Upon reaching the altar the Pope is escorted to an elevated seat while the choir sings the Psalm of Entrance. Later, at the elevation of the Host, the cannon of St. Angelo (the citadel of Rome, which was built in the time of the Emperor Hadrian) booms forth and every Roman Catholic bows his head in prayer, wheresoever he may be. At the close of the service the gorgeous procession is again formed and the Pope is carried out of the church, blessing the multitude as he passes. New Year is the great Social feature of Yule-tide in Italy. Visits and some presents are exchanged among friends, dinner parties, receptions, and fetes of all kinds are in order, but all interest centers in the church observances until Epiphany, or _Bafana_, as Italians term it, when children hang up their stockings, _ceppo_ boxes are exchanged, and people indulge in home pleasures to some extent. The wild hilarity of the Saturnalian festivities of former times is fast dying out, for the growth of cities and towns has not proved conducive to such observances, and only in the smaller places is anything of the sort observed. Yule-tide in Italy at the present day is principally a church festival. THE EVE OF CHRISTMAS (1901) Cometh the yearly Feast, the wonderous Holy Night, Worthy of sacred hymn and solemn rite. No harbingers of joy the olden message sing, Nor gifts of Peace to waiting mortals bring. Alone the thronging hosts of evil men I hear, And see the anxious brow and falling tear. The Age will bear no yoke; forgets the God above, Nor duteous payment yields to parents' love. Suspicious Discord rends the peaceful State in twain, And busy Murder follows in her train. Gone are the loyal faith, the rights revered of old-- Reigns but a blind and cruel lust of Gold! O come, Thou holy Child! Pity the fallen world, Lest it should perish, into darkness hurled. Out of the laboring Night grant it a newer birth, And a New Age to bloom o'er all the earth. Circle with splendors old the brow of Faith divine; Let her full glory on the nations shine. Nerve her to battlings new; palsy her foes with dread; Place the victorious laurel on her head. Be Error's mist dissolved, and ancient feuds repressed, Till Earth at last find quietude and rest. O gentle Peace, return nor evermore depart; And link us hand in hand and heart to heart! --_Pope Leo XIII._ _(Translated by H. T. Henry.)_ CHAPTER VIII. [Illustration] YULE-TIDE IN SPAIN "With antics and with fooleries, with shouting and with laughter, They fill the streets of Burgos--and the Devil he comes after." In Spain, the land of romance and song, of frost and flowers, where at Yule-tide the mountains wear a mantle of pure white snow while flowers bloom gaily in field and garden, the season's observance approaches more nearly than in any other country to the old Roman Saturnalia.