ROME, 21st February, 1884.
MY DEAR SIR,—I feel exceedingly anxious to know how you have been since we left home, and how your work has been getting on, and I cannot refrain from asking you to take the trouble of writing me such information as I desire.
This letter, hitherto unpublished, was written to the late Mr. Alexander Macdonald, Catechist, Dingwall.—ED.
As for me, I am just as the Lord hath appointed, and with this I desire to be satisfied. I have not been quite so well for the last week. I somehow caught cold, and this has produced results which make me rather anxious. But till this came, I felt wonderfully better and quite conscious of a considerable accession of vigour.
This is our last day in this wonderful idolatrous and ungodly city. On this occasion I did what I could in looking into the worship and practice of the Romish Church, and the result has been to make me feel assured that I had previously no right conception of the monstrous deceit and blasphemy of the horrid system of Popery. I have been a witness of many services that were such an outrage on reason, as well as on all spiritual feeling, that I felt persuaded that only the power of a “strong delusion” could induce men to countenance them. Here you can enter a Church during service and walk about and talk as if you were in a museum or in a gallery of paintings, and look on what is being done before the altar, without even approaching to anything like a countenancing of it. During the service at the altar, even priests and monks are moving about among the people who are mere spectators, and are just as frivolous as those who are talking and laughing around them. The officiating priests are quite as devoid of any appearance of seriousness as those who are looking at them as they mutter and posture in a way that indicates nothing except the weariness of routine, their utter want of faith in what they would commend to others, and the facility with which they can dishonour Jehovah and His Anointed. The religious power of Popery is manifestly on the wane here, as surely as its political power is gone. But the poor people are going back into the gross darkness of infidelity instead of coming out into the light of truth. But this is not the final condition of the Romans. If severe great national calamity occurred to scare them, they would fly back into the arms of the Pope again, and be his slaves as before. I cannot but think that this ungodly city shall be the scene of dire judgments ere the Lord shall arise to shew mercy. The present condition of the people is just what might be expected. The utter deceitfulness of Popish worship—its utter emptiness of all that would meet the crave of conscience—is such that, combined with the profligacy of the priesthood, the people are driven into utter infidelity. The only religion they know is that which is represented by Popery, and how can we wonder if they say “if that is religion we chose to be without it.”
But there is much, very much, here that is intensely interesting. The recent excavations have discovered remains of ancient Rome as prove it to have been the most magnificent city in the world—and its greatest works were erected by the slave-labour of Christian captives—works such as the Colosseum, the most splendid ruin in the world, which afterwards became the scene of the slaughter of the Christians who erected it, the architect being one of the first to suffer on its arena. I was at Appii Forum and the three taverns where Paul met the brethren on his way from Puteoli to Rome. I was at his own hired house. I was in the prison in which he was confined, and I stood on the very pavement on which rested his feet when he was before Nero. All this was very interesting amid all that was grieving. How strange it seems to find oneself standing between walls that shew the paint that was so skilfully laid upon them 2000 years ago, and to stand on the mosaic pavement with which at that distant date they were floored.
Protestant congregations in this city are very few and very small, and of these some appear to be imitating Popery, rather than protesting against it. I refer to the High Church Episcopal Churches, one English, and another American. These are but helping those who worship in them pass over to the Beast. In our Free Church here there is a minister who is an able, clear, doctrinal preacher, but whose sentiment is considerably affected by the fashionable religion of the times. I preached once there, and because I used no hymns, I have never been asked again. The doctrine which I preached was not relished because I endeavoured to set forth views of scripture truth which told against current tendencies. I had promised to preach again, but since that first service I was never reminded of my promise. I find that the Scotch newspapers are down upon me because of the service which I conducted, and of course they represent the feeling of the congregation here.
I am leaving Rome, D.V., to-morrow forenoon for Florence, where I expect to be for a month. . . .
With kindest regards.—I am, my dear sir, yours affectionately,
J. KENNEDY.