over an assembly
of I know not how many thousands. About half-way down the vast floor, on
the side wall, stood the pulpit; and before it were set some scores of
forms for the accommodation of the audience, which might amount to from
four hundred to six hundred, chiefly elderly persons. At three o'clock
the preacher entered the pulpit, and, having offered a short prayer in
silence, he replaced on his head his little round cap, and flung himself
into his theme. That theme was one then and still very popular (I mean
with the preachers,--for the people take not the slightest interest in
these matters) at Rome,--the Immaculate Conception. I can give only the
briefest outline of the discourse; and I daresay that is all my readers
will care for. In proof of the immunity of Mary from original sin, the
preacher quoted all that St Jerome, and St Augustine, and a dozen
fathers besides, had said on the point, with the air of a man who deemed
these quotations quite conclusive. Had they related to the theory of
eclipses, or been snatches from some old pagan poet in praise of Juno,
the audience would have been equally well pleased with them. I looked
when the father would favour his audience with a few proofs from St
Matthew and St Luke; but his time did not permit him to go so far back.
He next appealed to the miracles which the Virgin Mary had wrought. I
expected much new information here, as my memory did not furnish me with
any well-accredited ones; but I was somewhat disappointed when the
preacher dismissed this branch of his subject with the remark, that
these miracles were so well known, that he need not specify them. Having
established his proposition first from tradition, and next from
miracles, the preacher wound up by declaring that the Immaculate
Conception was a doctrine which all good Catholics believed, and which
no one doubted save the children of the devil and the slaves of hell.
The sermon seemed as if it had been made to answer exactly the poet's
description:--

"And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,
But, swollen with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw,
Daily devours apace, and nothing sed;
But that two-handed engine at the door
Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."

When this edifying sermon was ended, "Ave Ma