"Yes," said Rollo, "I remember when he held up the wafer. I did not know what it was."
"Did you not see that all the people bowed their heads just then," rejoined Mr. George, "and said something to themselves in a very reverent manner."
"Yes," said Rollo, "but I did not understand what it meant."
"Thus you see," continued Mr. George, "that the essential thing at a Catholic service like this, as they regard it, is the eating of the body and the drinking of the blood of Jesus Christ, as a new sacrifice for the sins of the people who are present and consenting in heart to the ceremony. There are a great many subordinate operations and rites. The assistant goes back and forth a great many times from one side of the altar to the other, stopping to bow and kneel every time he passes the crucifix. The priest makes a great deal of ceremony of wiping out the cup before he receives the wine. Then there is a long service, which he reads in a low voice, and there are many prayers which he offers, and he turns to various passages of the Scriptures, and reads portions here and there. The people do not hear any thing that he says and does, nor is it necessary, according to their ideas of the service, that they should do so; for they know very well that the priest is consecrating the bread or the wine, and changing it into the body and the blood of Christ, in order that it may be ready for the sacrifice. Then, when the wine is changed, the priest drinks it in a very solemn manner, raising it to his lips three several times, so as to take it in three portions. Then he holds the cup out to his assistant again, who pours a little water into it from his other vessel; and the priest then, after moving the cup round and round, to be sure that the water mixes itself well with the wine which was left on the inner service of the cup, drinks that too. He does this in order to make sure that no portion of the precious blood remains in the cup. He then wipes it out carefully with his napkin, and puts it away."
"Yes," said Rollo, "I saw all those things. And after he had got through, he covered the cup with a cloth, embroidered with gold, and carried it away."
"And after that," continued Rollo, "the assistant, with an extinguisher on the top of a tall pole, put out the candles, and then he went away."
"Yes," said Mr. George, and so the service was concluded.
"Thus you see," continued Mr. George, "that for all that the people come for, to such a service as that, it was not necessary that they should hear at all. There was not any thing to be said to them. There was only something to be done for them; and so long as it was done, and done properly, they standing by and consenting, it was not of much consequence whether they could see and hear or not. So the priest turned his face away from them towards the altar; and when he had any thing to say, he spoke the words in a very low and inaudible voice."
"It is impossible," said Rollo, after a short pause, "that the wine should become blood, and the wafer flesh, while they yet look just as they did before."
[Illustration: THE EMIGRANTS.]
"True," said Mr. George, "it seems impossible to us, who hear of it for the first time, after we have grown up to years of discretion; but that does not prevent its being honestly believed by people that have been taught to consider it true from their earliest infancy."
"Do you suppose the priests themselves believe it?" asked Rollo.
"Yes," said Mr. George, "a great many of them undoubtedly do. We find, it is true, every where, that the most intelligent and well educated men will continue, all their lives, to believe very strange things, provided they were taught to believe them when they were very young; and provided, also, that their worldly interests are in any way concerned in their continuing to believe them."
Just at this time, Rollo's attention was attracted to what seemed to be an encampment on the roadside at a little distance before them. It was a family of emigrants that were going down the river, and had stopped to rest. The horses had been unharnessed, and were eating, and the wagon was surrounded with a family consisting of men, women, and children, who were sitting on the bank taking their suppers. Rollo wished very much that he understood German, so as to go and talk with them. But he did not, and so he contented himself with wishing them guten abend, which means good evening, as he went by.
He went on after this, without any farther adventure, to the village, and after attending church there, he returned with his uncle down along the bank of the river to the hotel.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX. EHRENBREITSTEIN.
The people of the Rhine have not allowed all the old castles to go to ruin. Some have been carefully preserved from age to age, and never allowed to go out of repair. Others that had gone to decay, or had been destroyed in the wars, have been repaired and rebuilt in modern times, and are now in better condition than ever.
Some of the strongholds that have thus been restored are now great fortresses, held by the governors of the states and kingdoms that border on the river; others of them are fitted up as summer residences for the persons, whether princes or private people, that happen to own them. About midway between the beginning and the end of the mountainous region of the Rhine is a place where there are two very important works of this kind. One of them is far the largest and most important of all on the river. This is the Castle of Ehrenbreitstein. Ehrenbreitstein is not only a very strong and important fortification, but it guards a very important point.
This point is the place where the River Moselle, one of the principal branches of the Rhine, comes in. The valley of the Moselle is a very rich and fertile one, and in proportion to its extent is almost as valuable as that of the Rhine. The junction of the two rivers is the place for defending both of these valleys, and has consequently, in all ages of the world, been a very important post. The Romans built a town here, in the days of Julius Cæsar, and the town has continued to the present day. It is called Coblenz. The Romans named it originally Confluentes, which means the confluence; and this name, in the course of ages, has gradually become changed to Coblenz.
Coblenz is built on a three-cornered piece of flat land, exactly on the point where the two rivers come together. There is a bridge over the mouth of the Moselle where it comes into the Rhine, and another over the Rhine itself. The bridge over the Moselle is of stone, and was built a great many hundred years ago. That over the Rhine is what is called a bridge of boats.
A row of large and solid boats is anchored in the river, side by side, with their heads up the stream, and then the bridge is made by a platform which extends across from boat to boat, across the whole breadth of the stream.
Near the Coblenz side of the bridge there are two or three lengths of it which can be taken out when necessary, in order to let the steamers, or rafts, or tow boats, that may be coming up or down the river, pass through. Rollo was very much interested, while he remained at Coblenz, in looking out from the windows of his hotel, which faced the river, and seeing them open this bridge, to let the steamers and vessels pass through. A length of the bridge, consisting sometimes of two boats with the platform over it, and sometimes of three, would separate from the others, and float down the stream until it cleared itself from the rest of the bridge, and then would move by some mysterious means to one side, and so make an opening. Then, when the steamer, or whatever else it was, had passed through, the detached portion of the bridge would come back again slowly and carefully to its place.
Of course all the travel on the bridge would be interrupted during this operation; but as soon as the connection was again restored, the streams of people would immediately begin to move again over the bridge, as before.