628 Report on Shoa [No. 140. 



to commemorate the event of Moses covering his face on the mountain 

 of fire, when receiving the tablets of the law. 



8th. Uncharitable and uncompromising, the dread anger of the 

 Church often blazes forth into the furious blast of excommunication, 

 and the souls of men are consigned to perdition for the most trifling 

 offence. 



9th. The bell, book and candle, can be hired by any disappointed 

 enemy, and the hooded priest can be purchased to perform the cere- 

 mony, but the question in some cases is not without difficulty and 

 danger to the officiating clergy, especially when sacred majesty is 

 concerned, or where the sturdy sons of Europe come under the ban 

 of the Shoan Church. The cells of the state prison often enclose 

 the fanatic priest, whose want only interferes with the royal salva- 

 tion ; indifferent fare and close confinement ensure an absolution, and 

 the martyr to religious intolerance is expelled from the country. 



10th. The argumentum baculinum is the only other antidote, and 

 possesses a wonderful effect in stilling the storm, when persuasively ap- 

 plied to the shoulders of arrogant Church pride. 



11th. On the latest occasion of the ceremony being performed upon 

 the fair sons of the North, the priest was quietly laid hold of, and intro- 

 duced into the interior of the domicile, where his countenance consider- 

 ably drooped at the sight of an unwelcome host just arrived with a most 

 formidable cudgel. "My father must have been mistaken," was the open- 

 ing address which saluted his astounded ear, whilst the cudgel descend- 

 ed upon his shoulders with an equally startling salutation. " My father 

 never could have purposed the excommunication of his dear friend," fol- 

 lowed the exordium, and the cudgel again pattered upon the priestly 

 back ; a most able running commentary was sustained for nearly five mi- 

 nutes, attended by many playful taps upon the head to quicken the cle- 

 rical understanding, and on the termination of the conclusive argument, 

 the priest willingly withdrew his ban, bestowed his entire absolution and 

 sneaked away to his cell, mentally resolving never again to interfere 

 with those most incomprehensible Europeans, who displayed so little 

 terror at being cursed by the Church, and who entertained no respect 

 whatever for the sacred persons of her ministers. 



12th. The Negus, however, is the true God of their adoration, and the 

 essence of this devotion pervades the band to its very core. The best 



