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Pius the Fifth, under his gorgeous vestments, wore day and night the hair shirt of a simple friar, walked barefoot in the streets at the head of processions, found, even in the midst of his most pressing avocations, time for private prayer, often regretted that the public duties of his station were unfavourable to growth in holiness, and edified his flock by innumerable instances of humility, charity, and forgiveness of personal injuries, while at the same time he upheld the authority of his see, and the unadulterated doctrines of his Church, with all the stubbornness and vehemence of Hildebrand.
"Belike; but it was their first sin; and they had been of perfect life for long, and differing in naught from the angels. Prayers, tears, torturings of the flesh, all was vain to beguile that water to flow again. Even processions; even burnt-offerings; even votive candles to the Virgin, did fail every each of them; and all in the land did marvel."
This was a year fitted for rejoicing, for the age was one of glory and prosperity. The horrors of the "black death," which had swept the land some twenty years before, were forgotten and men were in a happy mood. We read of tournaments, processions, feasts and pageantry in which all the people participated.
Already the first music of the May Day processions could be heard, distant trumpets and drums, before I sank into uneasy, bewildered slumber. I dreamt then dreams so fantastic and irresolute that I cannot now disentangle them. I remember that I was standing beside the banks of the Neva.
During Holy Week there was a great concourse of people from the neighboring villages; and on Holy Thursday and Friday they had well-ordered processions with many flagellants, in which some bore on their shoulders large crosses.
There is sufficient dangerous adventure, and enough of thrilling incident, to give the occupation a charm in the eyes of the eager youth of the cities. They like it far better than playing at soldiers, and are popular in every city. As their gay and glittering processions pass along the streets, acclamations greet their progress, and enthusiastic ladies shower flowers upon their heads.
As they were borne towards the focus and centre of the festive doings, they clung closely together, she to him, and he to her, so that they might not be torn apart by any of the rushing and tumultuous processions of excited Thracian women who, faithful to their native usages, came storming by with a young bull, on this particular night of the year, that following the shortest day.
During three weeks the Gazettes were filled with accounts of the solemnities by which the public joy manifested itself, cavalcades of gentlemen and yeomen, processions of Sheriffs and Bailiffs in scarlet gowns, musters of zealous Protestants with orange flags and ribands, salutes, bonfires, illuminations, music, balls, dinners, gutters running with ale and conduits spouting claret.
In Ashantiland, in time of war, when the men are with the army, processions of women, wives of the warriors, march through the streets, invoking the gods on behalf of the absent men. +112+. A peculiar form of procession is that in which the worshipers move round a sacred object, perhaps the adoption of a natural form of play.
Young maidens who make their first communion go into the churches in processions of hundreds, all in white, from the flowing veil to the satin slipper; and I see them everywhere for a week after the ceremony, in their robes of innocence, often with bouquets of flowers, and attended by their friends; all concerned making it a joyful holiday, as it ought to be.