Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/291

Rh church—whatever exceptions may and must be made for noble individuals, as well amongst the elder as the younger Italian priesthood. Vincenzio Gioberti and Abbé Lambruschini are prelates who cannot be reproached with want of zeal for the elevation of the people by means of education. But their words and their labors, have run counter to the Pontifical chair, and they have been able to do nothing.

Not long since, during one of my morning rambles on the Corso, I went into one of the churches of which that great thoroughfare has so many. Here I found from fifty to sixty boys sitting in a circle in the great aisle, to whom a young priest was giving instruction. He walked backwards and forwards, talking the while, but as if to himself, and lifting his black cap every time he mentioned the name of Jesus, or His Mother. None of the boys paid any attention to him, and he, on his part, did not take the slightest notice of their talking, laughing, and playing all kinds of tricks amongst themselves. Sometimes he stopped before a boy, and asked him a question, the boy looked confused, the priest answered the question himself, and then continued his promenade. Thus the lesson went on for about an hour, till the bell rang for Il vespro, when all the boys jumped up, dropped upon their knees and repeated, all with one voice, the Litany to Maria, with its forty or fifty poetical cognomens for the Mother of Jesus, thus:—