Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/109

is erected, in which little children, from five to ten years of age, deliver sermons, or address the by-standers. These by-standers are, for the most part, foreigners, or simple country people, who listen to the infant preachers with evident edification, sometimes with emotion, whilst the foreigners, on the contrary, apparently regard the whole as a child's show. The first that entered the pulpit on this occasion was a handsome little girl, who preached with fervor and exquisite declamation what she herself could but little understand. She quoted the prophets, and exhorted her audience to renounce their bosom sins—to which the rosy, little mouth gave very substantial names—to turn themselves to il beatissimo Bambino, born during this beatissimo notte, and to let themselves be born again in Him. The splendid little speaker closed with a graceful salutation to the public, which could not refrain from a murmur of applause and delight. A little boy, in delicate clothing and with beautiful eyes, stepped up after her, and made a speech in verse, in which the lesson learned by heart was too perceptible; and besides, this, he was prompted by his lady-mamma, who was standing below. A little girl, wearing a shepherd's hat, succeeded to him; but she lost the thread of her discourse very soon, avowed it with great näiveté, turned round and hastened from the pulpit. Another little one was lifted up by her father, who whispered in her ear, but in vain; the little one stood gazing at the spectators with her large, dark eyes, forgetful that she had any thing to say to them. Her father was obliged to lift her down again. A lively boy of ten, in a priest's black cloak, now