Sunday, December 17. I am just now returned home from the Lutheran church of Notre Dame; where, though the communicants do not kneel down like us, it is odd to say I never saw the sacrament administered with such solemnity and pomp. Four priests ornamented with a large cross on the back, a multitude of lighted tapers blazing round them, a uniformity in the dress of all who received, and music played in a flat third somehow very impressively, as they moved round in a sort of procession, making a profound reverence to the altar when they passed it, struck me extremely, who have been lately accustomed to see very little ceremony used on _such_ occasions; and I well remember at Pisa in particular, that while we were looking about the church for curiosity, one poor woman knelt down just by us, and a priest coming out administered the sacrament to her alone, the whole finishing in less than five minutes I am persuaded. I said to Mr. Seydelman, when we had returned home to-day, that the Saxons seemed to follow the first manner in reformation, our Anglicans the second, and the Calvinists the third: he understood my allusion to the cant of connoisseurship.
The sedan chairs here give the town a sort of homeish look; I had not been carried in one since I left Genoa, and it is so comfortable this cold clear weather! A regular market too, though not a fine one, has an English air; and a saddle of mutton, or more properly a chine, was a sight I had not contemplated for two years and a half. The Italians do call a cook _teologo_, out of sport; but I think he would be the properest theologian in good earnest, to tell why Catholics and Protestants should not cut their meat alike at least, if they cannot agree in other points. This is the first town I have seen however, where the butchers divided their beasts as we do.
The arsenal we have walked over delighted us but little: Saxons should say to their swords, like Benvolio in the play, “_God send me no need of thee!_”--for the Emperor is on one side of them, and the King of Prussia on the other. This last is always mentioned as a pacific prince though; and the first has so much to do and to think of, I hope he will forget Dresden, and suffer them to possess their fine territory and gems in perfect peace and quietness. One thing however was odd and pretty, and worth remarking, That at Rome there was an arsenal in the church--I mean belonging to it; and here there is a church in the arsenal.