if given to the Bambino, than if turned into money to give her grandchildren education and prospects in life.  The same old lady left her vineyard, not to these children, but to her confessor, a well-endowed Monsignor, who occasionally asks this youth, his godson, to dinner!  Children so placed are not quite such devotees to Catholicism as the new proselytes of America;—­they are not so much patted on the head, and things do not show to them under quite the same silver veil.

The church of Ara Coeli is on or near the site of the temple of Capitoline Jove, which certainly saw nothing more idolatrous than these ceremonies.  For about a week the Bambino is exhibited in an illuminated chapel, in the arms of a splendidly dressed Madonna doll.  Behind, a transparency represents the shepherds, by moonlight, at the time the birth was announced, and, above, God the Father, with many angels hailing the event.  A pretty part of this exhibition, which I was not so fortunate as to hit upon, though I went twice on purpose, is the children making little speeches in honor of the occasion.  Many readers will remember some account of this in Andersen’s “Improvvisatore.”

The last time I went was the grand feast in honor of the Bambino.  The church was entirely full, mostly with Contadini and the poorer people, absorbed in their devotions:  one man near me never raised his head or stirred from his knees to see anything; he seemed in an anguish of prayer, either from repentance or anxiety.  I wished I could have hoped the ugly little doll could do Mm any good.  The noble stair which descends from the great door of this church to the foot of the Capitol,—­a stair made from fragments of the old imperial time,—­was flooded with people; the street below was a rapid river also, whose waves were men.  The ceremonies began with splendid music from the organ, pealing sweetly long and repeated invocations.  As if answering to this call, the world came in, many dignitaries, the Conservatori, (I think conservatives are the same everywhere, official or no,) and did homage to the image; then men in white and gold, with the candles they are so fond here of burning by daylight, as if the poorest artificial were better than the greatest natural light, uplifted high above themselves the baby, with its gilded robes and crown, and made twice the tour of the church, passing twice the column labelled “From the Home of Augustus,” while the band played—­what?—­the Hymn to Pius IX. and “Sons of Rome, awake!” Never was a crueller comment upon the irreconcilableness of these two things.  Rome seeks to reconcile reform and priestcraft.

But her eyes are shut, that they see not.  O awake indeed, Romans! and you will see that the Christ who is to save men is no wooden dingy effigy of bygone superstitions, but such as Art has seen him in your better mood,—­a Child, living, full of love, prophetic of a boundless future,—­a Man acquainted with all sorrows that rend the heart of all, and ever loving man with sympathy and faith death could not quench,—­that Christ lives and may be sought; burn your doll of wood.