The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-12-30


No. %.
ROME, November II, 1852
Afv DEAR Mr.. C have now beer
.arlv a week in the Eternal City, and au
I'-',,;n,r TO feel at home, and comparatively
~ rest We are most pleasantly situated II
~, Corso near the Piazza del Popoio, sunny
Wv VIZ INV Dlaos which hss che sePutation o
perfect healthiness.
Ancient Rome as yet affects me with a SIN
liar gloomy wonder. | gaze about me sadly
rsatber than eagerly. | am too awe-struck tc
b. curious. We spent one day among the
r,;rs and though the sunshine was brilliant
- that of June. and the breath of wild roses
vas aaoat on the soft air, that day was to me
one of shadows and sadness. Could all the
snnsbine that ever streamed out of heaven
make lestal brightness in the mighty circle OF
the Coliseum, thronged, as it is, to the eye OF
the..nirit with dark visions of fear and horror
If fierce fight and deadly encounter, brutal
ca,ocitv and diabolical cruelty The blood Of
ionumerable martyrs seems yet rising from
tb,once trampled and CORY arena, a cloud be.
,seu us and the beautiful skies. What a
terrible power has place like this over the
imagination there beheld not alone the half
sckening, Misunderstanding scenes of ancient
glaCsatoral combat but, US stood near one OF
the ruined passages, by which the wild beasts,
,Oe, on ages ago, were driven, mad with rage
and hunger, from their black, subterranean
deDs into the noon-tide blaze of the amphi.
theatre. | inyoluntarily listened to hear them
roaring and bounding beneath me- linvolunta-
rily looked, to see them leaping into the arena,
with eyes a-hame and jaws a-gape. listened
70 hear the first shrek of the Christian vic
TINS and the mad yells, the applauding up
roar, of the heather spectators. seemed to see
the tiger burying his claws deep in the white
b5som of the maiden, and the fierce leopard
paving with the mangled child, ere devouring
i seemed to see the gray haired old man
and the dark-haired youth, after vain,
brief struggle with their terrible foes rent in
pieces and more fearful and pitiable still, fair
patrician danes looking on through all, with
calm unblenched faces, and young peasant
maidens clapping their brown hands, while
the long thunders of reclamation rolled round
the vast amphitheatre.
Here as at the prisons of the Inquisition at
AvgnOn | exulted over the ruin about me
with Joy unspeakable. Yet what melan.
choly lesson does this chance coupling of these
two places present The one is the scene Of
the open, cruel, yet speedy martyrdom of the
earliest Christians, under bloody pagan
power-the other the scene of the secret,
slow, Internally ingenious torture of Chris
tans, by tellow Christians! Could the mar.
tyrs who suffered here have foreseen these
fhnss-have seen priests, in the place of beasts
irending and racking and disembowelling, to the
sound of pious chants, instead of fierce shouts
and in the name of the merciful Jesus, instead
of that of relentless Jove-cOuld they have
toreseen those bitterer than heather mocker.
les those bold blasphemies of the Most High
God, written by priestly hands in the blood Of
His children would they have met the mad
tened beasts of the arena with such superhu.
man serenity such sublime faith, suffered with
such divine endurance, "triumphed DER death
aud assembled to God"
We descended into the CatacOmbs by the
usual entrance, at the church of San Sebas-
tan. These subterranean refugees of the early
Christians are indeed most melancholy, dis
nal, awful places We were conducted by a
dirty and miserable Franciscan friar, looking.
In the coarse brown dress of his order, as
though he had burrowed for lifetime in
those low, dark passages.
We each bore torch, yet never, assure
you, ventured to diverge from the way taken
by our guide, or to fall more than yard or
two behind him. He led us through gloomy
and bewderng labyrinth, vault after vault,
passage opening on passage, chill chambers of
death, interminable halls of night, where our
torches seemed to struggle with the heavy air,
md 70 east faint and fearful CLEANS into the
profound depths of that ancient darkness. He
showed us chapels and rude shrnes, and every
where sepulchres followed from the soft rock
as you know, the Catacombs once formed a
vast under ground cemetery but since the
NhrshanzatiOn of Rome, most Of the bones
Of the martyrs who persisted here have been
removed TO less humble tombs in the churches
Many are kept in costly cabinets and shrines
as precious and holy relics shall never for.
get group of graves, pointed out to me in
one OF the chapels. They were those of ia.
tner, mother, and two children. involunta.
rIy exeialmed-" Merciful Heaven what a
place Tor children Poor lambs what won.
uer ina. they would not stay in this chill and
seS ABODE; but soon sought the "green pas
cures ana the still watersD of the Good
IInepnerd, Perhaps, when they were first
uiouehs here, they wondered and questioned
why the morning was so long in coming: per
maps when they were dying they cried pite
ogsly Tor the sunshine, the flowers and the
peasant grass Perhaps they died in utter
darkness, and the mother only knew when the
eherub soul had escaped from its double prison
mouse and assembled to the upper brig htness
oy feeling the little body grow stiff and cold
against her desolate bosom.
AS | said before these graves have beer
rlned and the bones of the faithful Christians
ana the sacred vessels which held the blood Of
martyrdom, and stood in little inches near these
graves, have been borne away to cathedrals
anu mon asteries, while the names rudely carved
~ ,heSe stones have been enrolled among the
nyleSt SAINTS of the Church But who shall
oonec' and enshrine the bones lying in the
1 1Sy'et dungeons and towers of the Inquistion
!" na. Doid and pious hand could there have
sent ana treasured the blood which dripped
"s 80 80 Tue wheel or splashed against the walls
u. 'uc ouoiiettes! When shall the saints. who
suete suffered In secret and died in EXTREMIST
a"euish, receive their canonization A?
ia we drove past that proud tomb which has
Tue single name of a woman, amid the
aSol'ns oil centuries, above the destruction OF
np''cS ana tho commissions Of a thousand
W. Sars' Little could Cecilia Metella have dream.
: ~ sna' the inscription on the tomb raised by
@'aTV'el or pride" above her dust, would stand
vi nt'airsear when the language in which it was
writer pad been silenced over the whole face
Of the eartVh-that the tomb itself would re.
main unleveiSed, almost unbroken, when Rome
had been long isQwed in ruin, when the smilin q
country about hsFi had become wild waste
when her race had saaken away out of all re.
membrance Of the glory and power which once
dauzed and ruled the world.
We also drove altng the tomb-burdened
fAppian Way, where sme recent excavations
let US down several fee ON to the very stones
over which the chariot Of Roman conquerors
once rolled, and the trsos of the Empire and
the Consulate often swe in ell the splendid
pomp and insslent prid>f victory. Thick, ON
a;thsr aida stood brOk euad rif1ed tou,hs and