At a THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES OF ROME. BY THE AUTHOR OF "WALKS IN ALGIERS." T a time when no less a person than the Roman Pontiff himself is calling public attention to the inroads which Protestant teaching has made in "his" city, it will surely not be uninteresting to consider what the progress of evangelical truth in Rome has been during the last nine years of freedom from Papal rule, and what is the state of affairs which is so arousing the indignation of Leo XIII. First, we must recall the position of Italian, or even of foreign Protestants in Italy, under the old régime. For the latter, we have but to look at the melancholy little group of alien places of worship-English, Scotch, and American-thrust out beyond the gates like the slaughter-houses and other abominations with which the holy city might not be polluted, to perceive that no great liberality was shown by the paternal government to the holders of strange doctrines, even when the holders were them- | selves but strangers and sojourners in the land. Even so, the existence of Protestant places of worship was a concession, obtained not without struggle. And while the appearance of the buildings was forced to be as unchurch-like as possible, so as not to attract public attention to them, their frequenters were not at all times safe from molestation. Meanwhile the native Protestant may be said to have had no recognised existence whatever. He was simply ignored. If he could not be altogether stamped out it was from no want of will or energy in the stamper, but rather might be considered a result of that inherent human perverseness which has, in all ages of the world's history, made martyrs' blood seed, from which martyrs have sprung, and persecution but a synonym for propagation. Even the Church of Rome seemed at last to wake up to a certain perception of this fact, and during the present century at least has not ventured on any very furious assaults on the persons of those who happened to differ from her; although there are still men in Rome-not old ones-who have seen the inside of the Inquisition's prisons, and, as we were reminded a year or two back, at a meeting of the Italian Bible Society, held in Rome-there is, unfortunately, not a copy remaining of the original Italian translation of the Bible (of 1848), the whole edition having, before it was fairly in circulation, been seized and burnt by the agents of the Holy Office. It is not many years ago when a Bible was in all ways a perilous possession in the Italian peninsula. For, not only was its owner liable to pains and penalties from the spiritual authorities, he was also held accountable for it to the State. It seems almost incredible to us now, but it is a fact, that among the offences which thirty years or so ago went to make up the crime of high treason in Italy-not in Rome only, but in Naples, in Tuscany, and other States-the possession of a Bible was one. It was in the list of revolutionary and forbidden books, and for a man to own it, was to subject him to prison, the galleys, and even to death. Now, Bible depôts are established in every Italian city; itinerant dealers circulate the Sacred Book freely through every villageone displays his precious little stock-in-trade in the very square in Florence which saw the martyrdom of Savonarola; and in Rome itself, in a conspicuous shop in the Corso, a whole window is filled with copies of the Italian version of the Scriptures, spread open, one at this page and one at another, to be read by those who run. Here the whole of the New Testament may be purchased for something under threepence, and the separate Gospels for a penny each. It is not surprising that such a state of things should be annoying to the Ultramontane or priestly party, whose policy has always been to keep the people in ignorance. In point of fact, however, and in spite of the demonstration which the Pope's late call to arms has evoked, the priestly party is but a small minority in the city of Rome. Rome, in spite of its teachings—may we not say in consequence of its teaching?—and traditions, is not a religious place. France may have her miracles at Lourdes. Naples may tolerate her marvel-working relics. Nothing of the kind is possible in the mocking city of Pasquino. Nowhere are the churches so empty; which to be sure is not wonderful, seeing that there are three hundred and sixty-five of them, with space to accommodate ten times the ordinary popu lation of the city; but further indications | But there are yet seven churches to which are not wanting. Among other things, nowhere are the priests treated with less deference than in Rome. In Naples or in Venice the people uncover to them as they pass. In Rome they have to encounter the common jostle of the Roman pavement, with but a very scant measure of courtesy shown to them. Nowhere in Italy are they less popular. In other cities political freedom has naturally involved religious freedom, but the two are not so indissolubly one and the same thing, as they are in Rome. The rest of Italy writhed, indeed, under the rule of her tyrants, but those tyrants were not, as in Rome, her spiritual rulers; hence the reaction has not been so great elsewhere. Nowhere else in Italy have the people so thoroughly acquiesced in, and approved of, the bold stroke of the Italian Parliament which has rid the country of the disreputable hordes of begging friars which formerly infested the city. A bold, an almost revolutionary stroke was it, this suppression of the conventual orders; and no greater blow, it would seem, could well have been struck at the Roman Catholic Church in Italy, than this act of the Government-this public protest on the part of the whole nation against one of the most cherished institutions of the Papacy. It is something, surely, for a Roman Catholic people, by the voice of its Parliament, openly to proclaim that these monks, friars, and nuns, whom they have for long generations been taught to revere as the highest development of the Christian ideal, are not worthy of that reverence; that, for the most part, except in the few cases where they concern themselves with works of active benevolence, they are lazy and good-for-nothing drones in the social hive, fit only to be swept away! Yet this is what has been done, and the voice of Rome, the one-time city of monasteries, has, in the main, approved the verdict. And while all this has been accomplished by the Roman Catholic population of Italy, the Protestant fraction has not been idle. It has been a great deal too busy and too energetic to suit the mind of his Holiness Leo XIII. We have said that there are three hundred and sixty-five churches in Rome, one for every day in the year; and pilgrims and artlovers have been known pious or energetic enough to visit in turn the whole collection. no pilgrimages are made, and which offer no kind of attraction to the art-lover or to the antiquarian. They are new, and for the most part simple to bareness; they have neither architecture, nor sculpture, nor mosaics, nor paintings, to recommend them; and yet to the thoughtful English visitor to Rome, they will seem to possess an interest greater than that of any of the gilded basilicas to which his guide-book directs him. They are the churches of the once-proscribed Italian Protestants. They have all, of course, sprung into existence since the Italian occupation of Rome, for up to that time, as we have said, no assembly of heretics was permitted within the sacred city. Now their little light is permitted to shine with what radiance it may, undisturbed at least by the Government, and their influence, it is believed, is gradually, if slowly, extending. To each church schools are attached, in which the children, in addition to, or rather as a foundation of, their education, are taught to read and understand the Scriptures, and are required each to possess a Bible in the Italian language for the purpose of study and reference. It is these schools which are more than anything else a thorn in the pontifical side. For the scholars are by no means all, or necessarily, the children of Protestant parents, and a considerable number of Roman Catholic parents of liberal views prefer, it seems, to send their children to the evangelical schools for the sake of the instruction received there, which is, it is almost needless to say, of a far higher standard than that obtainable in the schools which are under priestly guidance. And it is certain that numerous cases of conversion, not only of children but of whole families, have resulted from this circumstance. In a report of the schools attached to the Free Christian Church of Italy, special mention is made of this matter. "Each teacher," says the report, "begins the day by Bible expository teaching, hymn, and prayer. In the afternoon, again, the whole school unites in prayer and praise before separating. The closing service is frequently attended by parents or friends, who come to conduct the children home. . . . Whole families are now attending the Free Italian Church who have been brought there by their growing interest in the new and better way in which they behold their children being led." The seven churches of Rome represent, unfortunately, so many different branches or sects the differences between them being, it would seem, the result rather of untoward circumstances than of wilful divergence. They were brought up apart. Nourished in secret, and under the sternest repression, each little community of the Reformed naturally adopted its own form of worship. The matter is one which is now beginning to be felt as a subject of regret and much anxious thought by those who desire for Italy a National Evangelical Church. But the differences are but slight, the bond of union strong; and though, doubtless, some difficulties of pride and prejudice have to be overcome, it is surely not Utopian to believe unity not far off, where all take their stand on the same gospel, and look for guidance only to its precepts. The oldest, most influential, and, from its associations, the most interesting of the Italian Protestant Churches is the Waldensian-a community which, by its patient endurance and missionary enterprise under untold difficulties, has earned for itself the veneration of Protestant Europe. Through centuries of oppression and persecution, with all the temporal and spiritual power of Rome against it, proscribed and often hunted down with fire and sword, the Waldensian Church has not only existed, but, strange to say, has thriven and extended its ramifications on this side and that. Its agents have, at the risk and often at the cost of their lives, carried the gospel from one end of Italy to the other. Beaten but never conquered, crushed but never killed, the Waldensian Church has carried on from age to age its heroic warfare with bigotry and superstition, to find itself at last, if not triumphant, at least free. Not very long ago we had the pleasure of attending a service of this Church in Rome. The little meeting-house was filled from end to end with a reverent and attentive congregation, composed chiefly of the lower classes. The service was severely simple, the sermon forcible and eloquent. But the most interesting portion of the whole was undoubtedly the singing of the hymns, or rather that metrical version of the Psalms, the chanting of which has, for centuries past, formed so distinguishing a feature of the Waldensian worship. It is difficult to imagine anything more heart-stirring or touching than the singing of these Psalms, joined to the associations with which they are inseparably connected. As the rich Italian voices, which fall so readily into harmonies, rose, without the aid of any instrument, and swelled into a wild and solemn melody, every note of which was evidently as familiar to the assembly as the words which accompanied them, the effect was simply thrilling. Before visiting Rome we had heard much of the grandeur and beauty of the Roman ceremonial, much of the magnificent music with which these ceremonials are accompanied. In actual fact, nothing is more disappointing as a spectacle than the Roman mass as performed at Rome. There is such a terrible air of unreality about it, such a verging towards the ridiculous, such a failure of "effect," as to surprise any one who has been led to expect an imposing and beautiful ceremony. The absence of reverence in all who take part in the religious rite, from the acolytes who squabble over the lighting of the candles, to the priests, who spit about at the very altar, is revolting and conspicuous. For those who are accustomed to the reverent administration of the Holy Sacrament in our English churches, it is wonderful how the Roman mass, taken as a spectacle, can offer the slightest attraction; while it is certain that, musically, our own cathedral services are infinitely grander and more solemn than anything to be heard in St. Peter's. For myself, having heard and seen all that the Roman churches have to offer, most eloquent in sound and attractive in sight, I can honestly say that no theatrically-rendered mass, however beautiful the music-not even the sweet mysterious voices of the unseen nuns of the Trinità-was half so pathetic or thrilling as the chanting of these Waldensian Psalms, which seemed to spring out of the very hearts of the singers. Remembering, moreover, as we could not but do, how from generation to generation these persecuted brethren of ours had drawn their noblest inspiration in the face of danger, and their best consolation under trial in the singing of these very Psalms, it was impossible, as we listened, not to feel our hearts throb with a sense of thankful joy that the day had at last come when, without fear, these songs of praise could rise to Heaven, even in the very heart of Rome itself. Next in importance to the Waldensian is, perhaps, the Free Church of Italy, whose influence is very extensive in the northern part of the kingdom, and whose chief seat is in Florence. But in no city of Italy is the Evangelical Italian Church now without its witness, while in Rome, as we have said, seven distinct Churches, united in heart if differing somewhat as to matters of form, are thriving, progressing, and making their influence felt. Englishmen may not sympathize with them fully in all their ideas-we, too, have our idiosyncrasies-but, at least, we must hold out the hand of Christian fellowship to them with a hearty "God bless you!" All work is good work which proclaims the glad news of the Gospel, and strives to make manifest Him who was the Light of the World. SUNDAY EVENINGS WITH THE CHILDREN. BY MRS. GARNETT AND THE REV. B. WAUGH. FIRST EVENING. Opening Hymn: "Twas God that made the ocean." Lesson: Luke xi. 1-13. Concluding Hymn: "The sun is sinking fast." but she was frightened that if she became a follower of the true God, her god would be angry with her. Not that she was altogether pleased with her own god, for sometimes she WHEN Jesus was asked one day by His knelt down before his image, which was made disciples how they were to pray to God-the great God who made all thingsthey must have been surprised when He told them to say, "Our Father," for no one before then prayed to God as their Father. If you went away to heathen countries you would find the people offering gifts to their gods and begging them not to hurt them. No one but the Son of God could ever have made us understand that God was our Father. The Bible in another place says, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth | them that fear him." Now what does your father do for you? He works for you to get you food and clothes. And does not God work for you too? The corn would not grow to make your bread if He did not make the ground nourish the seed, and then send showers and sunshine to make the wheat plant grow. Who made the wool on the backs of sheep? If He had not thought of you He might have made them with skins like horses or cows. And He is always at work. He takes no holidays. If He did everything would stop growing and living, for in "Him we live, and move, and have our being." There are so many, many ways in which God is our Father that it would be quite impossible to mention half of them here. One way He shows His love is that He watches over us always, and He wants us to understand this and to love Him in return, and He wants us to ask Him for anything we need, and to believe to believe He cares so much for us that He will give us it. Mr. Roper, the noble African missionary, when he was at Ibbadan used often to talk to a clever heathen woman | who was a merchant there, and try to persuade her to give up her false gods and to believe in Jesus; and he told her that God was her Father, and knew all that concerned her. The woman listened and half believed, "Now of matting and wood, and dressed up with Remember when you want anything you have a claim on God as your Father. He has bid you not only trust him, but also come to Him when you are in need. If you asked your father to help you he might be willing to help you, but he might not have the power. For instance, if you were hungry and asked floating rapidly far away from death and danger. And more than that—that man was brought back to his long-forgotten Father. With his whole soul in his face he cried to the person to whom he afterwards told this— "I know there is a God, and that He hears us." Dear children, when you fold your hands and begin the Lord's Prayer by saying, "Our Father!" remember He is listening, that He can hear and grant what you ask, and oh! do not mock Him by asking for anything your heart does not want. E. GARNETT. SECOND EVENING. Opening Hymn: "Around the throne of God in heaven." Lesson: Rev. xxi. 1-21. Concluding Hymn: "The sun is sinking fast." for bread most likely he could give you it; but supposing you were in pain, and very ill, he might stand by your bedside, and the tears might roll down his face, and he might wish with all his heart to take the pain himself, and yet he could really do nothing, he would be helpless. But God your Heavenly Father is never helpless; we cannot ask Him for anything which it is impossible for Him to grant. Once a man who had cared very little for his Heavenly Father for many years, although when he was a little boy he had learnt from his mother to pray to Him, was out in a little boat on a river in America. He had angered some of the wild Indians who live and hunt on those prairies, and he fled before them for his life. He succeeded in reaching the river, and dragging his canoe from under the bushes where he had left it, pushed off into the Do you ever shut your eyes and try to stream, and rowed away so rapidly, aided by fancy you see that beautiful place, heaven? a strong current, that he was soon out of There is a description of part of it in the reach of the arrows the Indians shot at him Book of Revelation, for John the beloved from the bank. But after some hours he saw saw it once, and he tells us how the walls of he had only escaped one danger to fall into the city shone with many colours. If you seek a worse the banks had narrowed, and the out these colours, you will find that the preriver rushed onwards at a fearful pace between vailing tint is green. Perhaps sometimes high cliffs. About one hundred yards ahead, when the sun has set you have looked across a on the left-hand side, he saw an opening in wide landscape to some distant hills, and you the wall of rock, and another stream dis- have seen these hills, which are far away, charged itself into the river through this open-look a lovely purple-all things a long way ing with such violence as to cause a whirl-off look blue and purple. Well, the walls pool in the midst of the waters. He saw a of this beautiful heavenly city are so high broken tree which was a short distance before that John says the top looks like an amethyst him sucked into this dark whirlpool and dis--purple. -purple. And of all colours green is the appear. With his utmost power he tried to paddle to the shore, but in vain, the current was far too strong. He saw he must die, and as he felt it to be for the last time glanced upwards to the evening sky. The cliffs rose like walls on either hand, fringed at the top with a few bushes. Overhead one pink cloud was slowly travelling across the blue space, and the man thought— "By the time it reaches the other side of this chasm I shall be in eternity." most restful to our eyes, so we shall not tire of seeing the walls. The great gates are of pearl. You know how beautiful the inside of some oyster shells are, and how motherof-pearl reflects light. And these gates are always wide open, and people can come out to the sweet land, where the redeemed can walk, following the Good Shepherd. And that is not all, for in the very middle of the broad street of the city flows a sparkling river, clear as crystal, and on each side are trees, and if you could follow that river up to its source you would see it flows from the great white throne of God Himself—God, our Father who is in heaven. John was the only one of all the Apostles—so far as we hear-who saw heaven before he died, and it is only very pure and holy persons who can shut The next instant his canoe was caught in their eyes and dream about it, even though the outer swirl of the whirlpool and thrown we know something of what it is like, since with violence against the right-hand cliffs-John has described it so gloriously. But I with such violence that, like a cork, it was tossed off down the stream. And then, like a flash across his mind, came the thought of his Heavenly Fatherthe Father he had so long neglected and forgotten, and even ceased to believe in, and he gasped out "O`God—if there be a God-save me now." should like to tell you something of one poor Five more man who in a dream saw it very clearly. More than two hundred years ago a very bad minutes, and in safety the little boat was |