46

Meanwhile, I prepared myself, in silence and prayer, to ascend Golgotha and to enter the Holy Sepulchre.

"Two days had already passed, and I had not yet been able to approach those two hallowed and awful places. Still I adhered more firmly than ever to my resolution to be, in my first visit to them, alone with my God; it was my wish to adore in the silence of complete solitude Him, who, by an ineffable prodigy of mercy towards his creatures, forsook the heavens to come to this very place to suffer and die. Unfortunately, a crowd of pilgrims who had recently arrived beset for two days and nights the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which they had paid the Turks a large fee to open.

"At length, on the third day, the kind monks came to inform me that the church would not be open the whole day, except for me; and that, in concert with the Greek and Armenian sacristans, they had taken precautions for preventing the entrance of any person whatsoever, the whole time that I should be there.

"On the 12th, at half past ten in the morning, the most profound silence reigned around Golgotha and the tomb of the Saviour. I went forth barefoot, and with a lighted taper in my hand to visit Calvary, and a few moments afterwards I ascended, trembling, the steps that led to it.

"At one o'clock, still surrounded by a silence uninterrupted, save by the pulsations of my heart, I entered the Holy Sepulchre.

"At three, some one came to apprize me that the Greeks were about to commence their service; I returned to my cell, and there shut myself up for the rest of the day.

"Adieu, my friend, adieu, adieu!" (Bethlehem.)-"Oh! that I could now transfuse, in some measure, my soul into yours, with the thoughts, the affections, the feelings, wherewith it is filled by the presence of all that I have the favour to behold! Collect yourself, prepare your heart; I am about to usher you into a grotto, where the profane man perceives, it is true, such objects only as he deems worthy of his contempt-a stable, a manger, an infant, poor, and almost deserving of pity! But for Christians -and Heaven has granted us the grace to be so for Christians, that stable is a temple, that manger a sanctuary, that infant a Saviour, a God; a God, before whom the empires, which, to our petty vision, appear so vast, are scarcely what an atom of dust is to us;

and those kings, and those nations, who so fiercely dispute a title belong. ing, by right, to Him alone-who are bent on being sovereigns, even without his grace-make a little noise to-day, gather a little of what they term glory, merely to lose it to-morrow, and to die; and those men who call themselves learned, who cry aloud that their knowledge, their discoveries, their doctrines, their wisdom, their genius, are the only light capable of really enlightening the world, are nought but ignorance and darkness, understanding nothing of the things of heaven, and plunging, with their paltry science, like all the rest of mankind, into the night of the grave!"

"The manger is raised about a foot above the level of the grotto, and lined with white marble. The Christian princes have made it a duty to send presents for its embellishment. It is always hung with magnificent draperies; those for this week are of white silk, sprinkled with roses, and embroidered with gold. On the spot where the wise men worshipped Jesus is an altar with a fine painting representing the Adoration, and above it a large star. The sanctuary of the Nativity belongs to the Greeks; the manger, and the place of the adoration of the wise men, to the Catholics.

"I never enter this august grotto but with a taper in my hand, as when I visited Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. When, kneeling before the spot where our Lord was born, I cast my eyes on these words: Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus

est Here Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary '-there arises within me a feeling totally distinct and different from that produced by other acts of Christian piety. To the believer the word Here has a charm, an attraction, a captivation, which cannot be either felt or comprehended but on the spot. The soul, the heart, all the faculties, are spell-bound by that word; you repeat it a thousand times, and, when you have repeated it for the thousandth time, you pronounce it again: it is incessantly on the burning lips of gratitude and love. There is in fact no place in the world where the heart can be more deliciously moved than in this grotto of Bethlehem."

The Baron frequently alludes to the scenes of his former life, and always with deep penitence. He trusted however to the atonement of his Saviour for pardon; and in that trust appears to have found

repose of mind! but he had no clear view of the nature of the Gospel covenant: and we fear he mixed up with the doctrine of the sacrifice of Calvary-the only and all sufficient atonement for sin many unscriptural figments; and in particular that he accounted his prayers, penances, fastings, and pilgrimages, as, in some degree at least, expiatory. Thus he

says:

"I frequently pass, especially during this holy season, along the Via Dolorosa; and I never can stop before the station of the poor beggar, before the house of the rich man, without feeling poignant regret, without recollecting that I too was once a rich man, and without lamenting the bad use which I so long made of the wealth which Providence had placed in my hands, as a resource for the poor and a means of salvation for myself. Then, in the bitterness of my soul, have I implored forgiveness of God, and prayed that he would be pleased to accept, as atonement, the voluntary poverty which I have embraced; and to which I hope, with his grace, to adhere to my latest

breath."

an

We add the following passages, which shew the love of the pilgrim for his crucified Saviour, and for the scenes which remind him of the events of his life and death. Though subject to the objection which pervades popery in regard to relics, and the factitious excitements of scene, circumstance, and appeals to the outward senses, they breathe a spirit of humility, gratitude, and devotion, which shews how deeply the heart of the writer was affected by the love of Christ, in giving himself a ransom for sin, and for having brought back a wandering sheep to his fold.

"A disappointment, which I felt not less keenly, was to be prevented from executing a plan which I had formed, namely, to cross the lake at the same place and in the same direction as the vessel in which Jesus was with his disciples, when by his mighty word he stilled the waves, calmed the tempest, or sent thousands of fishes into the nets

of his apostles. The practice which I a d made it, ever since my arrival in Palestine, to follow the steps of that divine Master; to go to the same places where I could say to myself that he had been; to follow the same paths, to pass the same streams, was one of my chief enjoyments. I felt that the prodigies of his infinite beneficence were thereby the more deeply engraven upon my soul; that my heart was the more touched, the more tho

roughly penetrated, by them; that my thoughts, my affections, were rendered the more worthy of him: and here I lost an opportunity which, perhaps, might not occur again. This painful idea, the disease, whose ravages I dreaded, the recollections of the day, and my sufferings, were more than enough to keep me awake: I could not sleep."

66 The miser does not love his treasure, the busband his wife, the fondest of mothers her first-born, more dearly than I love Jerusalem. The most de

licious days of my life I had spent there, at Bethlehem, in Judea. When wet to the skin from a soaking shower, stiff with cold, bespattered with mud, I crossed the brook Cedron; or panting, covered with dust and perspiration, scorched by the sun, fainting with fatigue, I thus ascended, several times a week, the Mount of Olives; I felt incomparably happier than I had been in my apartments, surrounded by all that can gratify the senses; incomparably happier than I had been when, young, glowing with health, bedizened, and perfumed, I mounted the staircases of kings to participate in the pleasures and splendour of their entertainments."

"In the course of my life, I have ex

perienced severe afflictions. I have closed the eyes of a good father, of a tender mother, of a dear wife; I have lost beloved children; I have been France, and dragged across all Germany arrested two hundred leagues from to be shut up in the castle of Vincennes, from which I was not released till the entry of the allies; I have undergone what the world calls great misfortunes; I have been calumniated, persecuted; I have met with ingratitude: but calling Him to witness who searches all hearts, and before whom I shall, perhaps, soon appear, I declare that never did sorrow so deeply affect my soul as that which seized it when I tore myself away for ever from the church of the Holy Sepulchre. While I live, it will not cease to be as vividly present to my mind as deeply engraven on my heart; the recollection of it will always thrill me, because it will always remind me more forcibly than any

other recollection of Jesus crucified for my salvation, and for the salvation of the whole human race; that Jesus, to whom I owe the ineffable happiness of comprehending, of feeling, that great truth, which I would fain make the whole world comprehend and feel, that He is every thing, and that whatever is not He, is nothing.'

"In these days of riot, when worldlings seem to know no other temples than assembly-rooms and theatres, to have no other deities than pleasure and licentiousness, I felt a powerful impulse to ascend Calvary; to make penitential atonement for the vices of sinners, and particularly for the part which formerly I had, alas! myself the misfortune to take in these criminal gratifications. It was for me a precious occasion for testifying my regret, my repentance, and for deriving from deep meditation these sentiments which I owe to the infinite mercy that has snatched me from the abyss. Oh! how delightful, my dear friend, how delightful have been the moments that I have passed at the tomb of my Sa. viour! How delightful in particular have been the hours of night and silence! how different from those when, intoxicated by an insensate joy, amidst dancing and festivity, the worldlings, forgetful of their salvation, forgetful of Him who has redeemed them, sacrifice their rest, destroy their health, and ruin their souls!"

"One thought in particular engaged my mind. Alone, in the silence of night, in presence of that tomb, I felt happy, happy from a kind of happiness that no other expression can render. The love of Jesus for me spoke not less strongly to my heart than if the sepulchre, opening of itself, had shown him to me in the state to which he had been reduced by the torments and death over which he has triumphed. I beheld that sacred head, that brow, torn by the thorns, that blood-stained hair, those pierced hands. . . . what do I say? I beheld him living, victorious; I felt myself clasped, as it were, in his arms; I felt with rapture how benevolent he is to those who are willing to serve him, who are willing to be entirely his; and at the same time an inward voice called to me: What hast thou done to deserve the favour of being this day separated from the wretched creatures, who, at the moment when such pure felicity floods thy heart, are indulging in vain pleasures, in false joys, and demanding from them certain transient gratifications, which must terminate in remorse, lassitude, disgust?... And, in the

transports of a gratitude which farther heightened the sense of my own unworthiness, I could not be sufficiently thankful to Heaven for having granted to the repentance of a sinner a boon that would have the worthy reward of a saint."

"What am I about, my dear friend! all this will not tell you what my soul here feels. He who passed along the road of the Cross, whose steps I have followed from Gethsemane to Calvary, is to me and to all Christians more than a benefactor, more than a friend, more than a father it is the innocent Jesus sacrificing himself for the guilty; it is my Redeemer, my Saviour, my God!"

(Imitativeness of Children.)" The pilgrims who have families, frequently bring with them three or four children. Nothing can be more interesting than to see these little creatures with their parents. They imitate all their motions; they repeat in particular their numerous salutations, always bowing down to the very ground, and, like them, incessantly making the sign of the cross. Do not wonder, my dear friend, that I occasionally make mention of the little children: I love them, if I dare say so, as the kind Jesus loved them.... When I see those innocents, methinks I hear my Saviour saying:

Suffer the little children to come unto me,' and declaring that whosoever is not or does not become like one of them shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."

(Waters of Jordan.)-" Among the things which I intended to do before we retired, there were some which, though of inferior interest, I should have been mortified to be obliged to give up. I wished to take with me a few bottles of the water of the river, to pick up a few pebbles from its bed, to pluck some reeds, and to cut myself a cane from one of the trees on the bank; but an idea of far greater importance occupied my mind, and, had I not carried it into execution, it would ever after have haunted me like a sort of remorse. I wished, at the very spot where our Saviour was baptised, to renew my baptismal vows-vows made to God for me, by those who, at my birth, carried me to the sacred font; which I confirmed myself on the day when I bad the happiness to partake, for the first time, of the holy sacrament; and which, nevertheless, in the stormy course of my life, I had, alas! so often broken. It was this resolution that I executed first. Kneeling on the margin of the river, my head bowed down to the water in which I had just washed myself, my hand upon my heart,

agitated by repentance, grief, and love, and calling God and his angels to witness the sincerity of my sentiments, I uttered, in a voice tremulous with emotion, the following words :

"O my God! O God, most mighty, most bountiful, most clement, and most merciful! I humbly come to the place where thy Son, my Saviour, was baptised, to renew, from the bottom of my soul, the sacred engagements of my baptism; I renounce Satan, his pomps, and his works; and I give myself up entirely to thee, O my God, to love and to serve thee till my latest breath!" (Romanist mummery.) – "In order to impress the more deeply upon the mind the remembrance of the passion and death of our Saviour, and to excite more forcibly in the heart the feelings of compunetion, gratitude, and love, which they ought to produce, the Fathers perform every year, on Good Friday, a ceremony entirely harmonizing with the spirit of the Orientals, and examples of which we find only in the missions in Asia, which probably borrowed it from the practice adopted in Palestine.

"By means of a figure in relievo, of the natural size, the head and limbs of which are flexible, they represent the crucifixion, the taking down from the cross, and the burial of Jesus Christ, in such a manner as to render all the principal circumstances perceptible and striking."

"The monk who carried the crucifix, set it down with reverence at the foot, of the altar, and the Spanish father, resuming his discourse, continued, in presence of the multitude, deeply affected and melting into tears, the melancholy account of the sufferings and ignominy endured by our Saviour till the moment when he was crucified.

"He then ceased speaking, and the image of Jesus, having been nailed to the wood, this crucifix was set up on the same spot where had been erected the real cross, on which the salvation of the human race was consummated. The good friar, in a voice broken and almost stifled by sobs, then recounted the last words and the last moments of the august victim, giving himself up a sacrifice on this spot to atone for our sins and to reconcile us with his Father. But it became more and more difficult to hear him the crowd, already powerfully moved by what had preceded, was attentive only to what it saw, and it could scarcely catch the words of the speaker for cries, sobs, sighs, and tears.

"After an interval of a quarter of an hour had been allowed for their grief to subside, one of the Fathers, provided

with hammer and pincers, ascended to the top of the cross, took off the crown of thorns, and, while some of bis brethren supported the body by means of white scarfs passed under the arms, extracted the nails from the hands and the feet; and presently the image was taken down, nearly in the same manner as Christ himself was. The officiating father, and all the monks in turn, advanced in silence, knelt down, and kissed respecfully the crown and the nails, which were immediately presented to the veneration of the multitude.

"The procession soon moved away, in the same order as it had come to Calvary. The crown and the nails were carried in a silver basin by a monk, and the image by four others, in the same manner as a corpse is borne to the grave, They paused at the stone of the Unction, to imitate, on that spot, the pious action of Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus, and the holy women. All the requisite materials had been prepared; the stone was covered with a very fine white sheet; on the corners were vases of perfumes. The body, wrapped in a shroud, was laid upon it, with the head resting upon a pillow. The officiating priest sprinkled it with essences, caused some aromatics to be burned, and, having prayed a few moments in silence, explained, in a brief exhortation, the motive of this station. The procession then continued its course to the church; the image was laid upon the marble slab of the Holy Sepulchre, and another discourse concluded the ceremony."

(Concluding Letter.)-St. Urban, December 22nd, 1833." Here I am, at the end of my pilgrimage, my dear friend: I am at St. Urban..... From Marseilles I pursued my way to St. Urban, travelling rapidly through France, wholly engrossed by my sorrow at not having it in my power to go to Rome. I had nothing to console myself but the thought that I was going to rejoin those good monks who had before given me an asylum, and to return to my worthy and reverend father, the abbé Dom Pierre, and my brethren, to receive new testimonies of their charity,and to derive from the dailyexample of their virtues new strength and new courage for worthily finishing the career of penitence, which the Lord has granted me the grace to pursue.

"At length, yesterday evening, the gates of the hospitable abbey opened to admit me. The community had been forewarned of my speedy return. I was impatiently expected, and welcomed with a lively but perfectly Christian joy, with that joy which is expressed by bursts of grateful piety, by