Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/78

88 remains of the Council Hall. The steps are twenty-eight in number,—covered with wood—and the penitents who creep up them, find at the top a little closed chapel, in which a lamp burns amidst relics, “so holy,” says an inscription on the wall, “that no holier place is to be found in the entire world.”

People are not allowed to enter, but can merely peep in through the grating. The penitents kneel outside this grating, kiss the holy wall, and then go down by another flight of steps, at the foot of which is a picture upon which may be read in large letters that “all such as, with their souls deeply absorbed in the sufferings of the Saviour, ascend the holy steps upon their knees, receive absolution for nine past years of their lives, and that Pope Pius VII. has declared the absolution to be available for the whole lifetime, and that it is also applicable to the souls in purgatory!”

Did the feet of the Saviour actually tread these steps? Are these relics really portions of his cross, crown of thorns, &c.,—or is all this fictitious? To me it is all one.

“He is not here, he is arisen!” said the angels at the tomb. The worship of the bodily covering which the spirit has cast off, belongs to souls still in the larva-condition; and the ascending of the Scala Santa, on the knees, is too convenient a mode for obtaining the forgiveness of sins, and at the same time a hindrance upon the only true way.

At the foot of the Scala Santa, stand two beautiful groups in marble, of Jesus and Judas Iscariot, and of Jesus and Pontius Pilate, both by a Roman sculptor,