This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...where the washing is done by 50 Chinese washermen. Certainly, says our friend, never was linen more exquisitely got up. FISHING RODS IN A CHURCH. On the following day we left our hotel about ten o'clock, and in the course of five minutes we were within the walls of Santa Maria Maggiore, so called because it is ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1882 edition. Excerpt: ...where the washing is done by 50 Chinese washermen. Certainly, says our friend, never was linen more exquisitely got up. FISHING RODS IN A CHURCH. On the following day we left our hotel about ten o'clock, and in the course of five minutes we were within the walls of Santa Maria Maggiore, so called because it is the largest of all the churches in Rome dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It is situated on the Esquiline Hill. The interior of the building baffles description. It contains thirty-six Ionic white marble columns. Here are preserved the mauger (?) in which Jesus lay, and a painting of the Virgin by Luke the evangelist. Here we saw something we had never seen before. What was it? Fishing rods stretching out from the top of all the confessional boxes where the priests were in waiting!!! Women in abundance were drawn in, but we did not see a single man enter to confess his sins to the priest. Oh, it was truly heart-rending to see so many educated men degrading themselves, and ruining the poor deluded fish they succeeded in alluring by their bait! No wonder you often see in Roman Catholic Churches the words Indulgrentia plenaria quotidiana perpetua pro vivis et defmetis. Full indulgences for longer or shorter periods may be purchased daily for the benefit of the living and the dead! This indeed is a proof of "the mystery of iniquity." THE HOLY CROSS AND THE HOLY STAIRCASE. We next proceeded in a southern direction, to a church close by the wall of the city. We passed a large open space where a number of soldiers were being drilled. We now enter the Santa Groce in Gerusalemme, so called because in it are preserved--don't believe it--pieces of the Saviour's cross, a piece of the pillar on which He was scourged, a bit of the crown of thorns, ...
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