March 5.--I have returned from Romayne's sermon. This double
renegade--has he not deserted his religion and his wife?--has failed
to convince my reason. But he has so completely upset my nerves that I
ordered a bottle of champagne (to the great amusement of my friend the
banker) the moment we got back to the hotel.
We drove through the scantily lighted streets of Rome to a small church
in the neighborhood of the Piazza Navona. To a more imaginative man
than myself, the scene when we entered the building would have been too
impressive to be described in words--though it might perhaps have been
painted. The one light in the place glimmered mysteriously from a
great wax candle, burning in front of a drapery of black cloth, and
illuminating dimly a sculptured representation, in white marble, of the
crucified Christ, wrought to the size of life. In front of this ghastly
emblem a platform projected, also covered with black cloth. We could
penetrate no further than to the space just inside the door of the
church. Everywhere else the building was filled with standing, sitting
and kneeling figures, shadowy and mysterious, fading away in far corners
into impenetrable gloom.
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