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15_104 Rome, Italy My impressions at St. Peters were of a different character. I sensed the power of the Church of Rome and its tremendous machinery. It is undoubtedly the greatest of human institutions in number of people which it controls combined under a highly effective and systematic organization. More than any other Christian Church the Catholic Church plays upon certain desires dwelling within the breast of every man. Its exterior trappings, rituals services, are merely developments from pagan forms. Pagan temples were Christianized. Nearly ever Roman work in |
15_105 Feb. 22, 1906 Rome has the tablet of some pope on it. The Colosseum, the Arch of Titus, etc. The Column of Marcus Aurelius is now crowned with a statue of St. Peter. The transition of Christianity was thus made easy or easier for many "pagans" I saw a vesper service in one of the chapels at St. Peter. There were 60 or 70 priests going through the chants and forms. I was intensely interested in their faces. They were all very different but all might be described as Jesuitical. They seemed to me the very incarnation of all that has been written of the Church of Rome in an unfriendly tone. |
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