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The more I see and understand this Franco-American
city, the more I am pleased with it. The novelty
of its being a perfect plain, level as a chess-board, is one
of its striking characteristics, in a northern eye. Next
is its foreign air, then there is the magnificent coup d'œil
of its league-long quay, the majesty of its moving river,
the massive grandeur of its public edifices, in which New
Orleans surpasses northern cities, and the picturesque
variety of costumes in the streets. Even the water in
the streets, after a heavy shower, runs away from the
river towards the rear of the town, instead of running
into the river, as it ought to do in all well-regulated
corporations.

The cause of this latter peculiarity is that the river
is higher than the level bottom on which the city stands,
and from its shore the land gently inclines for a mile or
two, until a dead level is reached where the waters lie
immovable. Like all rivers through an alluvial region,
the Mississippi flows grandly and loftily along on a ridge
of its own making, and which it continues to elevate by
every muddy overflow.

But I leave these matters to Sir Charles Lyell and
Professor Forshay, and will write less learnedly, albeit
learned ladies are now the mode, and all our female
boarding-schools are transmogrified into Collegiate

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Institutes, and colleges where degrees are bestowed, asserting
that the young ladies are proficients in (making pies and
puddings, doing up preserves, churning butter, and pressing
cheeses, roasting, baking, and boiling, making shirts
and mending cassimeres?) oh no! no, no, no, but in analyzing
the atmosphere into globules; in explaining the
electric battery; in measuring the depth of the primary
secondary, and tertiary formations; in dissolving the
nebula trapezium in the belt of Orion into stars; in condensing
vapor, and explaining the mystery of the steamengine,
and perfectly familiar with the science of political
government, and can demonstrate the forty-seventh Problem
of Dr. Euclid!

I have to-day passed two hours, divided between
two of the great Roman Catholic churches here, one
of which, on Place d'Armes, is a cathedral, by which
term I understand the church wherein the Bishop or
Archbishop himself preaches.

We went to the cathedral first, which fronts, with the
State government offices, a sweet public garden, adorned
with snow-white statues, and interlaced by lovely walks;
on oasis of taste in the very heart of noisy commerce,
like a gentle thought in a bad man's breast. This square
is not large, but it is a bon ton of squares, for its neatness
and attractive air. On one side the massive walls, tower,
and turrets of the cathedral look protectingly down upon
it; on two other sides stand the noble ranges of edifices
called the Montalban Buildings, constructed alike, and
facing each other on opposite sides of the Plaza. The
fourth side is open to the quay and river, at the point
where the magnificent ocean-steamers lie, to repose a
while from their stormy voyages from clime to clime.

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The walks in the square were lively with nurses and
children, while lazy fellows with mustaches lay asleep on
the luxurious grass, or smoked cigars. This square has
been for more than a century the parade-ground of the
troops of the several nations which have held New Orleans:
Spanish, French, English, and now Americans.
It was formerly the place of public execution, and from
it is fired at nine o'clock the cannon which we have heard
every night at that hour shake the city, and start Isabel
and me, and other unsophisticated country girls, from our
propriety.

The cathedral has an imposing and costly air. It is
the old cathedral, that ancient, time-honored structure, of
which I have read in novels, and the very sight of which
creates a romance in the imagination. But modern
taste has veneered all this antiquity, and out of the old
pile has produced a very elegant temple of worship.
We made our way along the front of the government
offices, between massive columns supporting a corridor,
and a row of cabriolets, which are the “hacks” of New
Orleans. The cabriolet is a handsome, chariot-shaped
vehicle, that is too pretty to be confined, as it is, entirely
to the hack-stand. These cabs, as they are called
“for short,” are driven by Irishmen, or by colored men,
the latter of whom sat half asleep on the boxes, while
the sons of Erin were alert, and extended to us very
pressing and polite invitations to suffer them to have the
“honor of dhrivin' our ladyship and our honors to any
part of the city.” The front doors of the cathedral
were closed, but M. de Clery, our attendant, turned with
us down a narrow avenue, which had the wall of the
cathedral on our left, and a row of French-looking

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buildings on our right, which, said Isidore, are occupied by
the priests; and of this fact we had ocular proof, by
seeing two sleek and unctuous-looking gentlemen, with
pleasant visages, sitting on a balcony, one with a paper
cigar in his lips, and the other reading to him from a
small, greasy book; there was also a very young, slender-looking
priest in a long, black serge-gown, reaching
to his heels, who was at the door of another house, purchasing,
with a smile and a jest, some superb Huston
peaches from a basket balanced on the head of a Creole
woman.

We proceeded about fifty yards down this avenue when
we came to a side door, which an elegantly shaped, veiled
female was in the act of opening to go in. Isidore politely
held the door for her and us, and we passed through
a second cloth door into the interior. At our left was a
marble basin, containing consecrated water, into which the
veiled lady dipped the tip of her forefinger, and, turning
round to the shrine of the Virgin, crossed herself on the
forehead and bosom gracefully, at the same time bending
her head in the act of adoration. The cross is made by
touching the forehead, the breast, the left shoulder, and
lastly the right, in quick succession with the right forefinger.

The door by which we entered, brought us into the
Cathedral, close to the shrine of St. Joseph, near the
chancel. The extreme beauty of the interior; the soft,
mellow, lemon-toned tint of the ceiling and columns, the
vast height of the fresco-adorned dome; the variety of
fine architectural forms into which the walls around us
and the ceiling were shaped; the liberal air of space and
expenditure apparent everywhere; the superb altar, with

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its commingled paraphernalia of splendid things, of which
I neither knew the name nor their use, fixed my admiration,
and riveted me to the spot from which I first caught
a view of the rich ensemble.

After a few minutes, when I had comprehended the
grand outline, I began to examine details. I walked
around the immense church, from shrine to shrine, and
from picture to picture. The last are always daubs, in
all Roman churches, except the altar paintings, which
are always rich, and usually by a master's pencil.

I allude, under the term “pictures,” not to the great
oil-paintings which rise above the central shrine, but to
those colored engravings, in black or rosewood frames,
that are seen in all these churches. They represent, in
a series, the events in the sufferings of Christ, from his
arrest to his ascension. These pictures are, I think, sixteen
in number, and are so hung around the church, that a votary,
commencing with Jesus in the hands of His captors,
ends on the other side of the church with bowing before the
representation of His crucifixion. All good Romans
often make the “penitential journey” round the church,
saying a prayer (composed for the purpose, in their Liturgy)
before each picture, having reference to the scene
represented by it. These pictures are always engravings,
highly-colored, and sold by the set to supply churches,
not only in this country but in Europe. Each one is
sacredly surmounted by a little black cross.

As we entered, a negress, with a little mulatto child in
her hands, was engaged devoutly making the tour of the
“Passion of Jesus.” I watched her, and saw her kneel before
each engraving, and mutter her prayer, the little,

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black-eyed child pulled down on its knees by her side, but
its shining eyes always turned around and fixed on us.

There were several confessional boxes. Seeing the skirt
of a robe protruding from the alcove by the side of one,
I moved in that direction, and beheld the graceful lady,
whom I had a few minutes lost sight of, kneeling before
the lattice blind, with her mouth close to it, and pouring
into the ear of the unseen priest, shut up within, her secrets
and her sins!

That she was penitent, I felt sure, for there were
“tears in her voice,” as its slow sounds reached my heretical
ears. Sorrow always commands reverence. I
turned away, leaving her to her humiliating work, and
wishing to say to her in the language of inspiration,
“Daughter! None forgiveth sins, but God only!” Ah,
this confessional! It is the secret of Roman power over
the consciences of her people. “Tell me your secrets,
and you are my slave,” was said two thousand years ago,
by a Greek writer; and it is true to-day, and Rome
practically asserts its truth.

I observed that over the door of each of the confessionals
was printed in gold letters, the name of the fatherconfessor;
so that the penitent knows (possibly if no mischievous
and evil-minded young priest steal in, or jealous
husband unawares to priest and penitent) to whom she
is unfolding the secret intents and thoughts of her heart.
I should hardly be willing to tell my husband everything,
(if I had one, Mr. —,) less so to one of these jovialeyed,
good-natured, bald-headed padres! and much less
to a handsome young fellow of a priest, whom I saw cross
the chancel, in at one door and out of the other, half
bending his knee before the crucifix on the altar, as he

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passed by it, not without half an eye cast upon our
party! The confessional alone would frighten me from
ever being a Romanist.

If you have ever been in a Roman church, you must
have been struck with the three great altars or shrines
which are invariably in all of them, at the east end of
the church. The centre one is the High Altar, with the
crucifix, holy, vessels, &c., and is the shrine of Jesus!
On the right of this, at the same end, is the shrine of the
Virgin with her altar, and the objects associated with her
worship. On the left of the High Altar, at the same
end, is the shrine and altar of St. Joseph, the husband
of Mary.

These three altars take up the whole of the east end
of all Roman churches. The three are equally worshiped,
or rather the shrines; and the Virgin always
has the greatest number of votaries. Her altar is heaped
with the freshest flowers; and three kneel before her
shrine, where one kneels before the high altar of “the
Christ.”

The religion of Rome is Mariolatry. The Mother of
Jesus is the supreme object of the worship, homage,
adoration, and supplication of Romanists. Jesus is worshiped
and adored not as “the ascended Lord,” but as
the infant in arms: this is a peculiarity of the Roman
worship. They are so accustomed to think of, and to behold
Jesus in the arms of His Mother, that they lose sight
of Him as “the Man Christ Jesus;” and the habit of
seeing Him only as an Infant leads them to look upon
the Blessed Mother alone in the light of protectress and
guardian of the Holy Child. Thus they associate with
her a maternal influence and maternal power in relation

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to Him, which is the foundation of their whole system
of “Prayers to the Virgin.”

Christ in the arms is the centre of Roman worship:
Christ on the cross, of Protestant. It is natural therefore
that the worshiper of the babe should transfer a
part of adoration to its mother.

After half an hour spent in the Cathedral, we departed
as we came, and taking one of the cabriolets,
drove to St. Patrick's Church; of my visit to which I
will not trouble you with an account, as it interested me
less than that to the Cathedral. On our way we paused
at Christ Church, the richest Episcopal Church in this
city. It is a low, ill-planned structure for its architectural
pretensions, looking, as if the main body had
sunk some six feet under ground, after being built, and
the spire had sunk as many feet down into the bosom of
the tower. The whole wants elevation, and up-lifting
into the air.

The interior I am told is very rich; but gates and
doors were locked,—for, I regret to say, the Romans
are the only people who “shut not their gates” to the
foot of the wayfaring worshiper, who, at all times,
should be able to enter the “courts of the House of the
Lord, and worship towards His holy temple.”

p613-365

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