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    cordingly repaired thither oh this day , an hour before the time appointed , and got in with less difficulty than I expected . At half-past four , the Pope took his seat on the throne , and the service commenced , the whole of it , except a few words , being chanted . I cannot say that the style in which this was done , was at all calculated to awaken my devotional feelings . To me it sounded more like the singing of a number of children than a solemn service intended to honour God * and to benefit man . Some of the ceremonies ,

    too , were extremely puerile . Near the altar were fifteen candles , arranged in an angular form , which were extinguished one after another during the course of the service till at last there was only one left . This , I was told , was meant to represent Jesus Christ , whose light remained burning when that of all the prophets under the Old-Testament dispensation was extinguished . After this , the six immense candles on the altar and those of the screen were put out , so that there was only the solitary ray of the one

    abovementioned to illuminate the chapel , the light of day being gone , as it was now near seven o ' clock . The Miserere and the Tenebrce were then sung , but I was not much better pleased with them than I had been with the chanting . It is wonderful , certainly , that the human voice can be made to produce such a variety of sounds ; but the sopranos are neither natural nor pleasing , and to my simple and untutored taste there was nothing in the tune which deserved to be compared either to the singing in the nunnery , or

    to the chanting in the Minster , at York . At the conclusion there was a great pattering of feet . On asking what it meant , I was answered by an English priest in the crowd , that it was intended to represent the confusion which took place at the crucifixion ! I replied , " But the crucifixion was not on the Wednesday . " " No , " said be , " but the prayers of this week have all a reference to that event . " Such is the baby-work of the Catholic religion ! I will certainly never again stand in a crowd for three hours and a half to hear its Misereres and its patterings of feet .

    On the Thursday morning I again repaired to the Vatican , where I saw the host , or consecrated wafer , carried in great state by the Pope from the Sistine to the Pauline Chapel , which was illuminated by more than five hundred candles . Soon after this , his Holiness appeared , elevated on a throne , in the balcony of the centre window in the front of St . Peter's , and from thence he gave his benediction to the people who were assembled in crowds in the open space below . This was done well , and produced a fine

    effect . As soon as the blessing had been pronounced , two papers were first read and then thrown down by the Pope ' s attendants . These were indulgences to any one who could get them . There was , of course , a great scramble for them ; and it was very curious to see them floating in the air , and the crowd rushing to the spot on which they thought that they would fall , and catching at them , or knocking them with sticks and umbrellas above their heads . Who the individuals were who were so fortunate as to

    have their sins forgiven by this summary process I did not learn . When this ceremony was performed , the Pope proceeded to one of the halls of the Vatican , where he washed the feet of thirteen pilgrims , in imitation of our Saviour washing those of his apostles on the night preceding his crucifixion ; but why the number was thirteen instead of twelve I could not divine . I was afterwards told , as the reason for this , that when St . Gregory performed this commemorative rite , he found that he had washed the feet of thirteen individuals instead of twelve , and that the thirteenth was no less a personage than an angel—ever since which remarkable event the number has been increased by the addition of one . I wished to see this

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    Journal of a Tour on the Continent . 6 S 5

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1828, page 685, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2565/page/29/