The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-06-24
GAVAZZI.
THE GREAT ITALIAN PRIEST IN PORT
LAND.


Father Alessandro Gavazzi, the great Ital.
from Boston yesterday noon and took rooms at
the Falmouth Hotel. In the afternoon he re
ceived several calls from our citizens eager to
pay tn cir respects to the distinguished gentle
man. In the evening he spoke at the Second
Parish church, Rev. c. A. Dickinson presid'
ing, before an audience that embraced many
OF our leading citizens.
Faith er Gayazzi is rather large man, broad
shouldered and heavily built, and considerably
above medium height He is gray-headed and
may be GO years of age, though his smooth
face would scarcely indicate that. His man.
ner of delivery is very emphatic and pro-
nounced and his words flow rapidly almost
too rapidly at times He is very active upon
the platform, moving about restlessly and
quickly from side to side and leaning off the
pulpit frequently, as though to get nearer 10
his audience. He is exceedingly dramatic and
body, hands, arms, face, eyes and shout
ders are made TO do service in inpressing his
thought upon the attention Of his hearers. He
has a peculiar way of struggling his shoulders
and bending slightly forward at times that
is very effective and carries weight OF sug-
gesticn. When very much wrought up, as he
is often likely to be, he is exceedingly voluble
in speech, after the manner of the Latin peo-
pie. and his quickly moving hands and arms
and the varying expressions of his face, talk as
much almost and as pointedly as his lips. In
moments of excitement, his voice is apt to
break and rises into sharp falsetto and some
times the thoughts seem to come so fast as to
choke utterance, and he can only give vent to
his pent up feelings with a shrill sort of cry
or gruff ejaculation that is wonderfully effic-
lent in carrying out the meaning of his
thoughts. He has fair mastery of the En-
glish language, albeit his pronunciation is
tin ged with very strong foreign accent. In
the grammatical construction Of the language
ne is sometimes though not often or greatly at
fault. He is not easy to understand at first
but after few moments of listening, is more
easily followed.
Father Gavazzi read from the Epistle of
Paul to the Romans and in opening his re-
marks said that his situation was precisely that
of Paul, because his call was to Rome. He
sketched rapidly his struggles as an exile until
1859, when the unity Of Italy was commenced.
Before that time the preaching of the Gospel
was forbidden by law, for the reason that the
priests were afraid of the influence on the peo-
pie of the real word of God. During that
time he fought for what he called the divine
right of nations, as he had to fight to be indie
pendent. To-day Italy is Independent, united
and free, and the fifth great nation of Europe,
and has been so since in 1870 the victorious
armies entered Rome and overthew forever the
power of the Pope. Then was .begun at last
the evangelization Of Italy There had been
before them some evangelical churches, but
they were scattered and weakened by dissen
sion among themselves; they were too much
separated and governed by too many foreign
committees. Being neglected by their bene-
factors thew hecomn offpntad with d;ern,+-
ing leprosy, not indigenous to Italy, but which
was imported from England. There was sec
tarianism, against which we fought, and en-
deavored to have these churches united into a
sort OF Evangelical Alliance, and in June,
1870, there met in Milan representatives of
twenty-three of these churches. Three or
four meetings were held, ritual and manual
prepared, rules laid down and the Free Chris
tan Church in Italy established. 1t is called
Christian because the crucifxion is preached,
and free because it is entirely clear of Roman
ishness. 1t is entirely an evangelical church;
the object Of all its societies is the evangelical
ton of Italy. Moreover, it is a real genuine
Italian church, in which we have the adyan-
tage over foreign missionaries, for we know
the language, manners, customs and habits of
our people and can strike directly to their
hearts. 1t is asserted that we are about to
make q reformation in Italy, and we are called
reformers. We object to the term, for the
simple reason that We have nothing to reform,
we reform nothing; and, reforming nothing,
we cannot be reformers. That is certainly log
1cal. There is nothing to reform, because it
would be useless to attempt to wean the old
Italians from their mother church; they will
cling to it until death. In that case either the
reform must come from the church, that is the
clergy and laity, which the Pope would never
accept, or it must come from the Pope, and we
shall have to wait very long time for that
Hence the reformation of Roman Catholic italy
is impossible, and, logically, the Free Christian
Church of Italy is not reformation or trans
formation. 1t is renovation and restoration,
for we must remember that long ago Italy was
the first Christian nation in Europe. In 1870
there were twenty-three churches belonging to
the alliance. Now we have churches in all the
largest cities in Italy, thrty-Six in all, and
thlrty-tive evangelical stations where the bread
is broken and the Word is preached; where
eleven years ago there were scarcely 400 COM
municants, there are now 1000, with 800 schools
largely attended by children of Roman Cath
Ole parentage, and 1000 Sunday school chill
dren, and our institution has the largest sympa-
thy of our countrymen. We had to fight for
our evangelical schools, not with papists. but
with foreign PTotestants who insisted that the
compulsory education law in Italy was suffi-
Gent to make the children attend the public
schools. but we argued that thay were necessary
to tho fGturity of our church, and we gained
our point We have now 1900 pupils, of whom
more than two-thirds are the children Of Ro-
man Catholics, who prefer to send their chill
dren to us because they know that with us lies
their only chance to raise good generation of
Italians. These schools are, by official state
ment, superior to any in Italy. We have also,
directly opposite the Vatican, an evangelical
theological seminary, which has proved the
material triumph of Christianity in Rome.
The Pope grumbles, but we are glad, for if he
were silent we should know that we were only
accomplishing work which he desired to have
done. The speaker concluded with an earnest
0rad MI ant yn1a fNr ~
church
Tonight Father GAvazzi will speak at State
st. church.