Altar, and then on another-reading three sentences with the book on the right side, and three with it on the left-and standing sometimes with his face toward the People, and sometimes with his back: at length elevating the Cup, which he drinks himself, and simply exhibiting the Host in an Ostensory, for the adoration of the People, before he pronounces over them, with extended hands, the "Dominus vobiscum."* The only ceremony that I ever observed to be accompanied with much appearance of mental fervour or heartfelt zeal was the singing of the litany in a kind of evening service performed before The Lord be with you. before the Madonnas at the corners of the streets.. The Assistants at this ceremony, like those who sing Psalms in Protestant Churches, are seldom deficient in zeal, whatever else they may lack; and it has often stirred up my own stagnant piety to hear them from our windows of an evening, praying with devout vociferation, before an Image in the Corso, in a language they did not understand. Virgo piissima! Ora pro Nobis ! When • Most pious Virgin, pray for us! Most sorrowful Mother, pray for us! Most potent Queen, pray for us! When they have rung all their changes to the same monotonous tune; they generally conclude with a solemn intonation in their native tongue : Eviva! Maria! Maria! Eviva! Eviva! Maria! Eviva! Eviva! Eviva! Maria! E'chi la creo! * Long live Mary, and He who created her! LETTER XVIII. Ceremonies of the Church of Rome. N the month of October the Pope IN performs an Apostolical Visitation, going every day, in state, to assist at High Mass in one or other of the innumerable Temples whose privileged Shrines have given to modern Rome the sirname of la Santa; and his Holiness compliments the Patrons of eight or ten particular Churches by attending on the day of their Anniversaries, when he is borne aloft, on Men's shoulders, through the long drawn Aisles. Vol. I. On On these occasions, little calculated for the edification of Christian humility, Chiaramonti, like his beatified Predecessors, looks down upon the kneeling Crowd, with an eye of sober intoxication. THE Papal functions at the celebration of Christmas begin, an hour before midnight, at the private Chapel of the Palace on Monte Cavallo. The Capella Paulina is a parallelogram of thirty feet by ninety, with a flat Ceiling. At one end of it is an Altar, overshadowed by a purple Canopy, on one side of which is the Pontifical Throne, on the other a Gallery for the Papal |