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XVII.

Over Land and Sea.

By Edw. A. Gernant.

AMBROSE AND BORROMEO.

Milan is said to be the best-paved city in Europe. This is saying a great deal, for it must be remembered that even in Ireland streets, such as one finds among the best in our American cities, would not be tolerated in a town of or dinary size and importance. In Milan anything like mud is impossible. From side to side the smooth hard stones form a solid road-bed which has become firmer and smoother, as the centuries advance. The streets decline towards the centre, where there are narrow slitlike openings, through which the rain passes into the sewers below. Thus there are neither curb-stones nor gutters. Along the houses the streets are laid with smooth granite blocks, forming a foot-path about six feet wide on either side. Between these the balance of the street is uniformly paved with very small and regular round stones, hard as a rock, but easy for horses. The city being almost perfectly level, there is but little or no resistance to rapid traveling. Every night the streets are swept and washed, and even during the day men may be seen going up and down the principal thoroughfares cleansing and sprinkling. The house drainage is carried into the sewers by means of underground pipes. The Milanese may perhaps not be less lazy than their countrymen, but they certainly are not dirty.

In round numbers Milan has a population of about 300,000. During the last twenty years it has undergone great improvements, and is now one of the leading commercial cities in Italy. In the domain of art it has ever maintained a front rank. To its position in this regard we shall have occasion to refer more in detail. The business of Milan comes to a focus in, and clusters around, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele. This is a truly imposing structure on the north side of the Cathedral, three hundred and twenty yards long and sixteen yards wide. It is built in the form of a Latin cross over the octagonal centre of which a cupola rises to the height of

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one hundred and eighty feet. This immense arcade is lined with tempting stores of every imaginable industry, and here at all hours of the day and night the dark-eyed Milanese belles in their bright veils and low-necked bodices engage in the enjoyments of that universal feminine paradise shopping. The Galleria was begun in 1865 and named in honor of the late king. Always a place of resort and more or less thronged; in the evening the sight is especially brilliant. Then upwards of two thousand gas jets illumine the spacious arcade, lighting up the decorated and frescoed walls, causing the numerous memorial statues to glow with life and glinting across the richly-colored mosaic flooring.

No matter from what direction you approach Milan, the spires and statues of its great Cathedral confront the eye. Of world-wide celebrity and unequalled splendor it is perhaps the city's chief glory. But there is one other church of even greater interest to the student of ecclesiastical history. Although of no great size or beauty it is indeed a shrine where Romanist and Protestant alike may feel a common possession and rejoice in the Catholicity of their faith This is the church of St. Ambrose, venerable as the good bishop himself from whom it takes its name. It was dedicated by that most irreproachable of early Church fathers on the nineteenth of June, A..D. 387, and is accordingly one of the most satisfying specimens of primitive Christian architecture. Although it has undergone repairs several times since then, it has never been much altered. Built of brick, it is dark and prison-like and soberly impressive. Immediately in front an arcaded court-yard reminds one of the time, when the candidates for baptism, still under instruction, were not yet admitted into the sanctuary proper on all occasions; their novitiate or half-Christian status being thus externally indicated. The interior is unpretentious, and anything but grand. Low, wide arches span the ceiling, and give the building a vault-like appearance. There is nothing here akin to the gorgeous tinsel of modern Romanism. Curious worm-eaten paintings, ancient tombs, and half-defaced inscriptions

relieve the solemn plainness. Erected on the ruins of a temple of Bacchus its general style is Romanesque, the result partly, however, of a twelfth century modification. To the heavy doors or gates of the main portal a remarkable history attaches, which illustrates the stringency of discipline in those early days and exalts the piety of the good old saint. About the year 390 the emperor Theodosius reigned over a large portion of the Roman Empire. Orthodox and God-fearing he was nevertheless passionate and impetuous. A riot in Thessalonica had excited his anger. In a momentary fit of uncontrollable rage he had ruthlessly caused the massacre of seven thousand of the inhabitants, irrespective of age, sex, or degree of guilt, and all this notwithstanding his promise of unconditional pardon given to St. Ambrose. Returning to Milan he proceeded to the Church, intending to partake of the Holy Communion. And now ensued that most notable encounter between the purity of the church on the one hand and the majesty and influence of the state on the other. The good bishop met the emperor at the doors, closing them in his face, refusing admittance, and saying: "Sir, let not the splendors of your purple robes hinder you from being acquainted with the infirmities of the body which they cover. How will you stretch forth in prayer those hands that are still reeking with the blood of the innocent? How will you presume with such hands to receive the sacred Body of our Lord? How will you lift up His precious Blood to those lips which lately uttered so savage a decree for the unjust shedding of so much blood? Depart, therefore, and seek not, by a second offence, to aggravate your former fault." The mighty Emperor retired, overwhelmed with mortification and grief; not indignant, but conscious of the enormity of his crime and the justice of the pure-minded bishop's condemnation and rebuke. Deeply repenting, he put on sack-cloth and subjected himself to the severest discipline of true sorrow for sin. After eight months he once more presented himself before St. Ambrose, and craved the right of fellowship with the members of the church. But not until he had faithfully promised,

never again to resort to such cruel punishment, did he receive restoring absolution and readmission into the enjoyment of Christian privileges. St. Ambrose was perhaps not altogether without an admixture of ecclesiastical pride, but he certainly maintained the cause of Christian gentleness and mercy against the tyranny and rapacity of military despotism. "Thus," says Hase, "did the church prove, in a time of unlimited arbitrary power, the refuge of popular freedom, and saints assume the part of tribunes of the people."

There are many objects of interest in this old basilica. Rare mosaics dating as early as the fifth century, frescoes, paintings and statues of New Testament characters, of our blessed Lord, and of numerous primitive saints. In the crypt rest the bones of St. Ambrose himself, before which we found a changing throng of tourists and pious pilgrims, a shrine, where Protestant and Romanist alike seemed awed into more or less respectful silence. Perhaps the most curious relic in the church is a brazen serpent resting on the top of a detached column in the nave. Tradition affirms this to be none other than that which was erected by Moses in the wilderness. The belief is harmless, yet evidently a mere superstition, with no shadow of authentic testimony to sustain it. Judged from its own standpoint it is one of the interesting deceptions, fostered by an infallible church.

We made two visits to the great Cathedral, and went away each time, feeling that we had only begun to appreciate its beauty and realize its extent. It is the third largest church in Europe; St. Peter's and the Cathedral at Seville alone surpassing it. But one might give dimensions and make specifications of the cost of its erection, one might go farther and describe its general style of construction, and write learnedly of nave and transept and apse, of its probable imitation of the Dom at Cologne and of the later Renaissance modifications, one might do all this and even more, and yet in the end efford no proper conception of the wonderful structure itself. A vast forest of white marble, with statues for foliage and mounting tiers of clustered monuments and airy spires for interlocking vines

and undergrowth, it is hard to conceive how any building reared by man could ever excel it in richness of ornamentation and minuteness of detail. "This structure," says Baedeker, "which was founded by the splendor-loving Gian Galeazzo Visconti in 1386, apparently after the model of the Cologne Cathedral, progressed but slowly owing to the dissensions and jealousies of Italian and Northern architects." This last circumstance was also the cause of many curious anachronisms and inconsistencies, both in style and execution. In the contemplation of the whole, however, these rink away and leave only a symmetrical and glorious temple. Although in great part finished towards the close of the fifteenth century, it is even yet undergoing improvement and ornamentation. At the beginning of the present century Napoleon gave the work a mighty impulse, and himself added the tower surmounting the dome over the High Altar. The interior is 480 feet long and 180 feet broad. The ground plan is cruciform, the nave and transept being also double-aisled. The ceiling rests upon fifty-two massive pillars, twelve feet in diameter, surmounted not by the usual frieze and capital, but bearing statues enclosed in canopied niches.

brace the opportunity. Although ready to revere the memory of the great and noble of all ages, and especially of those who have fought the good fight of faith our interest never comprehended the ghastly disclosure of robed and be-jewelled skeletons. Doubtless the early fathers and medieval saints, with whose unquiet remains Rome now works her miracles (?) and fills her coffers, had they anticipated such violation of death's repose, would have warned future ages, even as Shakespeare did, with the promise of a blessing and the menace of a curse.

The beauty and greatness of the Cathedral is perhaps no where so completely and satisfactorily realized as when standing on its roof with its wonderful forest of turrets, pinnacles and statues around and beneath one. The ascent is gradual and not at all fatiguing. Instead of turning and twisting up a narrow circular staircase, you go up a square tower, in flights of three or four straight steps at a time; these succeeding flights being separated by wide landing places. Then to the roof itself islike a series of low steps, thirty or forty feet wide, and sloping gently towards the apex. We mounted at once to the upper gallery of the principal tower, five hundred steps above the mosaic Particulars such as these can easily flooring of the cathedral. A warm, be gathered and are probably not new slow and drizzling rain prevented our to the reader. The marvellous building seeing much of the surrounding landmust be seen to be rightly estimated. scape. On a clear day the Alps and The lofty arches, lustrous walls and Apennines are plainly visible, not exmagnificently painted windows, shrines, cepting Mont Blanc and the peaks of the sarcophagi and royal tombs give to the Bernese Oberland. But for nearly interior an air of grandeur, which can- half an hour we walked to and fro not be described. The vaulted nave upon the great white roof. The wonrises to the height of 155 feet, and serves drous edifice alone was itself quite to enhance the general effect. Just in enough to detain us. The profusion of front of the choir a circular opening marble balustrades, buttresses, statues surrounded by an ornamental iron rail- and pinnacles is almost incredible. The ing, reveals a subterranean chapel. exterior of the Cathedral is one mass of Here rest the bones of San Carlo Bor- blooming stone. "The wilderness of romeo, Milan's greatest of archbishops. tracery, which surrounds the roof, deliLamps are kept burning before the cately marked against the sky, gives to richly decorated tomb which bears the the whole structure, large and massive celebrated prelate's favorite motto: as it is, the appearance of being as "Umilitas" inscribed in golden let- light and fragile as if the first gust of ters. A fee of five francs would have heavy wind might be expected to topple secured the blessed privilege of looking it over." The exterior walls, though in through the grating upon the relics most elaborately carved, are themselves of good San Carlo, but to us such sights but the rich setting for thousands of have no attraction, and we did not en-statues of every imaginable size and

subject, each one again in itself a perfect gem of the sculptor's art. Their number has been variously estimated. There are certainly no less than five thousand, and probably many more. Altogether, the Cathedral of Milan, ideally less satisfying than that of Cologne, is one of the most beautiful and remarkable structures ever reared by man. "Perhaps one of its greatest charms," says Sewell, "is, that every part which has yet been completed, has been done in the best way; no expense has been spared; and even in places, where, as the common saying is, no one would notice, it is as delicately carved and ornamented as in the front. The building was raised for the honor of God; and they who planned it knew that His Eye can see everywhere."

PROFESSOR TAIT has translated into simple English Mr. Spencer's formula of Evolution. It reads thus: "Evolution is a change from a nohowish untalkaboutable allalikeness to a somehowish and in general talkaboutable not-all-a-likeness, by continuous something elseifications and stick-togetherations."

Receive Thy Sight.

My Saviour, what Thou didst of old
When Thou wast dwelling here,
Thou dost yet for them, who bold
In faith to Thee draw near.
As Thou hadst pity on the blind,
According to Thy word,
Thou sufferedst me, Thy grace to find,
Thou Light hast on me pour'd

Mourning I sat beside the way,
In sightless gloom apart,
And sadness heavy on me lay,

And longing gnawed my heart;
I heard the music of the psalms
Thy people sang to Thee,
I felt the waving of their palms,
And yet I could not see.

My pain grew more than I could bear,
Too keen my grief became,
Then I took heart in my despair

To call upon Thy name :
"O, Son of David, save and heal,
As Thou so oft hast done!
O, dearest Jesus let me feel
My load of darkness gone."

And ever weeping, as I spoke

With bitter prayers and sighs, My stony heart grew soft and broke, More earnest yet my cries.

A sudden answer still'd my fear
For it was said to me:

"O, poor, blind man be of good cheer, Rejoice, He calleth thee."

I felt, Lord, that Thou stoodest still,
Groping Thy feet I sought,
From off me fell my old self-will,

A change came o'er my thought. Thou saidst, "What is it thou wouldst have?" "Lord, that I might have sight; To see Thy countenance I crave." "So be it, have thou light."

And words of Thine can never fail,

My fears are past and o'er; My soul is glad with light, the veil Is on my heart no more. Thou blessest me, and forth I fare Free from my old disgrace, And follow on with joy where'er Thy footsteps, Lord, I trace. -DE LA MOTTE FOUQUE, Translated by Catharine Winkworth.

Thomas Carlyle.

BY THE EDITOR.

A few months ago the sexton of Haddington cathedral (England) said:

"Mr. Carlyle comes here from London now and then to see this grave. He is a gaunt, shaggy, weird kind of an old man, looking very old the last time he was here-eightysix-and comes here to this grave all the way from London. Mr. Carlyle himself is to be brought to be buried with his wife. He comes here lonesome and alone when he visits his wife's grave. His niece keeps him company to the gate, but he leaves her there and she stays there for him. The last time he was here I got a sight of him, and he was bowed down under his white hairs, and he took his way up by that ruined wall of the old cathedral, and round there, and in here by the gateway, and he tottered up here to this spot. Softly spake the grave-digger, and paused. Softer still, in the broad dialect of the Lothians, he proceeded: And he stood here awhile in the grass, then he bent over and I saw him kiss the ground, aye, he kissed it again and again,and he kept kneeling, and it was a long time before he rose and tottered out of the cathedral and wandered through the graveyard to the gate, where his niece stood waiting for him."

It was old Thomas Carlyle, whose lonely heart was home-sick for the human sympathy of his wife, long since dead. On February 5th he, too, passed away, at the age of eighty-six years. His wife died in 1866. She was a lineal descendant of Scotland's great reformer, John Knox. He was but thirty-one

working farmer, well-booked in his catechism and in the heroic history of the Scotch Covenanters. Of him Carlyle says:

when he married Jane Welch. Their wedded life was cheerful but childless. However his cold, rugged nature might repulse some and provoke bitter attacks from others, she always understood him, and could enter into cordial sympathy with him. One day she died suddenly in a coach, as she was riding through one of the streets of London. Her death was like the setting of a sun in his heart and home, and left him dreary and desolate. He buried her remains in Haddington church-yard, and marked her grave with a suitable monument. When old and grey-headed he said, as he bowed over the dust of his wife, that "the lighting, I discovered that every one of them I of his life is clean gone out of him."

Our young readers may not have heard or read much of this noted author. Twenty years ago, his works were read more than they are now. In style and views he differs from all other English authors. His sentences, aside of Johnson's, are very uneven and jolting. The reader sometimes moves over them like a frontier traveler on his team over a corduroy-road, where the rails are laid crosswise. His pen reminds one of the great battle-axe of Richard the Lion-hearted; and like him, too, he hacks right and left with the power of a literary crusader, laying many an antagonist low, never to rise again. With what vivid pleasure we first read his "Hero Worship," when a student, we still freshly remember. It was some

father was quite the remarkablest. Quite a
"I think of all men I have ever known my
farmer sort of person, using vigilant thrift and
careful husbandry; abiding by veracity and
faith, and with an extraordinary insight into
I can re-
the very heart of things and men.
member that from my childhood I was sur-
prised at his using many words of which I
knew not the meaning; and even as I grew to
manhood I was not a little puzzled by them,
and supposed that they must be of his own
coinage. But later, in my black-letter read-

could recall was of the sound Saxon stock
which had lain buried, yet fruitful withal and
most significant in the quick memory of the
humbler sort of folk."

"He was an elder of the kirk, and it was very pleasant to see him in his daily and weekly relations with the minister of the parish. They had been friends from their youth, and had grown up together in the service of their common Master. It was a pleasant thing

to see the minister in cassock and bands come forth on the Sabbath day and stand up to lead the devotions of his people-preaching to them the words of truth and soberness, which he had gained by pains-taking study and devout prayer to Almighty God to know what was the mind of the Spirit: not cutting fantastic capers before High Heaven, as is the wont and use of many modern preachers, seeking to become Thaumaturgists in gathering a crowd of gaping fools to behold-sad spectacle!-how much of a fool a man could be in the sight of God. There was only a simple and earnest desire to feed the souls of his people and lead them in the ways of life everlasting. I rememthing so different from the ordinary ber the last time I ever saw my father. The kind of reading then, so fearless, fresh other members of the family were engaged and stimulating. His style was stripped with their usual occupations, and we had the of every ornate embellishment. His most of the time to ourselves. I laid me rugged, awkward sentences always aimed down upon the floor and he was stretched to crack some hard nut, and give the upon the sofa, and I plied him with all manner of questions concerning the people he had reader the kernel. In person, habits, known and the affairs in which he had been style and faith-and alas, often in want an actor. How he looked into the very marof faith, too—Carlyle was an original row of things; and how he set the truth forth character. His great works, while they heard from another man's lips. I had not in quaint, queer sentences, such as I never may not be read by the masses, will re- been in town many days when the heavy tidmain treasures of the most valuable ma-ings came that my father was dead. He had terial-mines and quarries out of which many inferior minds will gather the ore from which to build reputations that may for a season outshine that of Carlyle. But we wish to speak of his character and habits, rather than of his writings.

He was born in a small village in the Highlands of Scotland. His father was an elder in the village church-a hard

gone to bed at night as well as usual, it seemed, but they found in the morning that he had passed from the realm of Sleep to that of Day. It was a fit end for such a life as his had been. Ah, sir, he was a man, into the four corners of whose house there had shined, through the years of his pilgrimage, by day and by night, the light of the glory of God. Like Enoch of

old, he had walked with God, and at last he was not, for God took him. If I could only see such men now as were my father and his minister-men of such fearless truth and simple

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