One lovely summer Sunday
morning, passing the church betimes, I saw the people kneeling upon
these steps, the church within being crammed. In the darker light
of the porch, they told out against the sky that showed through the
open arch beyond them; far away the eye rested on the mountains--
deep blue save where the snow still lingered. I never saw anything
more beautiful--and these forsooth are the people whom so many of
us think to better by distributing tracts about Protestantism among
them!
While I was looking, there came a sound of music through the open
door--the people lifting up their voices and singing, as near as I
can remember, something which on the piano would come thus:-
[At this point in the book a music score is given]
I liked the porch almost best under an aspect which it no longer
presents. One summer an opening was made in the west wall, which
was afterwards closed because the wind blew through it too much and
made the church too cold. While it was open, one could sit on the
church steps and look down through it on to the bottom of the
Ticino valley; and through the windows one could see the slopes
about Dalpe and Cornone. Between the two windows there is a
picture of austere old S. Carlo Borromeo with his hands joined in
prayer.
It was at Rossura that I made the acquaintance of a word which I
have since found very largely used throughout North Italy.
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