They Dress Themselves With All The
Sacerdotal Ornaments, But Torn To Rags, Or Wear Them Inside Out;
They Hold In Their Hands The Books Reversed Or Sideways, Which They
Pretend To Read With Large Spectacles Without Glasses, And To Which
They Fix The Rinds Of Scooped Oranges .
. . ; Particularly while
dangling the censers they keep shaking them in derision, and
letting the ashes fly about their heads and faces, one against the
other.
In this equipage they neither sing hymns nor psalms nor
masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking as a
herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant
are singularly barbarous:-
Haec est clara dies, clararum clara dierum,
Haec est festa dies festarum festa dierum.'" {8}
Faith was far more assured in the times when the spiritual
saturnalia were allowed than now. The irreverence which was not
dangerous then, is now intolerable. It is a bad sign for a man's
peace in his own convictions when he cannot stand turning the
canvas of his life occasionally upside down, or reversing it in a
mirror, as painters do with their pictures that they may judge the
better concerning them. I would persuade all Jews, Mohammedans,
Comtists, and freethinkers to turn high Anglicans, or better still,
downright Catholics for a week in every year, and I would send
people like Mr. Gladstone to attend Mr. Bradlaugh's lectures in the
forenoon, and the Grecian pantomime in the evening, two or three
times every winter. I should perhaps tell them that the Grecian
pantomime has nothing to do with Greek plays. They little know how
much more keenly they would relish their normal opinions during the
rest of the year for the little spiritual outing which I would
prescribe for them, which, after all, is but another phase of the
wise saying - Surtout point de zele. St. Paul attempted an
obviously hopeless task (as the Church of Rome very well
understands) when he tried to put down seasonarianism. People must
and will go to church to be a little better, to the theatre to be a
little naughtier, to the Royal Institution to be a little more
scientific, than they are in actual life. It is only by pulsations
of goodness, naughtiness, and whatever else we affect that we can
get on at all. I grant that when in his office, a man should be
exact and precise, but our holidays are our garden, and too much
precision here is a mistake.
Surely truces, without even an arriere pensee of difference of
opinion, between those who are compelled to take widely different
sides during the greater part of their lives, must be of infinite
service to those who can enter on them. There are few merely
spiritual pleasures comparable to that derived from the temporary
laying down of a quarrel, even though we may know that it must be
renewed shortly. It is a great grief to me that there is no place
where I can go among Mr. Darwin, Professors Huxley, Tyndall, and
Ray Lankester, Miss Buckley, Mr. Romanes, Mr. Allen, and others
whom I cannot call to mind at this moment, as I can go among the
Italian priests.
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