Poperinghe

“ Fear, of course, must become the predominant passion of all people and countries where Popery prevails, and yet, unaccountable as it may appear, this new world of ours is not only admitting but inviting Popery and its adherents into it, and offers them the rights of freemen, with a full knowledge of the fact that they are the subjects of a foreign king,—the Pope of Rome. Popery—that sink of the universe, as an elegant writer, who is himself a Roman Catholic, expresses it,—is invited into the United States, and its votaries cherished by a free, generous, but unsuspecting people. ”

“ There were then sitting in state upon the bench two censors, Gellius and Lentulus, inspecting the knights, who were passing by in muster before them, when Pompey was seen coming down into the forum, with all the ensigns of a consul, but leading his horse in his hand. When he came up, he bade his lictors make way for him, and so he led his horse to the bench; the people being all this while in a sort of amaze, and all in silence, and the censors themselves regarding the sight with a mixture of respect and gratification. ”

“ They desire the suppression of Popery, especially in Italy, where it is kept alive by Austrian bayonets and Popish bulls, and where it will live until those bayonets are broken and those bulls are burned. They can no more suppress Popery in Italy, than they could confine a fire with a flaxen band.
The continuance of Popery depends upon this country alone. Extinguish it in the United States, and it dies every where. The old world is sick of it; it has cursed it long enough. It is for us alone to say whether it shall live or die. Americans alone can sound the death knell of Popery ”

“ Early the following morning we turned our faces northward on Perugia, but took a last long look at Perugino’s altar-piece in the church of the Disciplinati. Faint golds, faint greens, a quiet landscape, with low hills falling peacefully on a low stretch of valley. No harsh shadows, no high lights, the shepherds crossing down the paths behind their browsing sheep. The Virgin, a type of purest girlhood with just enough of the woman in the way she holds the Child to show it is her own; young men, for kings, with angel faces, and the smile of saints ”

“ Next morning the leper was whole, the charity of Poppo had healed him. Richard, abbot of Verdun, appointed Poppo to rule the abbey of S. Vedast, which had fallen into scandalous disorder. When the Emperor Henry II. was in the Betawe, between the two branches of the Rhine, Poppo, having to visit him about some affairs concerning his monastery, found the prince enjoying a favourite pastime of his; a naked man was smeared with honey and exposed to bears; and the sport consisted in the bears trying to lick the man, and he eluding their embraces. ”

“ Polperro, than which no quainter thing exists in Britain. You drop down, down, down, to Polperro until you can look up and see the cows grazing high overhead as you might in an Alpine valley, and then you plunge into the miniature confused streets of the town, and following them at random may or may not come out at the little port, and walking along the rude jetty see the outer harbour and the small beach. The smell of fish is strong in the air; the fishing-boats lie in neat rows, supported by legs to prevent their heeling over when the tide runs out. ”

“ SIENA: BANNER-HOLDER.
We left at dawn, in the clear pale light which floods the Umbrian plain when the world is yet a little grey, and Perugia is nothing but a lovely outline on the crest of her hill. This is the light that [62] Perugino loved, the shadowless herald of the day, full of the mystery of the morning. The world woke slowly from her pale slumber in the arms of night; the sky deepened from beryl to gold. We found Thrasymene illumined with rosy morning fires, her hills empurpled, and the towers of her little cities aflame with sunrise. ”

“ Behind these figures stretches the fair, calm, Umbrian landscape, dear to the heart of the Umbrian painter. In the sky above them are four female figures, Prudence and Justice, Fortitude and Temperance, and below them small angels hold the long inscription which is written over every group. Very soft and tender is Perugino’s conception of Roman Emperors and Greek philosophers. They have the hands of women, their faces are sweet like the faces of saints. They look a little sad, and very gentle as they bend towards each other—not one of these men could have proved a ruler of nations. ”

“ I refer to this with no other view than to show how unacquainted some American theologians are with Popery, in every shape and form. This gentleman should know that if the Pope were a granny, it would be no argument against Popery, or any preventive of the evils with which it threatens us. Suppose a meeting of citizens were held, on the subject of our difficulties with Great Britain, we can easily fancy some spouter to rise in his place and say, "We have nothing to dread from that nation; the Queen is but a silly woman; she is but a mere granny." ”

“ Again, in Popery we find an excess of humanity scarce leas great than in the classical mythology itself, and with nearly corresponding results. Though the Virgin Mother takes, as queen of heaven, a first place in the scheme, and forms in that character a greatly more interesting goddess than any of the old ones who counselled Ulysses, or responded to the love of Anchises or of Endymion, she has to share her empire with the minor saints, and to recognise in them a host of rivals. But undoubtedly to this popular element Popery owes not a little of its indomitable strength. ”

“ All the evil proceeded from the character of the people; and, indeed, it was almost always Popery that began these scenes of violence: Farel submitted to the influence of his time, rather than the time received his. A great man may be the personification and the type of the epoch for which God destines him: he is never its creator.
But it is time to quit the Jura and its beautiful valleys, brightened by the vernal sun, to direct our step towards the Alps of German Switzerland, along which thick clouds and horrible tempests are beginning to gather. ”

“ No personalities, no imputation of sinister and never existing motives, no disparagement of the character of the prime movers and later advocates,—for Gorges has been blamed as well as Popham,—no reproaches thrown upon the laboring colonists, and no finger of derision pointed at the failure of their purpose, should turn the reader of history away from this path. The leading minds in England, with the King as their friend, were actuated by the desire to turn to good account the discoveries of the early navigators ”

“ The whole of Popery lies in the assumption of a Church, as a numerical unit, infallible in the highest degree, inasmuch as both which is Scripture, and what Scripture teaches, is infallible by derivation only from an infallible decision of the Church. Fairly undermine or blow up this: and all the remaining peculiar tenets of Romanism fall with it, or stand by their own right as opinions of individual Doctors.
An antagonist of a complex bad system,—a system, however, notwithstanding—and such is Popery,—should take heed above all things not to disperse himself. ”

“ But it is not only in the marvellous and peaceful beauty of her setting that Perugia is a paradox, for how is it possible to reconcile the pictures of Perugino and his great pupils—Raphael, Lo Spagna, Pinturicchio, and Eusebio di San Giorgio—with the awful deeds of the Oddi and the Baglioni ”

“ Yet there are journals of talent and learning in England who, observing that British Protestants, alarmed at the progress which the Papal doctrine is making in the British islands, are concerting measures for their own defence, accuse them of raising once more the senseless bray against Popery; as if every unprejudiced person was not aware that Popery is an unrelenting fiend which never spares when it has the power to crush—and that power I am afraid it will soon possess in Britain, unless the poor down-trodden Protestants stand back to back and combat the monster to the death. ”

“ The world knows them and the capitals of Europe possess them, but from the city of Perugia, for which some of the very best were painted, they have been taken away by “quel stupendo ladro—Napoleone Bonaparte.” [88] Perugino’s fame spread like wildfire over the cities of Italy. “This maestro Pietro,” says a very old chronicler, “was distinguished (singolare) in his art throughout the universal world.” So intense was his fame and popularity, and his work in such demand, that it was impossible for him, for one single man, to supply all the work which men demanded of him. ”

“ But from the Age of Darkness men awoke both in their manners and in their buildings. Perugia of the Middle Ages shook the sleep from off her heavy eyelids, and with that passionate impulse towards Light which was perhaps the secret of the Renaissance, she too strove toward the Beautiful, and in a hurried, fevered fashion, she too decked herself with fairer things than castle towers and hovels. ”

“ At last, upon a time when Pompey was present at the hearing of a certain cause, Clodius, accompanied with a crowd of profligate and impudent ruffians, standing up in a place above the rest, put questions to the populace as follows: "Who is the dissolute general? who is the man that seeks another man? who scratches his head with one finger?" and the rabble, upon the signal of his shaking his gown, with a great shout to every question, like singers making responses in a chorus, made answer, "Pompey." ”

“ Illustrious Princess, dear cousins, nobles, and faithful burghers, ye all know that I have ruled this Pomeranian land for fifty years, upholding the pure doctrine of Doctor Martin Luther, and casting down papacy in all places and at all times. But as I am now old, and find it hard sometimes to keep my unruly vassals in order, whereof we have had a proof lately, it is my will and purpose to resign the government into the hands of my dear cousins, the illustrious Princes von Pommern-Wolgast, and retire to Oderburg in Old Stettin, there to rest in peace for the remainder of my days ”

“ They arranged a monster gathering, and invited all creation to celebrate with them the Two-hundred and Fiftieth Popham Anniversary. People came from the ends of the earth; enjoyed a generous Eastern hospitality; "drank water, if not inspiration, out of the existent Popham well" (Query—Is "Sabino" quite sure that the inspiration came from the well?) , believed as much as they could, and had a good time generally. Perhaps history manufactured in this way will stand; but we think not.
Because historical writers have presumed to examine and question their theory, they have grown sullen and morose. ”

“ But these things are rather the dress of Popery than its essence; they form the apparel with which she has arrayed herself in order to appear before the world, but they do not constitute the real deep secret of her strength. They are nothing more than the paint upon the cheek, the arts which the system has assumed, but are not the source from which the system itself has sprung. ”

“ The above is another melancholy evidence of the spirit of Popery; and if any thing can open the eyes of our people to a sense of danger from it, this evidence cannot fail to do so. I lay it down as a truth—though I may be censured for the boldness of such an assertion—that there is not a man of common sense, or ordinary penetration, who does not see, at a glance, that our danger as a nation, and our morals as a people, are eminently perilled by the continuance of Popery amongst us. There are certain truths which need not be proved; they prove themselves. ”

“ It was as though I looked straight into the heart of one of Perugino's sacred pictures. There was the soft green valley melting in the distance into the azure folds of mountains; there were the slender trees cleaving the luminous air; there were the towered cities crowning the hills; there was the clear pale sky, the spaciousness, the holiness which Perugino and his school immortalised. ”

“ Sitting on the steps of the Duomo we seem to feel it creep up round our feet telling us stories of a past which is immortal. It was here that the people of Perugia fought and judged, preached and repented, loved maybe, and most certainly hated. It was in this little pulpit above our heads that S. Bernardino preached, and saw the books of necromancy and the false hair of the ladies burned; here that the Podestà and the people received ambassadors with deeds of submission from terrified neighbour towns. ”

“ It is pleasant to the historian, who is wearied and disgusted with contemplating the past and present horrors of Popery, to turn for a moment from the frightful spectacle, and rest in devout contemplation on the lives of those comparatively excellent men. How mistaken are those would-be philanthropists, who, at the present time, teach Americans to infer, that, because those were good and holy men, possessing a pious and forgiving spirit, it follows that the Papist church, her bishops and priests, entertain a similar spirit. ”

“ We have to remark that Perugino in 1494 painted his own portrait, now in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, and into this he introduced a scroll lettered “Timete Deum.” That an open disbeliever should inscribe himself with “Timete Deum” seems odd. The portrait in question shows a plump face, with small dark eyes, a short but well-cut nose, and sensuous lips; the neck is thick, the hair bushy and frizzled, and the general air imposing. The later portrait in the Cambio of Perugia shows the same face with traces of added years. Perugino died possessed of considerable property, leaving three sons. ”