Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber : $b or, The influence of Romanism on trade, justice, and knowledgeWylie, J. A. (James Aitken)
History
Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber : $b or, The influence of Romanism on trade, justice, and knowledge
Wylie, J. A. (James Aitken)
Catholic Church -- Italy; Italy -- Description and travel
workmen into these clubs, who were listened to as they propounded the
new plan of justification by faith. The clubs in Turin were first
leavened with the gospel; thence it was extended to Genoa, and gradually
also to central Italy. While the _proletaires_ in France were discussing
the claims of labour, the workmen in Piedmont were canvassing the
doctrines of the New Testament; and hence the difference betwixt the
two countries.
It was now drawing towards sunset, and I purposed enjoying the
twilight,--delicious in all climates, but especially in Italy,--on the
terrace of the College or Monastery of the Capuchins. This monastery
stands on the Collina, a romantic height on the south of Turin, washed
by the Po, with villas and temples on its crest and summits. I took my
way through the noble street that leads southwards, halting at the
book-stalls, and picking out of their heaps of rubbish an Italian copy
of the Catechism of Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux. The Collina was all in a
blaze; the windows of the Palazzo Regina glittered in the setting beams;
and the dome of the Superga shone like gold. Crossing the Po, I ascended
by the winding avenue of shady acacias, which are planted there to
protect the cowled heads of the fathers from the noonday sun. One of the
monks was winding his way up hill, at a pace which gave me full
opportunity of observing him. A little black cap covered his scalp; his
round bullet-head, which bristled with short, thick-set hairs, joined
on, by a neck of considerably more than the average girth, to shoulders
of Atlantean dimensions. His body was enveloped in a coarse brown
mantle, which descended to his calves, and was gathered round his middle
with a slender white cord. His naked feet were thrust into sandals. The
features of the "religious" were coarse and swollen; and he strode up
hill before me with a gait which would have made a peaceful man, had he
met him on a roadside in Scotland, give him a wide offing. Parties of
soldiers wounded in the late campaign were sauntering in the square of
the monastery, or looking over the low wall at the city beneath. Their
pale and sickly looks formed a striking contrast to the athletic forms
of the full-fed monks. It was inexplicable to me, that the youth of
Sardinia, immature and raw, should be drafted into the army, while such
an amount of thews and sinews as this monastery, and hundreds more,
contained, should be allowed to run to waste, or worse. If but for their
health, the monks should be compelled to fight the next campaign.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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