The Sex Has Indeed
Had Much Restraint To Bear From The Church, But In Some Respects It Has
Been Rendered Fearless In The Assertion Of Its Rights.
With poor women
one of these is the indefeasible right to ask alms, and I admired the
courage, almost
The ferocity, of the aged crone whom I had promised
charity in coming to the place and who rose up as I was being driven
past her, in going away, and stayed my cabman with a clamor which he
dared not ignore. Her reproaches continued through the ensuing
transaction, and followed him away with stings which instinct and
experience taught her how to implant in his tenderest sensibilities.
A chapter much longer than any I have written here might well be devoted
to the study of the clerical or secular guides in the minor churches of
Rome. They are of every manner and degree of kindliness, mixed with a
fair measure of intelligence and a very fitting faith in the legends of
their churches. You soon get on terms of impersonal intimacy with them,
and you cannot come away without sharing their professional zeal, and
distinguishing for the moment in favor of their respective churches
above every other. It did not matter whether it was that newest church
in the Quartiere dei Prati, or that most venerable among the oldest
churches, the Church of San Gregorio: I found a reason for agreeing with
the sacristan upon its singular claims. These were especially enforced
by the good dame, the only woman sacristan I remember, who would not
spare us a single object of interest in San Gregorio's, which is indeed
for the visitor of Anglo-Saxon race supremely rich in its associations
with the conversions of his ancestors from heathenism.
Being myself of Cymric blood, and of a Christianity several hundred
years older than that of the ordinary Anglo-Saxon traveller, I am afraid
that it was from a rather patronizing piety that I visited the church
where the great St. Gregory dismissed to their mission in England St.
Augustine and his fellow-apostles on one of the greatest days of the
sixth century. I might have stayed to imagine them kneeling among the
people who then thronged the genially irregular piazza, but as we came
up some ecclesiastical students were playing ball there, their robes
tucked into their girdles for their greater convenience, and we made our
way at once into the church. It forms one of a consecrated group of
edifices enshrining the memory of the best of the popes, who was also
the greatest; and here or in the adjacent convents a score of miracles
were wrought through the heavenly beauty of his life. Of these miracles,
of whose inspiration you must feel the poetry even if you cannot feel
their verity, the loveliest has its substantial witness in one of the
little chapels next the church. There you may see with your eyes and
touch with your hands the table at which St. Gregory fed every morning
twelve poor men, till one morning a thirteenth appeared in the figure of
Christ the Lord, as if to own them His disciples.
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