold bad daring of one of Milton's fallen angels, grafted on a groundwork of animal appet.i.tes, we should have a picture something like the priest's face.

The priests will not be offended should the beggars come next in our notice of the Eternal City. The beggars of Rome are almost an inst.i.tution of themselves; and, though not chartered, like the friars, their numbers and their ancient standing have established their rights.

What is it that strikes you on first entering the "Holy City?" Is it its n.o.ble monuments,--its fine palaces,--its august temples? No; it is its flocks of beggars. You cannot halt a moment, but a little colony gathers round you. Every church has its beggar, and sometimes a whole dozen. If you wish to ascertain the hours of any ceremony in a church, you are directed to ask its beggar, as here you would the beadle. Every square, every column, every obelisk, every fountain, has its little colony of beggars, who have a prescriptive right to levy alms of all who come to see these objects. We shall afterwards advert to the proof thence arising as to the influence of the system of which this city is the seat.

Rome, though it surpa.s.ses all the cities of the earth in the number, beauty, and splendour of its public monuments, is imposing only in parts. It presents no effective _tout ensemble_. Some of its n.o.blest edifices are huddled into corners, and lost amid a crowd of mean buildings. The Pantheon rises in the fish-market. The Navonna Mercato, which has the finest fountain in Italy, is a rag-fair. The church of the Lateran is approached through narrow rural lanes. The splendid edifice of St Paul's stands outside the walls, in the midst of swamps and marshes so unwholesome, that there is not a house near it. The meanest streets of Rome are those that lie around St Peter's and the Vatican. The Corso is in good part a line of n.o.ble palaces; but in other parts of the city you pa.s.s through whole streets, consisting of large ma.s.sive structures, once comfortable mansions, but now squalid, filthy, and unfurnished hovels, resembling the worst dens of our great cities.

It cannot fail to strike one, too, as somewhat anomalous, that there should be such a vast deal of ruins and rubbish in the _Eternal_ City.

And as regards its sanitary condition, there may be a great deal of holiness in Rome, but there is very little cleanliness in it. When a shower falls, and the odour of the garbage with which the streets are littered is exhaled, the smell is insufferable. One had better not describe the spectacles that one sees every day on the marble stairs of the churches. The words of Archenholtz in the end of last century are still applicable:--"Filth," says he, "infects all the great places of Rome except that of St. Peter's; nor would this be excepted from the general rule, but that it lies at greater distance from the dwellings.

It is incredible to what a pitch filthiness is carried in Rome. As palaces and houses are mostly open, their entrance is usually rendered unsufferable, being made the receptacle of the most disgustful wants."

In fine, Rome is the most extraordinary combination of grandeur and ruin, magnificence and dirt, glory and decay, which the world ever saw.

We must distinguish, however: the grandeur has come down to the Popes from their predecessors,--the filth and ruin are their own.

CHAPTER XXII.

ANCIENT ROME--THE SEVEN HILLS.

Site of Ancient Rome--Calm after the Storm--The Seven Hills--Their General Topography--The Aventine--The Palatine--The Ruins of the Palace of Caesar--View of Ruins of Rome from the Palatine--The Caelian--The Viminale--The Quirinal--Other two Hills, the Janiculum and the Vatican--The Forum--The Arch of t.i.tus--The Coliseum--The Mamertine Prison--External Evidence of Christianity--Rome furnishes overwhelming Proofs of the Historic Truth of the New Testament--These stated--The Three Witnesses in the Forum--The Antichrist come--_Coup d'OEil_ of Rome.

But where is the Rome of the Caesars, that great, imperial, and invincible city, that during thirteen centuries ruled the world? If you would see her, you must seek for her in the grave. You are standing, I have supposed, on the tower of the Capitol, with your face towards the north, gazing down on the flat expanse of red roofs, bristling with towers, columns, and domes, that covers the plain at your feet. Turn now to the south. There is the seat of her that once was mistress of the world. There are the Seven Hills. They are furrowed, tossed, cleft; and no wonder. The wars, revolutions, and turmoils of two thousand years have rolled their angry surges over them; but now the strife is at an end; and the calm that has succeeded is deep as that of the grave.

These hills, all unconscious of the past, form a scene of silent and mournful beauty, with fragments of temples protruding through their soil, and humble plants and lowly weeds covering their surface.

The topography of these famous hills it is not difficult to understand.

If you make the Capitoline in which you stand the centre one, the remaining six are ranged round it in a semi-circle. They are low broad swellings or mounts, of from one to two miles in circ.u.mference. We shall take them as they come, beginning at the west, and coming round to the north.

First comes the AVENTINE. It rises steep and rocky, with the Tiber washing its north-western base. It is covered with the vines and herbs of neglected gardens, amid which rises a solitary convent and a few shapeless ruins. At its southern base are the baths of Caracalla, which, next to the Coliseum, are the greatest ruin in Rome.

Descend its eastern slope,--cross the valley of the Circus Maximus,--and you begin to climb the PALATINE hill, the most famous of the seven. The Palatine stands forward from the circular line, and is divided from where you stand only by the little plain of the Forum. It was the seat of the first Roman colony; and when Rome grew into an empire, the palace of the Caesars rose upon it, and the Palatine was henceforward the abode of the world's master. The site is nearly in the middle of ancient Rome, and commands a fine view of the other hills, the Capitol only overtopping it. The imperial palace which rose on its summit must have been a conspicuous as well as imposing object from every part of the city. Three thousand columns are said to have adorned an edifice, the saloons, libraries, baths, and porticos of which, the wealth and art of ancient Rome had done their utmost to make worthy of their imperial occupant. A dark night has overwhelmed the glory that once irradiated this mount. It is now a huge mountain of crumbling brickwork, bearing on its broad level top a luxuriant display of cabbages and vines, amid which rise the humble walls of a convent, and a small but tasteful villa, which is owned, strange to say, by an Englishman. The proprietor of the villa and the little colony of monks are now the only inhabitants of the Palatine. In walking over it, you stumble upon blocks of marble, remains of terraces, vaults still retaining their frescoes, arches, porticos, and vast substructions of brickwork, all crushed and blended into one common ruin. In these halls power dwelt and crime revelled: now the owl nestles in their twilight vaults, and the ivy mantles their crumbling ruins. The western side of this mound rises steep and lofty, crested with a row of n.o.ble cypress trees. They are tall and upright, and wear in the mind's eye a shadowy shroud of gloom, looking like mourners standing awed and grief-stricken beside the grave of the Caesars. When the twilight falls and the stars come out, their dark moveless figures, relieved against the sky, present a sight peculiarly impressive and solemn.

The general aspect and condition of the Palatine have been sketched by Byron with his usual power:--

"Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower, grown, Matted and ma.s.sed together, hillocks heaped On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescoes steeped In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped, Deeming it midnight;--temples, baths, or halls, p.r.o.nounce who can; for all that learning reaped From her research hath been, that these are walls.

Behold the imperial mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls."

But Cowper rises to a yet higher pitch, and reads the true moral which is taught by this fallen mount. For to Rome may we apply his lines on the fall of the once proud monarchy of Spain.

"Art thou, too, fallen, Iberia? Do we see The robber and the murderer weak as we?

Thou that hast wasted earth, and dared despise Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies, Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid Low in the pits thine avarice has made.

We come with joy from our eternal rest, To see the oppressor in his turn oppressed.

Art thou the G.o.d, the thunder of whose hand Rolled over all our desolated land, Shook princ.i.p.alities and kingdoms down, And made the mountains tremble at his frown?

The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers, And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours.

'Tie thus Omnipotence his law fulfils, And Vengeance executes what Justice wills."

One day I ascended the Palatine, picking my steps with care, owing to the abominations of all kinds that cover the path, to spend an hour on the mount, and survey from thence the mighty wrecks of empire strewn around it. The steps of the stair by which I ascended were formed of blocks of marble, the half-effaced carvings on which showed that they had formed parts of former edifices. Protruding from the soil, and strewn over its surface, were fragments of columns and capitols of pillars. I emerged on the summit at the spot where the vestibule of Nero's palace is supposed to have stood. I thought of the guards, the senators, the amba.s.sadors, that had crowded this spot,--the spoils, trophies, and monuments, that had adorned it; and my heart sank at the sight of its naked desolation and dreary loneliness. The flat top of the hill ran off to the south, covered with a various and somewhat incongruous vegetation. Here was a thicket of laurels, and there a clump of young oaks; here a garden of vines, and there rows of cabbages.

A monk, habited in brown, was looking out at the door of his convent; and one or two women were busy among the vegetables, making up a load for market. On the farther edge of the hill rose the tall, moveless, silent cypresses of which I have spoken. On the right rose the square tower of the Capitol, with the perperine substructions of its Tabularium, coeval with the age of the kings; and skirting its base were the cupolas of modern churches, and the nodding columns of fallen temples, beautiful even in their ruin, and more eloquent than Cicero, whose living voice had often been heard on the spot where they now moulder in silent decay. A little nearer was the naked, jagged front of the Tarpeian rock, crested a-top with gardens, and its base buried in rubbish, which is slowly gaining on its height. In front was a n.o.ble bend of the Tiber, rolling on in mournful majesty, amid the majestic silence of these mighty desolations. Beyond were the red roofs and mean streets of the Trastevere, with the empty upland slope of the Janiculum, crowned by the line of the gray wall. Behind, and immediately beneath me, was the Forum, where erst the Romans a.s.sembled to enact their laws and choose their magistrates. A ragged line of ghastly ruins,--porticos without temples, and temples without porticos, their n.o.ble vaultings yawning like caverns in the open day,--was seen bounding its farther edge. Its floor was a rectangular expanse of shapeless swellings and yawning pits. Here reposed a herd of buffaloes; there a little drove of swine; yonder stood a row of carts; and in the midst of these noways picturesque objects rose the gray arch of t.i.tus. At its base sat a beggar; while an artist, at a little distance, was sketching it with the calotype. A peasant was traversing the Via Sacra, bearing to his home a supply of city-baked bread. A dozen or two of old men with spades and barrows were clearing away the earth from the ruins of the Temple of Venus and Rome. In the south-eastern angle of the plain rose the t.i.tanic bulk of the Coliseum, fearfully gashed and torn, yet sublime in its decay. Over the furrowed and ragged summits of the Caelian and Esquiline mounts were seen the early snows, glittering on the peaks of the Volscian and Sabine range. Such was the scene which presented itself to me from the top of the Palatine. How different, I need not say, from that which must have often met the eye of Caesar from the same point, prompting the proud boast,--"Is not this great" Rome, "that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, that didst weaken the nations!... Is this the man that did make the earth to tremble,--that did shake kingdoms,--that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof?"

A little eastward of the Palatine, and seen over its shoulder, as surveyed from the tower of the Capitol, is the CaeLIAN Mount. Its summit is marked by the ruins of an ancient edifice,--the Curia Hostilia,--and the statued front of a modern temple,--the church of S. John Lateran, which is even more renowned in the pontifical annals than the other is in cla.s.sic story. Moving your eye across the valley of the Forum, it falls upon the flat surface of the ESQUILINE. It is marked, like the former, by an ancient ruin and a modern edifice. Amid its vineyards and rural lanes rise the ma.s.sive remains of the baths of t.i.tus, and the gorgeous structure of Maria Maggiore. The VIMINALE comes next; but forming, as it did, a plain betwixt the Esquiline and the Quirinal, it is difficult to trace its limits. It is distinguishable mainly by the baths of Dioclesian, now a French barrack, and the church of San Lorenzo, which occupies its highest point. The QUIRINAL is the last of the Seven Hills. It is covered with streets, and crowned with the summer palace and gardens of the Pope.

Thus have we made the tour of the Seven Hills, commencing at the Aventine on the extreme right, and proceeding in a semicircular line over the low swellings which lie in their peaceful covering of flower and weed, onward to the Quirinal, which rises, with its glittering cas.e.m.e.nts, on the extreme left. They hold in their arms, as it were, modern Rome, with the Tiber, like a golden belt, tying in the city, and bounding the Campus Martius, on which it is seated. On the west of the Tiber are other two hills, which, though not of the seven, are worth mentioning. The first is the JANICULUM, with the _Trastevere_ at its base. The inhabitants of this district pride themselves on their pure Roman blood, and look down upon the rest of the inhabitants as a mixed race; and certainly, if ferocious looks and continual frays can make good their claim, they must be held as a colony of the olden time, which, nestling in this nook of Rome, have escaped the intermixtures and revolutions of eighteen centuries. It has been remarked that there is a striking resemblance between their faces and those of the ancient Romans, as graven on the arch of t.i.tus. They are the nearest neighbours of the Pope, whose own hill, the VATICAN, rises a little to the north of them. On the Vatican mount stood anciently the circus of Nero; and here many of the early Christians, amid unutterable torments, yielded up their lives. On the spot where they died have arisen the church of St Peter and the palace of the Vatican,--now but another name for whatever is formidable to the liberties of the world.

But beyond question, the spot of all others the most interesting in Rome is the Forum. You look right down into it from where you stand. Whether it be the eloquence, or the laws, or the victories, or the magnificent monuments of ancient Rome, the light reflected from them all is concentrated on this plain. How often has Tully spoken here! How often has Caesar trodden it! Over that very pavement which the excavations have laid bare, the chariots of Scylla, and of t.i.tus, and of a hundred other warriors, have rolled. But the triumphs which this plain witnessed, once deemed eternal, are ended now; and the clods which that Italian slave turns up, or which that priest treads on so proudly, are perchance part of the dust of that heroic race which conquered the world. The tombs of the Caesars are empty now, and their ashes have been scattered long since over the soil of Rome. Of the many beautiful edifices that stood around this plain, not one remains entire: a few mouldering columns, half buried in rubbish, or dug out of the soil, only remain to show where temples stood. But there is one little arch which has survived that dire tempest of ruin in which temple and tower went down,--the Arch of t.i.tus, which has sculptured upon its marble the sad story of the fall of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews. That little arch, wonderful to tell, stands between two mighty ruins,--the fallen palace of the Caesars on the one hand, and the kingly but ruined ma.s.s of the Coliseum on the other.

As regards the Coliseum, architects, I believe, do not much admire it; but to myself, who did not look at it with a professional eye, it seemed as if I had never seen a ruin half so sublime. I never grew weary of gazing upon it. It rises amid the h.o.a.r ruins of Rome, scarred and rent, yet wearing an eternal youth; for with the most colossal size it combines in the very highest degree simplicity of design and beauty of form. To stand on its area, and survey the sweep of its broken benches, is to feel as if you were standing in the midst of an amphitheatre of hills, and were gazing on concentric mountain-ranges. How powerfully do its a.s.sociations stir the soul! How many spirits now in glory have died on that arena! The Romans, we shall suppose, have been occupied all day in witnessing mimic fights, which display the skill, but do not necessarily imperil the life, of the combatants. But now the sun is westering; the shadow of the Palatine begins to creep across the Forum, and the villas on the Alban hills burn in the setting rays, and the Romans, before retiring to their homes, demand their last grand spectacle,--the death of some poor unhappy captive or gladiator. The victim steps upon the arena amid the deep stillness of the overwhelming mult.i.tude. It is no mimic combat his: he is "appointed to death." This lets us into the peculiar force of Paul's words, "I think that G.o.d hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were, appointed to death; for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men."

But the most touching recollection connected with this city is this,--even that part of the Word of G.o.d was written in it, and that a greater than Caesar has trodden its soil. A few paces below where we stand is the Mamertine prison, in whose dungeons, it is probable, Paul was confined; for this was the state-prison, and offences against religion were accounted state-offences. It is hewn in the rock of the Capitoline hill, dungeon below dungeon; and when surveying it, I could not but feel, that among all the exploits of Roman valour, there was not one half so heroic as that of the man who, with a cruel death staring him in the face, could sit down in this dungeon, where day never dawned, and write these heroic words,--"I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."

Here I may be allowed to allude to a branch of the external evidence of Christianity which has not received all the notice to which it is ent.i.tled. When surveying from the tower of the Capitol the ruins of ancient Rome, I felt strongly the absurdity--the almost idiotcy--of denying the historic truth of Christianity. On such a spot one might as well deny that ancient Rome existed, as deny that Christianity was preached here eighteen centuries ago, and rose upon the ruins of paganism. At the distance of Rome, and amid the darkness of Italian ignorance, we can conceive of a Roman holding that the life of Knox is a fable,--that no such man ever existed, or ever preached in Scotland, or ever effected the Reformation from Popery. But bring him to the Castle Hill of Edinburgh,--bid him look round upon city and country, studded with the churches and schools of the reformed faith, planted by Knox,--show him the mouldering remains of the old cathedrals from which the priesthood and faith of Rome were driven out,--and, unless his mind is const.i.tuted in some extraordinary way, he would no longer doubt that such a man as Knox existed, and that Scotland has been reformed from Romanism to Presbyterianism. So is it at Rome. Around you are the temples of the ancient paganism. Here are ruins still bearing the inscriptions and effigies of the pagan deities and the pagan rites. Can any sane man doubt that paganism once reigned here? You can trace the history of its reign still graven on the ruins of Rome; but you can trace it down till only seventeen centuries ago: then it suddenly stops; a new writing appears upon the stones; a new religion has acquired the ascendancy in Rome, and left its memorials graven upon pillar, and column, and temple. Can any man doubt that Paul visited this city,--that he preached here, as the "Acts of the Apostles" records,--and that, after two centuries of struggles and martyrdoms, the faith which he preached triumphed over the paganism of Rome? Look along the Via Sacra,--that narrow paved road which leads southward from the Capitol: the very stones over which the chariot of Scylla rolled are still there.

The road runs straight between the Palatine Mount, where the ivy and the cypress strive to mantle the ruins of the palace of the Caesars, and the wonderful and ever beautiful structure of the Coliseum. In the valley between is a beautiful arch of marble,--the Arch of t.i.tus. The palace of the world's master lies in ruins on the one side of it; the Coliseum, the largest single structure which human hands ever created, stands rent, and scarred, and bowed, on the other; and between these two mighty ruins this little arch rises entire. What a wonderful providence has spared it! On that arch is graven the record of the fall of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews; and the great fact of the existence of the Old Testament economy is also attested upon it; for there plainly appears on the stone, the furniture of the temple, the golden candlestick, the table of shew-bread, and the silver trumpets. But further, about two miles to the south of Rome are the Catacombs. In these catacombs, which, not unlike the coal-mines of our own country, traverse under ground the Campagna for a circuit of many miles, the early Christians, lived during the primitive persecutions. There they worshipped, there they died, and there they were buried; and their simple tombstones, recording that they died in peace, and in the hope of eternal life through Christ, are still to be seen to the number of many thousands. How came these tombstones there, if early Christianity and the early martyrs be a fable? If Christianity be a forgery, the arch of t.i.tus, with its sacred symbols, is also a forgery; the catacombs, with all their tombstones, are also a forgery; and the hundred monuments in Rome, with the traces of early Christianity graven upon them, are also a forgery; and the person or persons who forged Christianity, in order to give currency to their forgery, must have been at the incredible pains of building the arch of t.i.tus, and chiselling out its sculpture work; they must have dug out the catacombs, and filled them, with infinite labour, with forged tombstones; and they must have covered the monuments of Rome with forged inscriptions. Would any one have been at the pains to have done all this, or could he have done it without being detected?

When the Romans rose in the morning, and saw these forged inscriptions, they must have known that they were not there the day before, and would have exposed the trick. But the idea is absurd, and no man can seriously entertain it whom an inveterate scepticism has not smitten with the extreme of senility or idiotcy. There is far more evidence at Rome for the historic truth of Christianity than for the existence of Julius Caesar or of Scipio, or of any of the great men whose existence no one ever takes it into his head to doubt.

Here, in the Forum, are THREE WITNESSES, which testify respectively to three leading facts of Christianity. These witnesses are,--the Arch of t.i.tus, the fallen Palace on the Palatine, and the Column of Phocas. The Arch of t.i.tus proclaims the end of the Old Testament economy; for there, graven on its marble, is the record of the fall of the temple, and the dispersion of the Jewish nation. The ruin on the Palatine tells that the "let" which hindered the revelation of the Man of Sin has now been "taken out of the way," as Paul foretold; for there lies the prostrate throne of the Caesars, which, while it stood, effectually forbade the rise of the popes. But this solitary pillar, which stands erect where so many temples have fallen, with what message is it freighted? It witnesses to the rise of Antichrist. That column rose with the popes; for Phocas set it up to commemorate the a.s.sumption of the t.i.tle of Universal Bishop by the pastor of Rome; and here has it been standing all the while, to proclaim that "that wicked" is now revealed, "whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." Such is the united testimony borne by these three Witnesses,--even that the Antichrist is come.

To complete this _coup d'oeil_ of Rome, it is necessary only that we transfer our gaze for an instant to the more distant objects. Though swept, as the site of Rome now is, with the besom of destruction, the outlines, which no ruin can obliterate, are yet grand as ever.

Immediately beneath you are the red roofs and glittering domes of the city; around is a gay fringe of vineyards and gardens; and beyond is the dark bosom of the Campagna, stretching far and wide, meeting the horizon on the west and south, and confined on the east and north by a wall of glorious hills,--the sweet Volscians, the blue Sabines, the craggy Apennines, with their summits--at least when I saw them--h.o.a.ry with the snows of winter. Spectacle terrible and sublime! Ruin colossal and unparalleled! The Campagna is a vast hall, amid the funereal shadows and unbroken stillness of which repose in mournful state the ASHES OF ROME.

CHAPTER XXIII.

STRIKING OBJECTS IN ROME.

The Baths of Caracalla--The Catacombs--Evidence thence arising against Romanism--The Scala Santa, or Pilate's Stairs--Peasants from Rimini climbing them--Irreverence of Devotees--Unequal Terms on which the Pope offers Heaven--Church of Ara Caeli--The Santissimo Bambino--Conversation with the Monks who exhibit it--The Ghetto, or Jew's Quarter--Efforts to Convert them to Romanism--Tyrannical Restrictions still imposed upon them--Their Ineradicable Characteristics of Race--The Vatican--The Apollo Belvedere--Pio Nono--His Dress and Person--St Peter's--Its Grandeur and Uselessness--Motto on Egyptian Obelisk--Gate of San Pancrazio--Graves of the French--The Convents--Exhibition of Nuns--Collegio Romano and Father Perrone--An American Student--The English Protestant Chapel--Preaching there--American Chaplain--Collection in Rome for Building a Cathedral in London--Sermon on Immaculate Conception in Church of Gesu--Ave Maria--Family Worship in Hotel--Early Christians of Rome--Paul.

I have already mentioned my arrival at midnight, and how thankful I was to find an open door and an empty bed at the Hotel d'Angleterre. The reader may guess my surprise and joy at discovering next morning that I had slept in a chamber adjoining that of my friend Mr Bonar, from whom I had parted, several weeks before, at Turin. After breakfast, we sallied out to see the Catacombs. I had found Rome in cloud and darkness on the previous night; and now, after a deceitful morning gleam, the storm returned with greater violence than ever. Torrents swept the streets; the lightning was flashing on the old monuments; fearful peals of thunder were rolling above the city; and we were compelled oftener than once during our ride to seek the shelter of an arched way from the deluge of rain that poured down upon us. Skirting the base of the Palatine, and emerging on the Via Appia, we arrived at the Baths of Caracalla, which we had resolved to visit on our way to the Catacombs.

No words can describe the ghastly grandeur of this stupendous ruin, which, next to the Coliseum, is the greatest in Rome. Besides its saloons, theatre, and libraries, it contained, it is said, sixteen hundred chairs for bathers. As was its pristine splendour, so now is its overthrow. Its cyclopean walls, and its vast chambers, the floors of which are covered to the depth of some twelve or twenty feet with fallen ma.s.ses of the mosaic ceiling, like immense boulders which have rolled down from some mountain's top, are spread over an area of about a mile in circuit. The ruins, here capped with sward and young trees, there rising in naked jagged turrets like Alpine peaks, had a romantic effect, which was not a little heightened by the alternate darkness of the thunder-cloud that hung above them, and the incessant play of the lightning among their worn pinnacles.

Resuming our course along the Appian Way, we pa.s.sed the tomb of the Scipios; and, making our exit by the Sebastian gate, we came, after a ride of two miles in the open country, to the basilica of San Sebastiano, erected over the entrance to the Catacombs. Pulling a bell which hung in the vestibule, a monk appeared as our cicerone, and we might have been pardoned a little misgiving in committing ourselves to such a guide through the bowels of the earth. His cloak was old and tattered, his face was scourged with s...o...b..tic disease, misery or flagellation had worn him to the bone, and his restless eye cast uneasy glances on all around. He carried in his hand a little bundle of tallow candles, as thin and worn as himself almost; and, having lighted them, he gave one to each of us, and bade us follow. We descended with him into the doubtful night. The place was a long shaft or corridor, dug out of the brown tuffo rock, with the roof about two feet overhead, and the breadth two thirds or so of the height. The descent was easy, the turnings frequent, and light there was none, save the glimmerings of our slender tapers. The origin of the Catacombs is still a disputed question; but the most probable opinion is, that they were formed by digging out the pozzolana or volcanic earth, which was used as a cement in the great buildings of Rome. They extend in a zone round the city, and form a labyrinth of subterranean galleries, which traverse the Campagna, reaching, according to some, to the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean. He who adventures into them without a guide is infallibly lost. They speak at Rome of a professor and his students, to the number of sixty, who entered the Catacombs fifty years ago, and have not yet returned. Certain it is, that many melancholy accidents have occurred in them, which have induced the Government to wall them up to a certain extent. I had not gone many yards till I felt that I was entirely at the mercy of the monk, and that, should he play me false, I must remain where I was till doomsday.

But what invests the Catacombs with an interest of so touching a kind is the fact, that here the Christian Church, in days of persecution, made her abode. What! in darkness, and in the bowels of the earth? Yes: such were the Christians which that age produced. At every few paces along the galleries you see the quadrangular excavations in which the dead were laid. There, too, are the niches in which lamps were placed, so needful in the subterranean gloom; and occasionally there opens to your taper a large square chamber, with its walls of dark-brownish tuffo and its stuccoed roof, which has evidently been used for family purposes, or as a chapel. How often has the voice of prayer and praise resounded here! The Catacombs are a stupendous monument of the faith and constancy of the primitive Church. You have the satisfaction here of knowing that you have the very scenes before you that met the eyes of the first Christians. Time has not altered them; superst.i.tion has not disfigured them. Such as they were when the primitive believers fled to them from a Nero's cruelty or a Domitian's tyranny, so are they now.