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    present King has constituted the Archbishops the chief magistrates of the police , which is the very essence of an Inquisition . The police officers are governed by them in every step they take . And God forbid that you should fall into the hands of the Archbishops ! However innocent you may be , your ruin is certain . ' * I then inquired what was his opinion of the state of morals among the middle and lower classes . " Instead of caring

    for their families , " said he , " they go about to the festivals of the patron saints in the villages round , and are guilty of intoxication and other vices . There are many who will drink seven , and some eleven or twelve bottles of wine at these festivals . These things shock and harass me , " said he . " I finish my visits to my patients as quickly as possible . I am intimate with no one , but hasten home to the bosom of my family . But who can tell if even there spies may not be within hearing ?"

    Although there are plenty of pnests , there is very little preaching at Sorrento . I heard one or two sermons . But they were such vapid declamations , with the constant repetition of the name of the patron Saint to whom the day was dedicated , that I preferred attending the service of the Church of England , performed by a clergyman in his own house . An entry in the

    books of the suppressed Convent of Augustines at Sorrento leads to some interesting but melancholy reflections : < ' Martin us Lutherus sacrificium obtulit "—Martin Luther performed mass here on such a day . The great Reformer , while yet a Papist , visited Sorrento , and engaged in turn with his brethren in the offices of the church . The mention of his name leads

    the mind to the melancholy reflection , that at the expiration of three centuries from the commencement of his labours , not a spark of the glorious light of the Reformation is to be seen in the great and populous kingdom of Naples . If the prospect is gloomy at Naples itself , the veil of night which overspreads the fair island of Sicily is still more impenetrable . The excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii , along with the noblest monuments of their superiority in the arts , have brought to light condemning

    proofs of the licentiousness and vice of the ancient Romans , which , while they fully justify the descriptions of the apostle of the Gentiles , seem designed by Divine Providence to teach us the inestimable value of the gospel , which proclaimed to the astonished heathen world the necessity of purity , temperance , and self-controul , in order to obtain the favour of the Deity . For a similar purpose for which these ancient cities have been preserved

    for two thousand years , so that they are now brought to light as if they had been buried yesterday , we may conjecture that modern Naples is permitted still to remain preserved from the destructive effects of the light of reason and the air of freedom , to shew us how far corrupted Christianity can go in darkening the understanding and perverting the will , and thus to enhance in our eyes the value of the sincere word of truth .

    On the 19 th of September , having returned to the city of Naples , I went to the Cathedral of St . Januarius to see the blood of the saint liquefy , it being the day of his martyrdom . Having heard this described , and read accounts of it by travellers , as being the " boldest and most successful of all the pretended mirades of the Church of Rome , " and as exhibiting the

    character of the people of Naples in the strongest li g ht , ( see Gilly ' s Appendix to a Tour among the Waldenses , Lady Morgan ' s Italy , &c ., ) my curiosity was greatly excited to see it . I went at half-past eleven , near the time appointed for displaying the miracle , and found about three thousand persona assembled in the church , a number far inferior to what 1 had expected , and

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    Narrative of a Residence of Four Months at Naples . 219

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    B . 2

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1828, page 219, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2559/page/3/