Imatges de pàgina
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of the Old and New Testament adopted by the primitive church, are admitted as works of inspiration. The seven sacraments of the catholic church are recognized, and the celibacy of the clergy is denounced, as contrary to religion, good morals and civilization. The whole of the sacraments of the church are administered in the vulgar tongue. Auricular confession is not prescribed to persons of mature age, but is recommended to young persons, preparatory to their first communion. Fast days and abstinence are treated as an absurdity, but the sacrifice of the mass is retained, on condition of its being performed in the vulgar tongue. The veneration of the saints is limited to the offering of thanks to God for the salvation he has granted them. The duty of preaching is prescribed to the clergy, who are forbidden to introduce into their sermons any subjects of a political nature. As I have already hinted, the new faith recognizes the establishment of a hierarchy, of which the Abbe Chatel, with the title of primate, has declared himself the chief, supported by a series of bishops, priests, and deacons.

A REAL CUPID.
For the Olio.

Old Mon.

Cupid exists in Farmer Greig,
And Love to him must yield:
His bow is in his crooked leg-
His h-arrow in the field.

His shafts are to his harness link'd-
His feathers with his fowls;
And some assert his eyes are blink'd,
While all declare 'he s-cowls,
Ladies! with hearts above all price!
Avoid the farmer's skill!
But if you will not take advice-
He lives at-Shooter's Hill.

J. R. P.

us, therefore, agreed to escort them to George's Hotel, where they intended to take up their quarters for the night. Nothing can exceed the gloomy appearance of Cape Town on a starless night, after the time when the greater part of its inhabitants have retired to rest; there are no lamps to cheer the eyeall is wrapt in obscurity, and the silence equals that of the grave. Here and there the figure of a policeman may be traced, standing under the shadow of a wall; or, occasionally, a slave is to be seen with a glimmering lanthorn* in his hand, gliding along with noiseless footsteps.

It was on such a night as this that we sallied forth with our companions, the two jolly sons of Neptune, who could not precisely be said to be inebriated, but they were so far advanced in that state as to be ripe for mischief, and we had much ado to prevent them from roaring" Glorious Apollo" as they walked along. On proceeding down Long-street, our attention was arrested by a very unusual appearance; one of the houses had lights in all its windows, which were thrown up, and the streetdoor was also wide open. Around it were gathered an assemblage of individuals, apparently of the lower class, and a loud sound as of men singing was heard within. Impelled by curiosity, we approached the entrance, with the intention of inquiring the cause of the mirth and festivity; but before we had time to ask the question, a man cleared the way, and requested us to walk in. We accepted this polite invitation, and proceeded through a dark passage, from which we emerged into a large room that bore the appearance of a kitchen, in which a number of people were employed in the avocation of cook

AN ADVENTURE IN CAPE TOWN. ing, and preparations were evidently

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For the Olio.

DURING my residence in Cape Town, some time since, I made one of a party who assembled on the evening previous to the departure of my friend for England. Among other persons present upon the occasion, were two officers, belonging to the Hon. Company's ship then in Table Bay. As we kept it up rather late, and they were totally unacquainted with the intricacies of Cape Town (for I will defy any stranger to find his way through it after dark, as the streets are nearly all alike, so much so indeed that it requires some experience to distinguish one from the other after nightfall,) three or four of

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being made for a great feast. were individuals of every shade of colour, from a jet black to a whited brown, busily scampering about with the various culinary utensils. By the bye, if the old saying of the broth" be authentic, the company too many cooks spoil who partook of this collation were not to be envied, for the fire was literally obscured by their numbers. This scene would have furnished a rich subject for George Cruikshanks. On the opposite side was a staircase leading to rooms above, up which we directed our steps.

without a lanthorn.
* No slave is permitted to be out after dark

The first exploit of one of our heroes was to throw en passant a wet dishclout, that lay on a table hard by, at the head of an old Malay woman, who seemed to be enjoying the blessings of sweet repose in an arm-chair, and was snoring most melodiously. This instantly chased away her slumbers, and a fierce altercation ensued, innumerable soup ladles, &c. were raised against the delinquent, whom we, with great difficulty and by dint of apologies, delivered from being anointed with their contents. Having ascended the staircase, we found ourselves in a kind of lobby, which was crammed as full as it would well hold of a motley assembly, consisting of Malays, Mosambiques, and people of divers other nations and tongues: we managed to squeeze our way to the further end, where rather a curious scene met our view. It proved to be a Malay festival. We could view the proceedings of the priests and their votaries through the door of the chamber in which they were congregated, but were not permitted to enter.

It was a large apartment, hung all round with white drapery, several chandeliers were suspended from the roof, and at one extremity was erected rather an elegant canopy, composed of white and crimson draperies. Three handsome old Malays, with long beards, habited in white robes, were seated upon the carpet, and were chaunting some service in a discordant strain, the chorus of which was taken up by other men squatted in a similar position, who wore their ordinary dresses. At this time we heard one of our worthy comlet panions exclaim, "D-n it, Mus douse the glims, and go in and sit upon the throne." We immediately laid violent hands upon the mad-brained sailor, who had already advanced several steps into the room, in order to put his proposition into execution. To prevent this attempted outrage necessarily produced a tremendous uproar, and it was not without making number. less entreaties that we prevented the multitude from inflicting summary vengeance upon the culprit.

THE PRAYER OF CHILDHOOD.
Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
WORDSWORTH.

It is a sight the heart to thrill
With many a thought of earlier years;
It is a sight the eye to fill

With long disused, delicious tears;
It is a sight to look upon

With sighs for life's long erring road;-
To send us to a father's throne,

And lift our stubborn hearts to God!

Oh! who can mark those faces mild,
Those upturned eyes of earnest love,
Nor long to be again a child,

Raising a sinless prayer above!
I gaze till every hallowed feeling

Of bygone years returns to me;
Once more I am an infant, kneeling
Beside my gentle mother's.knee.
Once more she bends-that gentle mother-
The guileless lips' devotions o'er;
Once more thy little arm, my brother,

Entwines my neck as heretofore!
Once more, as when our prayers ascended,
Two young pure hearts together blended;
Ah! ne'er to be so pure again.

At morn and eve, a mingled strain;

The world's cold clouds have dimmed that

morrow,

Yet, gazing on this lovely scene,
Who would not turn from present sorrow,
To muse on peace that once had been!
They pray-untouched by care or ill,

With brows as calm as summer even; Their eyes' clear depths retaining still Some radiance from their native beaven!

They pray,-upon those parted lips

Truth's simple spirit sits alone; The world hath cast no dim eclipse

Betwixt them and their Maker's throne: They pray, and then the kind, "Good night,” The loving kiss, shall end the prayer; Theirs sure will be a slumber light,

With God's own blessing resting there. Sweet innocents! and must it be

That this shall pass like morning dew; Children of pale mortality,

Oh, must its curse be on ye too! Shall weary day, and sleepless night,

Succeed the peace that fills ye now! Shall sorrow cloud those eyes' soft light, Those brows shall care's deep furrows plough!

Upon those bosom-temples' throne

Shall earth's foul spirits fix abode!
Shall life's wild path, advancing on,

But lead ye further from your God!
Dark thought and faithless-hence, away!
A holier trust be mine alone,
That God-He died for such as they-
Hath still the power to keep his own.
Yes, far on waves of trouble tost,

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Their lone and lowly bark may roam;
Yet know I they shall not be lost,
He whom they sought shall guide them
home.

Pure and unsullied are they still,
But taint of earth is on their bloom:

This being the second scrape he had got us into, and not deeming it prudent And earth has paths that wind through ill,

to trust to the issue of a third, we ac cordingly made the best of our way out of the house, with good reason to think ourselves fortunate that we had escaped scathless.

WM. HENRY.

And care, and anguish, to the tomb. Yet view I even such lot on earth,

With hope that soars o'er coward fears: Tears must they shed, than worldling's mirth,

Oh

better, holier far are tears.

Then leave them to their Father's hand; By him their onward course be given ; Young pilgrims in a foreign land;

Yet destined heirs of rest in heaven!

Literary Souvenir.

HISTORY OF

THE HOLY CROSS.*

"In the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great, his mother Helena, when almost an octogenarian, undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her pious zeal was particularly directed to the search of the holy sepulchre, and of the cross on which Jesus Christ had suffered; and, according to her own judgment at least, she was successful in both. A vision, or perhaps a dream, disclosed the place of the holy sepulchre: the three crosses were found buried near it; and that of the Saviour is said to have been distinguished from the others by its healing powers on the sick, and even restoring a corpse to life. This discovery caused great and general rejoicing throughout Christendom. The spot was immediately consecrated by a church called the New Jerusalem; and of such magnificence, that the celebrated Eusebius is strongly inclined to look upon its building as the fulfilment of the prophecies in the Scriptures for a city of that name. A verse of the sybil was also remembered or composed, which, like all predictions after the event, tallied in a surprising manner with the holy object so happily revealed. The greater share of the cross was left at Jerusalem, set in a case of silver, and the remainder was sent to Constantine, who in hopes of securing the prosperity and duration of his empire, enclosed it within his own statue on the Byzantine forum. The pilgrims, also, who thronged to Jerusalem during a long course of years, were always eager, and often successful, in obtaining a small fragment of the cross for themselves; so that at length, according to the strong expression of St. Cyril, the whole earth was filled with this sacred wood. Even at present, there is scarcely a Roman Catholic cathedral which does not display some pretended pieces of this relic; and it has been computed, with some exaggeration, that, were they all collected together, they might prove sufficient for building a ship of the line. To account for this extraordinary diffusion of so limited a quantity, the Catholic writers have been obliged to assert its preternatural growth and vegetation, which the saint already quoted, ingeniously compares to the miracle of the loaves and fishes. That the guardians of this cross at Jerusa

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Amulet, as abridged for the Lit. Gaz.

lem should have had recourse to such evident and undoubted falsehood, should, I think, very much increase our doubts whether the cross itself was genuine, and whether the old age and credulity of Helena may not have been grossly imposed upon. Where we see one fraud, we may justly suspect another. From this period, however, the history of this fragment of wood may be clearly and accurately traced during the twelve succeeding centuries. In spite of its frequent partitions, the holy cross, say the monkish writers, thus remained undiminished at Jerusalem, receiving the homage of innumerable pilgrims, until the year 614, when this city was besieged and taken by the Persians. Their barbarous fanaticism reduced to ruins or burnt to the ground nearly all the sacred buildings, and made a great slaughter of the Christians, in which they are said to have been actively assisted by the resident Jews. The bishop and the relic in question were removed into Persia, and continued in that country fourteen years, until the victories of the Emperor Heraclius led to an honourable peace, in which the restoration of this most precious treasure was expressly stipulated. During its captivity it had happily escaped the pollution of infidel hands; the case which contained it was brought back unopened to Jerusalem, and Heraclius himself undertook a journey in order to replace it in its former station on Mount Calvary. The prelude to this religious ceremony was a general massacre of the Jews, which the Emperor had long withstood, but at length granted to the earnest and renewed entreaties of the monks of Alsik. The fact itself, and all its details are so disgraceful to the parties concerned, that I would gladly reject it as false or overcharged, did it not rest on the authority of a patriarch of Alexandria. Heraclius then-attended by a solemn procession, but laying aside his diadem and purplebore the cross on his own shoulders towards the holy sepulchre. An officer was appointed to its peculiar care, with the title of Staurophulax: and the anniversary of this event, the 14th of September, is still celebrated in the Greek church as a festival, under the name of the Exaltation of the Cross. The relic did not long continue in the place to which the valour and piety of Heraclius restored it, but was doomed to undergo still further vicissitudes of fortune. Only eight years afterwards (A. D. 636), an army of Arabs, the new and fervent

sistance;

proselytes of Mahomet, invaded Palestine. At the battle of Yermuk the imperial forces were totally routed; and Heraclius, downcast and dismayed, returned to Constantinople, bearing with him, as a source of consolation, the invaluable fragment, whose alleged miraculous powers were never exerted for its own protection. It is rarely that when a sovereign despairs of success, his subjects have the courage (it would, perhaps, be termed the disloyal presumption) to prolong their rebut the inhabitants of Jeru salem were animated by religious zeal and local associations, and did not, till after a doubtful siege of several months, yield the holy city to the Saracens. The event soon justified the prudent foresight of Heraclius in removing the cross from the danger of Mahometan masters. The caliph of Omar experienced some difficulties in the construction of a mosque at Jerusalem; he immediately supposed those difficulties to be supernatural, and, by the advice of the Jews, destroyed a great number of the neigh bouring crosses: so that it seems certain that the wood of the real crucifixion could still less have escaped the effects of his ignorant fanaticism. At Constantinople, on the contrary, it was preserved with the utmost veneration in the metropolitan church of St. Sophia, and the honours paid to it are attested and described by the father of English historians. Never, but on the three most solemn festivals of the year, was its costly case unclosed. On the first day, it received the adoration of the emperor and principal officers of state; on the next, the empress and chief ladies repeated the same ceremony; and the bishops and clergy were admitted on the third. While exposed to view on the altar, a grateful odour pervaded the whole church, and a fluid resembling oil distilled from the knots in the wood, of which the least drop was thought sufficient to cure the most inveterate disease. This precious fluid is also mentioned by Pope Gregory the Great in one of his letters to Leontius:-'I have received your present,' writes the pope, some oil of the holy cross and some wood of aloes, of which one confers blessing by its very touch, and the other, when burnt, diffuses a pleasant perfume.' In a period of several centuries, during which this relic remained at Constantinople, we find it occasionally mentioned in the annals of the time. It was on the holy cross that Heracleonas swore to cherish and de

fend his nephews; it was to the same fragment that the son of Justinian the Second clung for protection, in the revolution which hurled his father from the throne: and we might entertain more respect for the superstition of the Greeks, if the supposed sanctity of this relic had produced either the observance of the oath or the safety of the suppliant. At length, in the year 1078, the object of my narrative recommenced its travels. A wealthy citizen of Amalfi, whose name is not recorded, had long felt a wish to exchange active life for the cloister, and had selected the monastery of Casinum as the place of his future retirement. Being present in the eastern capital during the tumultuous deposition of Michael the Seventh, he perceived in the general confusion a favourable opportunity for appropriating this precious fragment to himself. His zeal did not forget at the same time to secure the golden case, richly embossed with jewels, which contained it; and both were laid as a welcome offering before the shrine of St. Benedict, at Casinum. The good fathers must have felt no little pride when strangers beheld, in their secluded and obscure retreat, a relic which a long succession of the most illustrious princes had gloried in possessing. The next place to which we can trace the cross is Palestine, during the crusades, to which it had doubtless been conveyed for the purpose of restoring it to its more ancient and appropriate station at Jerusalem. In that country it was exposed to frequent hazards, as the crusaders appear to have been in the habit of bearing it in the van of their armies when marching against the Mussulmans, hoping by its presence amongst them to secure the victory. One of their battles against the forces of Saladin by no means fulfilled their expectations, and in the course of it the sacred relic itself was unfortunately severed; one half of it being captured by the enemy, and most probably destroyed. This untoward accident, however, by no means impaired their veneration for the remaining fragment; and at the commencement of the thirteenth century, it is again recorded as taking the field with the King of Hungary and the Duke of Austria. From these it passed into the hands of their brother crusaders, the Latin sovereigns of Constantinople; and thus, by a singular train of circumstances, a change of dynasty restored this precious relic to the people which had so long enjoyed its possession. It does not, however,

appear to have received the full measure of its ancient veneration; and a new crown of thorns, alleged to be that of the passion, held at this period a far higher rank with the public. In the year 1238, the pressure of poverty and impending ruin compelled the Emperor Baldwin the Second to sell what the piety of St. Louis, King of France, induced him as eagerly to purchase. A very considerable sum was given in exchange for the holy wood, and on its arrival in Paris it was deposited by King Louis in a chapel which be built on this occasion. There the cross remained for above 300 years, until at length, on the 20th of May, 1575, it disappeared from its station. The most anxious researches failed in tracing the robber, or recovering the spoil; and the report which accused King Henry the Third of having secretly sold it to the Venetians, may be considered as a proof of the popular animosity rather than of royal avarice. To appease in some degree the loud and angry murmurs of his subjects, Henry, the next year, on Easter Day, announced that a new cross had been prepared for their consolation, of the same shape, size, and appearance, as the stolen relic; and asserted, most probably with perfect truth, that in divine powers, or claim to religious worship, it was but little inferior to its model. 'The people of Paris,' says Estoile, an eye-witness of this transaction, 'being very devout, and of easy faith on such subjects' (he is speaking of the sixteenth century), 'gratefully hailed the restoration of some tangible and immediate object for their prayers.' Of the original fragment I can discern no further authentic trace; and here, then, it seems to have ended its long and adventurous career."

VISIT TO TIBERIAS.

66

THE enterprising John Carne thus describes Tiberias:-Approaching this celebrated place, we passed by a spot on the left (says he), on a gentle declivity where, tradition says, the five thousand were miraculously fed. The town of Tiberias is surrounded by a wall, but is rather a wretched place within. No ancient remains of any interest are at present found here. On the shore of the lake Tiberias, at some distance to the south of the town, are warm mineral baths, which are much used and esteemed. At the extremity of the northeastern shore, some remains are said

still to exist where Caperhaum formerly stood. The inhabitants of the town are chiefly Jews, with some Turks. We lodged in the house of one of the Jews, a wealthy old merchant of Aleppo, who had come hither in his old age, and built his house far from his native home, in order that he might die at the lake of Tiberias. The attachment of the Jews to the places of their ancient record and glory, is sometimes excessively strong. In walking along the shores, we met occasionally Jews from Poland, chiefly elderly men, who had come from their native country to this spot, from no other motive but to spend their last years round the lake.

"On the night of our arrival, we walked on the terraced roof to enjoy the coolness of the air. It was moonlight, and the lake and its shores were as beautiful a scene as can be conceived. It brought to mind the night, though so different a one, when Christ walked on the surface of the waves to rescue his disciples. Yet Tiberias is a scene where Nature seems still to wear as sublime and lovely an aspect, as in the day when it drew the visitations and mercies of the Lord. No curse rests on its shores, as on those of the Dead Sea; but a hallowed calm, and a majestic beauty, that are irresistably delightful. The length of the lake is about fourteen miles, and the breadth five. The fish it contains have a most delicious flavour, and are much the size and colour of a mullet. The boats used on it are, in some seasons of the year, much exposed from the sudden squalls of wind which issue from between the mountains. The water is perfectly sweet and clear. The Jordan is seen to enter it at its northern extremity, and its source is distinctly visible through the whole extent of the lake. The range of mountains forming its eastern shore is very lofty; their steep and rocky sides are barren, with sprinkling of trees on a few of the summits. The western shore, where the town stands, is level, but its picturesque hills, divided by sweet vallies, are covered with a rich carpet of verdure, but almost destitute of trees. The side to the southern end of the lake is very pleasant, where the Jordan flows out of it. An ancient bridge, some of whose ruined and lofty arches still stand in the river, add much to the beauty of the scene. We bathed here in the Jordan, which issues out in a stream of about fifty feet wide, and flows down a rich and deserted valley, enclosed by bare and lofty mountains.

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