Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/292

302 This little bit of early education may be taken as typical of the whole instructional system of the Romish church.

I was witness this afternoon to another scene which belongs to this system. As I was resting in my quiet room, after a visit to Maria Sopra Minerva, where—in parenthesis, be it said—I heard an excellent sermon by a Carmelite monk, on the rights of intelligence and its place in human life, when I was aroused by the sound of a strong voice, which seemed to be preaching and exhorting fervently. I rose, threw a shawl over my head and went out; the moonlight was splendid, and it and the powerful voice of the preacher, drew me to the foot of the Tarpeian rock. Here I found a concourse of country-people assembled in an open space, mostly men, about two hundred in number, whose heads never seemed to have come in contact with a comb, and this crowd, from which proceeded an offensive odor, stood listening to a monk who with the voice of Stentor, exclaimed, that