Chapter X.ll-^<iAPRIL 

 Holy-Days and Holidays 



"She (the Roman Catholic Church) may still exist in un- 

 diminished vigour, when some traveller from New Zealand 

 shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a 

 broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's." 

 — Macaulay. 



IN this Still Christian country, Holy Week 

 is not the season of junketing and 

 holiday-making which it has become in 

 England. The Portuguese are by no 

 means inclined to the strict formalism which 

 distinguishes our neo-Catholics. Lent is 

 doubtless a season of fasting and renunciation, 

 though the practice does not appear to be 

 carried to a very irksome degree. But the last 

 days of the Holy Week are universally observed 

 with a rigour and solemnity befitting their as- 

 sociations. The outward sign which strikes 

 the stranger most forcibly is an all-pervading 

 silence. From Thursday to Saturday all sounds 



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