Rome has a certain species of consolation readier at hand, for all the
necessitous, than any other spot under the sun; and Hilda's despondent
state made her peculiarly liable to the peril, if peril it can justly be
termed, of seeking, or consenting, to be thus consoled.
Had the Jesuits known the situation of this troubled heart, her
inheritance of New England Puritanism would hardly have protected the
poor girl from the pious strategy of those good fathers. Knowing, as
they do, how to work each proper engine, it would have been ultimately
impossible for Hilda to resist the attractions of a faith, which so
marvellously adapts itself to every human need. Not, indeed, that it can
satisfy the soul's cravings, but, at least, it can sometimes help
the soul towards a higher satisfaction than the faith contains within
itself. It supplies a multitude of external forms, in which the
spiritual may be clothed and manifested; it has many painted windows,
as it were, through which the celestial sunshine, else disregarded, may
make itself gloriously perceptible in visions of beauty and splendor.
There is no one want or weakness of human nature for which Catholicism
will own itself without a remedy; cordials, certainly, it possesses in
abundance, and sedatives in inexhaustible variety, and what may once
have been genuine medicaments, though a little the worse for long
keeping.
To do it justice, Catholicism is such a miracle of fitness for its
own ends, many of which might seem to be admirable ones, that it is
difficult to imagine it a contrivance of mere man. Its mighty machinery
was forged and put together, not on middle earth, but either above
or below. If there were but angels to work it, instead of the very
different class of engineers who now manage its cranks and safety
valves, the system would soon vindicate the dignity and holiness of its
origin.
Hilda had heretofore made many pilgrimages among the churches of Rome,
for the sake of wondering at their gorgeousness. Without a glimpse at
these palaces of worship, it is impossible to imagine the magnificence
of the religion that reared them. Many of them shine with burnished
gold. They glow with pictures. Their walls, columns, and arches seem a
quarry of precious stones, so beautiful and costly are the marbles
with which they are inlaid. Their pavements are often a mosaic, of rare
workmanship. Around their lofty cornices hover flights of sculptured
angels; and within the vault of the ceiling and the swelling interior
of the dome, there are frescos of such brilliancy, and wrought with so
artful a perspective, that the sky, peopled with sainted forms, appears
to be opened only a little way above the spectator. Then there are
chapels, opening from the side aisles and transepts, decorated by
princes for their own burial places, and as shrines for their especial
saints. In these, the splendor of the entire edifice is intensified
and gathered to a focus. Unless words were gems, that would flame with
many-colored light upon the page, and throw thence a tremulous glimmer
into the reader's eyes, it were wain to attempt a description of a
princely chapel.