Puerperium

“ At his funeral all the glories of his life were consummated, when all the neighboring states in alliance and amity with Rome met to honor and grace the rites of his interment with garlands and public presents; the senators carried the bier on which his corpse was laid, and the priests followed and accompanied the solemn procession; while a general crowd, in which women and children took part, followed with such cries and weeping as if they had bewailed the death and loss of some most dear relation taken away in the flower of age, and not of an old and worn-out king. ”

“ For Purgatory, I must tell,
It is the lowest place in hell;
Well plenish'd with the Romish sort.
Where thousands of them do resort.
There many a Prince and Pope do dwell,
Fast fetter'd in that lower cell. ”

“ The advent of the light-hearted Cavaliers in England, flinging colour and warmth and gaiety over the land, was a sharp recoil from the drab severity of Puritan rule. The Puritans were men of strong personality: half soldiers and half preachers. They were honest without charm; strong-minded without pose ”

“ I have already been cast down as a convicted adultress, but God miraculously preserved me. Therefore, I ought not to be subjected to it again." The judge answered, "Thou hast well said; go in peace:" and thus was the woman saved.
APPLICATION.
My beloved, the emperor, is God, who made a law that if any one polluted the soul (which is the spouse of Christ) by the commission of any mortal sin, he should be precipitated from a high mountain—that is, from Heaven; as befell our first parent, Adam. But God, by the sufferings of his Son, hath preserved us. ”

“ Even in the still calm beauty of a life such as this we catch the sterner tones of the Puritan temper. The very height of the Puritan's aim, the intensity of his moral concentration, brought with them a loss of the genial delight in all that was human which gave its charm to the age of Elizabeth. "If ever God instilled an intense love of moral beauty into the mind of any man," said the great Puritan poet, "he has instilled it into mine." ”

“ In this work he recalls to his sister’s memory what the Pope had said: “When thou sealedst thy vow of virginity in St Peter’s by changing thy habit on the birth-day of the Redeemer—on what more fitting day could it have taken place than that on which the Virgin (Mary) brought forth her child—and in the presence of many of God’s hand-maidens who strove for thy companionship, he (Liberius) said, ‘Thou hast desired excellent espousals, my daughter. Thou seest what a crowd of people have come together to celebrate the birth-day of thy Bridegroom, and that no one goes away from hence unnourished. ”

“ Is it irreverent to think and believe that what these simple souls witness to, as their own experience in presence of a kind of ritual new to them, though familiar of old to their fathers, and to the Church throughout the world, is but an anticipation of what our great poet, Puritan though he was, has described as among the consolations of the blessed? ”

“ So it came to pass that, under the name of Puritan, all religion was branded, and under a few hard words against Jesuits, all Popery was countenanced; whoever squared his actions by any rule, either divine or human, he was a Puritan; whoever would be governed by the King's laws, he was a Puritan; he that would not do what other men would have him to do, was a Puritan. The masterpiece of the enemy was to make the truly religious suspected of the whole kingdom. ”

“ Have we no prayers for the dead? You maintain that no man is fit for Heaven; so does Rome—that no soul is lost whilst one prayer is offered for its redemption. We agree with you. In The Gates you have done no more than to analyse the symbolism of Roman ritual, defining Purgatory as a series of earthly experiences and Heaven as their termination. ”

“ Yet neither wept; the Puritans and the children of the Puritans do not weep easily; they are taught, not to utter, but to hide their emotions. The nurse perceived no signs of unusual feeling, except that the face of the strong man became suddenly as pale as that of the dying woman, and that to him this was an hour of anguish, while to her it was one of unspeakable joy. ”

“ In the midst of the immense disorder that accompanied the dissolution of the Roman Empire, as the bonds among men relaxed, and the human mind seemed to be incapable of reasoning and understanding, the disciples of the saint realised that the goldsmiths, weavers, sculptors, painters, architects, and musicians of the Emperor could collect the masses around the churches and make them patiently listen to what they could still comprehend of Paul's sublime morality. ”

“ Its object was to provide burial for the dead. Solemnly broke upon the balmy stillness of the Roman nights, all these years and centuries since its foundation, its chanting of holy psalmody, and its audible praying for the dead, borne along in its religious keeping. The glare of the waxen torches fell upon the bier, the voices of the associates joined in the Miserere, and the Church reached, the corpse was laid there, till the fitting hour, when the Requiem Mass should be sung, and the final absolution given, preparatory to interment. ”

“ I took the letter of your Piety with me to the altar. I laid it upon the altar. I held it in my hand whilst I offered the Sacrifice; so that your faith might speak by my voice, and the Emperor’s letter discharge the function of the priestly oblation.
6. In truth, the Lord is propitious to the Roman Empire, since He has chosen such a prince and father of princes, whose virtue and power, established on such a triumphant height of dominion, rests on such humility, that in valour he has surpassed emperors and priests in humility. What can I wish? What can I desire? ”

“ There are religious congregations and pious associations specially devoted to the relief of the souls in Purgatory. St. Vincent de Paul ordered the priests of his congregation never to go to meals without first saying the De Profundis for the souls in Purgatory. The Church ends all the prayers of the divine office with: "May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace." One may turn away with a sad thought from a tomb on which is not engraved: "May he rest in peace," or on which a cross—the emblem of our hope in God and in a happy resurrection—does not figure. ”

“ POPERY. (See Church of Rome, Council of Trent, Romanism.) By Popery we mean the peculiar system of doctrine, by adopting which the Church of Rome separates herself from the rest of the Catholic Church, and is involved in the guilt of schism. The Church of Rome, or Popery, has departed from the apostles’ doctrine, by requiring all who communicate with her to believe, as necessary to salvation,
1st, That that man is accursed who does not kiss, and honour, and worship the holy images.
2nd, That the Virgin Mary and other saints are to be prayed to. ”

“ On, on, on he went, till one day he met a little old woman, who stopped him, saying: ‘Whither so fast, fair prince?’
He replied, ‘I walk the earth till I find one who is fair as snow, tinted like rosy blood, to make her my wife.’
‘That can I help you to, and I alone,’ said the little old woman, who was a fairy; and then she gave him the three love-oranges, telling him that when he opened one such a maiden as he was in search of would appear, but he must immediately look for water and sprinkle her, or she would disappear again. ”

“ And New England was the first home of the Puritans—the focus from which have radiated the myriad beams of the light of which they were the repositories to the remotest corners of the land. Let no one be alarmed at the mention of the word Puritan. There are some people who have no other notion of a Puritan than that of a close-cropped, saturnine personage, having a nasal twang, who is forevermore indulging an [245] insane propensity to sing psalms, quote Scripture, or burn witches. ”

“ Their Sabbath was like themselves, austere, inflexible as their "divine decrees;" not human and of man, but Hebrew and of the Jews, stern, cold, and sad.
The Puritans were possessed with the sentiment of fear before God; they had ideas analogous to that sentiment, and wrought out actions akin to those ideas. They brought to America their ideas and sentiments. Behold the effect of their actions. Let us walk reverently backward, with averted eyes, to cover up their folly, their shame, and their sin, as they could not walk to conceal the folly of their progenitors. ”

“ One must have a heart of steel, or no heart at all, to hear these sad regrets, and not feel some tenderness for the poor souls, and as great an indignation against those who are so little concerned for the souls of their parents and other near relations. I wish, with all my soul, that all those who shall light upon this passage, and hear the soul so bitterly deplore her misfortune, may but benefit themselves half as much by it as a good prelate did when the soul of Pope Benedict VIII, by God's permission, revealed unto him her lamentable state in Purgatory. ”

“ The shouts of the people and of the priests rose ever higher, though among youthful exquisites smiles and jests were observable. Since his reconciliation with Herhor the prince had shown great respect for gods and priests; so he frowned somewhat. In one moment the young men changed their bearing. All became serious, while some fell on their faces before the column.
“Indeed,” thought the prince, “people of noble birth are better than that rabble. Whatever nobles do they do it with spirit, not like those who make an uproar in my honor but are glad to hurry back to their workshops and stables.” ”

“ Different times make different manners; the early Puritan ministers did not, as a rule, drink to excess, any more than do our modern clergymen; but it is not strange that though they were of Puritan blood and belief, they should have fallen into the universal custom of the day, and should have "gone to their graves full of years, honor, simplicity, and rum." ”

“ One of these died at fourteen years of age, five days before his father's triumph; the other at twelve, three days after: so that there was no Roman without a deep sense of his suffering, and who did not shudder at the cruelty of fortune, that had not scrupled to bring so much sorrow into a house replenished with happiness, rejoicing, and sacrifices, and to intermingle tears and laments with songs of victory and triumph. ”

“ But those that were with him would not allow him to keep it covered up, but bade him let everyone see the brave deed he had done; so that after a while he stuck upon the lance the head of the aged man that had been their grave and temperate ruler, their supreme priest and consul, and, tossing it up in the air, ran like a bacchanal, twirling and flourishing with it, while the blood ran down the spear. ”

“ The suite of the prince awaited the decision with fear; so Rameses turned to Herhor,—
“What dost thou think of this, holy father?”
“Look at the officers,” answered the priest, “and thou wilt understand that we must go by the ravine.”
Now Patrokles, leader of the Greeks, pushed forward and said to the heir,—
“If the prince permit, my regiment will advance by the highway. My soldiers have no fear of beetles!”
“Your soldiers have no fear of royal tombs even,” added the minister. “Still it cannot be safe in them since no one has ever returned.” ”

“ Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker: but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. ”

“ Dressed in fine linen and wrapped in a hand-woven christening blanket—a "bearing-cloth"—the unfortunate young Puritan was carried to church in the arms of the midwife, who was a person of vast importance and dignity as well as of service in early colonial days, when families of from fifteen to twenty children were quite the common quota. At the altar the baby was placed in his proud father's arms, and received his first cold and disheartening reception into the Puritan Church. ”

“ The Puritans, with all their faults, and it must be admitted that their faults were many, had a regard for sound Christian principles; and the prevailing lack of reverence for virtue, morality, and piety, was most distasteful to them, and caused them to try to put an end to the follies and vices of the age.
Various Acts of Parliament were passed to check work and amusement on the Lords Day. We get from the Puritans our present manner of observing Sunday. ”

“ With the attainment of pubertas, a person obtained the full power over his property, and the tutela ceased: he could also dispose of his property by will; and he could contract marriage. Pubertas, in the case of a male, was attained with the completion of the fourteenth, and, in a female, with the completion of the twelfth year. Upon attaining the age of puberty a Roman youth assumed the toga virilis, but until that time he wore the toga praetexta, the broad purple hem of which (praetexta) at once distinguished him from other persons. ”

“ Dead and gone are death’s dark fears.
After which came “the cursing,” a ceremony which is always used in the Roman Catholic Church in the consecration of a virgin, and is to the effect that—
“Should any one attempt to draw aside this present virgin, let him be cursed in his rising up and sitting down, in his standing or walking, in sleeping or waking, in eating or drinking, etc., etc., and may [73] his flesh rot from his bones, and may he be blotted out of the book of life. ”