NOT long ago I was staying at a little town amongst the beautiful hills of Savoy. A nice little girl, belonging to one of the waiters at the hotel, was often to be seen playing about. Her father, who seemed to be very fond of her, came one day to tell us, with great satisfaction, that his little girl was going to be an angel. This did not mean that she was going to die and turn into an angel, as I have sometimes heard people say of their departed friends, No doubt you are aware that nobody ever does really turn into an angel. Those who die, and go to be with the Lord, remain human beings; only, when raised from the dead, with perfect bodies and souls, and they will be higher than the angels, because they are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ, and their bodies will be like His glorious body. This, however, the waiter did not know anything about, and he did not mean either that his little girl was at all likely to die. It was only that she was to be dressed up as an angel to walk in a procession, and he was pleased at this, because the prettiest little girls were chosen to be angels, and their parents thought they looked all the prettier in the angel’s dress, which I will describe to you by and by.
The next day the procession was to pass through the town. It was a very strange sight for people not accustomed to such things. An English laborer in the hay season, with his tanned face, would look fair and fresh beside the laborers in the sunny vineyards of Savoy. These men, or rather the older ones amongst them, to the number of sixty or seventy, headed the procession, each one carrying in his hand, in the broad daylight, a very long lighted tallow candle.
Their old and withered faces, the color of mahogany, their rough grizzly hair and beards, formed a very strange contrast to the flowing veils of white muslin which they wore over their heads. They were clad also in flowing robes of the same muslin, in the manufacture of which economy had not been forgotten, for the bottom of their dark corduroy trousers, and their heavy hobnailed, boots, were seen pounding along the pavement below the hem of their garments.
They were followed by perhaps a larger number of old women, as brown and as withered as themselves, who also carried tallow candles in their trembling hands, dropping the tallow upon their white robes, which were made like those of the men.
The angels followed. They were very numerous, and of various sizes. Some were tall shop girls with gay parasols; others, like the waiter’s little girl, were small toddling children. The robes of the angels were also of muslin, but of various colors; pink and emerald green seemed to be the prevailing taste. Small stars, hearts, and diamonds cut out in gilt paper were stuck in profusion upon the muslin, and each angel was furnished with a large pair of paper wings, not in the shape of the feather wings, which are commonly seen in the pictures of angels, but in the shape of a butterfly’s wings, and gaudily painted and gilt.
The angels were followed by chorister boys and priests, and here and there, walking alone, was a saint, which means a person representing one of the saints whose names are put down in the calendar. The saint whom I best remember was a clumsy looking boy of ten, dressed in a sheepskin, and carrying under his arm, as you would carry a rather unwieldy parcel, a large sheep from a toy shop, the stand and wheels having been taken off.
“That,” said a man who stood by, “is St. John the Baptist, but he doesn’t carry his lamb in the right way. The fact is that the real St. John the Baptist, who has had to practice carrying the lamb, is only six years old, and when they put on his hairy garment just now he kicked and screamed, and said it scratched him, and the curate had to find another boy, and give him ten pence to be St. John, instead of the little one. So, you see, his garment doesn’t fit, and he doesn’t know how to make the best of himself.”
At last came several boys, in robes of many colors, carrying between them large clothes baskets of rose leaves. These leaves they sprinkled as they went, to prepare the way for that which followed, the great crowning object of the procession—what was it? Four priests, dressed in scarlet and gold, carried each one the corner pole, which supported a canopy of scarlet satin with bright yellow fringe. Underneath walked the chief priest, in a robe of various colors, carrying a gaudy cushion, upon which was a gilt shrine. And in this shrine was the little round wafer, in the honor of which the whole procession paraded through the town—the wafer that is called God!
And so it passed on, amongst the mocking laughter of the men and women who stood at the street corners, and turned away from it, saying, “What nonsense!” “Those priests must have something to amuse themselves with, for time must hang heavy on their hands with nothing to do, whilst we are working in the vineyards in the hot sun. Ah, bah!”
“Do you believe that that is the Lord Jesus Christ they are carrying on the cushion?” I said to a woman. I had gone down the steps into her little cellar kitchen, and she was standing with her head just above the pavement.
“Do I believe it?” she said. “Lady, Christ is God, and He is man also. As God He is everywhere. As man, He has a human body, which can only be in one place at a time, and that place is up in heaven. Lady, you couldn’t be here in my little kitchen, and in your hotel at the same moment. Nor can the Lord’s body be in two places at once. No, lady, I do not believe it.”
I must tell you how I made the acquaintance of this woman, Marguerite. On the Sunday before, when we came downstairs to breakfast, we found upon the table a large handbill. It was as follows—
Summer Season, 1877.
FEAST OF PENTECOST (WHIT SUNDAY), AND OF THE FIRE BRIGADE.
May 27.
Program.
10 a.m.—Concert in the Place Centrale.
11 a.m.—Musical Mass.
Noon.—March past of Band, and of Fire Brigade.
12:30—Banquet under the Horse Chestnuts.
3 p.m.—A variety of games.
Donkey races. Jumping in sacks. Blind man’s buff.
Walking on a horizontal pole. Conjuring tricks.
8 p.m.—Illumination of the Public Garden. Fireworks.
To conclude.—Rustic Ball till midnight.
Thus was the day to be spent which, according to the calendar, was set apart in remembrance of the coming of God the Holy Ghost, to unite those who believe the blessed Gospel to Christ in glory!
“Will the priests go to all these amusements?” we asked.
“The priests? Yes, they like a bit of fun as much as we do,” replied the man to whom we put the question.
How would it be possible to have a quiet day? Then we remembered that the more the main streets and the public gardens were crowded, the more quiet and deserted would be the back streets on the hillside. Perhaps it would be a good opportunity to find some of the old and the sick, who would be keeping house alone, whilst the young ones were jumping in sacks, walking on the greased pole, or dancing at the ball. So in this hope, I started on an expedition up a long, steep, narrow, winding street, which ended at last in a sort of wide staircase of rough stones, shaded by a trellis covered with vines. At the corner of the street, before the staircase began, was an old gray house with a niche in the wall. There stood an image in the niche of a woman with a gilt crown, and a gay dress, and a child in her arms. I need not tell you that this was the Virgin Mary, in honor of whom paper flowers were stuck in a gilt jar in front of the niche, and faded stocks and marigolds were hanging by the string which had once tied them into a wreath. Near this niche sat an old woman just outside her door on a rush-bottomed chair. I offered her a gospel, saying—
“Madame, this little book will tell you the way to be saved.”
“Thank you, I know the way to be saved already; I don’t want to learn it.”
“Will you tell me what it is?”
“I can tell you in two words: we must do good works—that’s the way to heaven. Everyone knows that.”
“If that is true, everyone will be lost, for—”
“If you can get to heaven by your good works, why then did the Lord Jesus come down from heaven and die upon the cross? You could have gone there without Him.” These words were spoken suddenly by a voice behind us.
Looking round, it was startling to see, peering above the pavement, the head and shoulders of a woman. A strange, unsightly head! Rough, reddish hair, streaked with gray, hanging wildly in all directions—no cap—a brown and ill-featured face, and bright gray eyes.
“Do you know,” she continued, still addressing her neighbor, “that the Lord died on the cross? What did He die for? Not for His sins, for He had none: He died for ours. Do you know what He said when He was just going to die? He said, ‘It is finished.’
What was finished? He had finished the work that takes us to heaven. And if it was finished, how can you add anything to it?
What more is there to be done when all is finished? And, if we could have done it ourselves, do you think He would have come down here, and have been nailed to the cross, to save us?”
But the old neighbor said only, “Ah, bah! then thieves and drunkards may go to heaven any day, as well as honest people.”
“Let me tell you,” said the woman on the cellar steps, “that it is just the people who believe in Jesus, who are not thieves and drunkards; no, they are changed, and they love God, and they want to please Him. But as to those who believe in their own doings, the less said of their doings the better.”
“Ah, bah!” again said the old neighbor, and, catching up her chair, she disappeared into her house, and shut the door.
So now you see who is Marguerite. She looked sadly after the old neighbor for a moment, and then she invited me into her cellar.
“Did you learn all that from your priest?” I said to her.
“My priest? No; my father and mother told it me.”
“Does your priest say the same?”
“No. I have known a priest sometimes who would say it, but very seldom. No; they think like that old lady, but they don’t know what I think, nor what I say. How can they?”
“Do they never come to look you up?”
“Me! Why should they? I’m not rich, and I’m not ill. No; they leave me alone, and I leave them alone.”
“Are you a Protestant, then?”
“No, I’m a Catholic— that’s what I’m called; but I know some Protestants who think just as I do. After all, the thing is whether we believe in Jesus. People may be called one thing or another, but there are only two sorts after all. I’ve always remarked that.”
“Do you go to mass?”
“Yes, I go sometimes. I’ve been told that one ought to go sometimes; but I don’t go often—I go very seldom, for it does me no good. I don’t understand what the priest says, and I always think he dresses himself up, and turns this way and that, just because he wants something to do. His life must be a very dull one, just because he has so little to do. So I just go in and sit there, but I don’t know what the good of it is.”
“Is it you who hang the flowers round that image?”
“I? No. There are young girls about the place who have nothing better to do. That amuses them; but I have my washing, and I think that’s a better employment.”
“Have you got a Bible?”
“No, I never saw a Bible in my life. All I know I learned from my parents.”
Thus Marguerite had been living all her life, and we may thank God that there may be many more living in the dark places where the Bible is so seldom seen, but yet knowing the great and wonderful gospel, taught to them by God, the Holy Ghost, in few and simple words, “Christ died for our sins.” Happily for them they are untaught and ignorant as to those matters which their priests believe and teach. All the more let us, as we have the opportunity, take to them the blessed word of God. And let none think lightly of the idolatry, and of the sin of those who dare not come to the light lest their deeds should be reproved, and who therefore keep back from the starving souls around them the word of life and salvation—those who profess to change a piece of bread into God Himself—those who fall down and worship it as God—those who make the works of men the door of heaven, and cast contempt upon the perfect work which caused the veil of the temple to be rent in twain—those who profess that they can forgive sins, and bring departed souls out of punishment by their prayers; these men abound even in our land of Bibles, and year by year, more and more of the ignorant and the foolish are falling into their hands, turning from light to darkness, from the Bible to man’s foolish heart, from the Spirit of the living God to music, and shows, and ceremonies.
And thus, whilst many an ignorant French or Italian peasant is looking up simply to Christ, “not knowing the depths of Satan,” there are many amongst us longing after the stolen waters that are sweet, and little knowing that the dead are there, and that the guests of the apostate Church are in the depths of hell.
“It is not at all true that we keep the Bible from the people,” a priest said to me some months since. “Oh no; we earnestly desire them to read it.”
But a few days before, I had received a letter from a young man, also a Catholic, who had once told me he was greatly grieved that the Bible was not read amongst them. He, therefore, began to translate the New Testament into a dialect spoken by many millions, who as yet have no Bible. But his translation proceeded slowly: sometimes his papers were lost—sometimes, on their way to the publishers, they disappeared. It seemed strange and unaccountable. And now, just before the priest’s visit, I had received a letter from him: it was to say that the real cause of all these delays was this—were he to proceed with his work it would bring upon him the “greater excommunication” of the Church.
“This, you know,” he said, “would be for a Catholic a terrible sentence; it would deprive me of all religious privileges till it was removed. As an obedient son of the Church, I could not risk such a sentence, so my work must cease,” and it has ceased.
“I am not of their mind,” he said to me; “but it must be so, and the millions are still waiting for their first Bible.”
“You are quite mistaken as to all this,” continued the priest, when I told him the story. “We are always glad to find any who care to read the Bible. You see, this little Testament I always carry in my pocket.”
Yes, I saw the outside, but I said, “Is not that a book of prayers?”
“Oh no,” said the priest, putting it back in his pocket.
“Can I get one like it?”
“No doubt.”
“But I have often asked for one at the booksellers. They have none; they said they could only get me a large one with notes. Has yours notes?”
“Oh no; nothing but the simple Testament.”
“Then where can I get one?”
“Leave it to me,” said the priest. “I am going to N— tomorrow; I will get you one there, and post it at once.”
But days, weeks, and months have passed, and I am still waiting for it.
F. B.