% After dinner to the San Gregorio to see the frescoes, the "Martyrdom of St. Andrew," the rival frescoes of Guido and Domenichino, and afterwards drove about till dark, when we went to a most extraordinary performance — that of the Flagellants. I had heard of it, and had long been curious to assist at it. The church was dimly lit by a few candles on the altar, the congrega- tion not numerous. There was a service, the people making responses, after which a priest, or one of the attendants of the church, went round with a bundle of whips of knotted cord, and gave one to each person who chose to take it. I took mine, but my companion laughed so at seeing me gravely accept the whip, that he was obliged to hide his face in his hands, and was passed over. In a few minutes the candles were extinguished, and we
1 H. W. HorwiU.
ROMANS XII. I 215
were left in total darkness. Then an invisible preacher began exhorting his hearers to whip themselves severely, and as he went on his vehemence and passion increased. Presently a loud smacking was heard all round the church, which continued a few minutes ; then the preacher urged us to fresh exertions, and crack went the whips again louder and faster than before, as he exhorted. The faithful flogged till a bell rang ; the whips stopped, in a few minutes the candles were lit again, and the priest came round and collected his cords. I had squeezed mine in my hands, so that he did not see it, and I brought it away with me. As soon as the candles were extinguished the doors were locked, so that nobody could go out or come in till the discipline was over. I was rather nervous when we were locked up in total darkness, but nobody whipped me, and I certainly did not whip myself. A more extraordinary thing (for sight it can't be called) I never witnessed. I don't think the people stripped, nor, if they did, that the cords could have hurt them much.^
^ In regard to those atrocious scenes which formed the favourite Huron recreation of a summer night, the Jesuits, it must be confessed, did not quite come up to the requirements of modern sensibility. They were offended at them, it is true, and prevented them when they could; but they were wholly given to the saving of souls, and held the body in scorn, as the vile source of incalculable mischief, worthy the worst inflictions that could be put upon it. What were a few hours of suffering to an eternity of bliss or woe ? If the victim were heathen, these brief pangs were but the faint prelude of an undying flame ; and if a Christian, they were the fiery portal of Heaven. They might, indeed, be a blessing; since, accepted in atonement for sin, they would shorten the torments of Purgatory. Yet, while schooling themselves to despise the body, and all the pain or pleasure that pertained to it, the Fathers were emphatic on one point — it must not be eaten. In the matter of cannibalism, they were loud and vehement in invective.^
^ The ideals of different races and centuries have no doubt been very difierent. With us cleanliness is next to godliness. With our ancestors it was the very reverse, and dearly they paid for their error, in plagues and black death. According to the Venerable Bede, St. Etheldreda was so holy that she rarely washed, except perhaps before some great festival of the Church ; and Dean Stanley tells us in his Memorials of Canterbury that
^ Tht Ghreville Me^noirs, i. 396.
' Francis Parkman, The Jesi.iits in North America, ii. 173.
2i6 THE BODY FOR GOD
after the assassination of Becket the bystanders were much im- pressed, for " the austerity of hair drawers, close fitted as they were to the bare flesh, had hitherto been unknown to English saints, and the marvel was increased by the sight — to our notions so revolting — of the innumerable vermin with which the haircloth abounded — boiling over with them, as one account describes it, like water in a simmering cauldron. At the dreadful sight all the enthusiasm of the previous night revived with double ardour. They looked at each other in silent wonder, then exclaimed, ' See ! see what a true monk he was, and we knew it not,' and burst into alternate fits of weeping and laughter, between the sorrow of having lost such a head, and the joy of having found such a saint." ^
f When Archbishop Whately was dying, his chaplain read to him the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans, and then quoted the words from the Epistle to the PhUippians (iii. 20-21) : "We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile lody" etc. The dying man was pained, and asked for "the right thing" to be read to him. The chaplaiu then repeated it again, with the rendering, with which we are now familiar in the Eevised Version: "Who shall fashion anew the lody of our humiliation." " That is right," said the Archbishop ; " there is nothing vile which God has made."
(3) It was the attitude of Christ. — One of the greatest lessons of the Incarnation was the honour put by Christ upon the body by His living in it. Throughout His life He emphasized this regard for the body by such parables as that of the Good Samaritan, and by such miracles as that of the Feeding of the Multitudes. By the Apostles the figure of the body was used to show the connexion between Christ and His Church. " We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones." In reading the Epistles of St. Paul, we are especially startled by the constant references to the importance of the body. " Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey the lusts thereof ; neither present your members unto sin as instruments of un- righteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." " The body is for the Lord ; and the Lord for the body." "Glorify God therefore in your body" — "and in your spirits" seems to have been added by some copyist, quite unnecessarily. * Lord Avebury, Peace and E'aj>piness, 41.