Page:Notes ecclesiological and picturesque.djvu/22

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AUSTRIA.
5

The road continues between the future railway and the river, till the towers of Passau come in sight. This, episcopal city though it be, has but little to interest an ecclesiologist. The situation is unspeakably grand; the Danube, with the bold heights beyond; the larger Inn, obedient in its course, and henceforth to take its name from its inferior rival; and the black Ilz pouring into the united streams from the opposite side, at the moment of their junction. Here I would recommend an inn not mentioned in the guide-books, the Grünen Engel; where we were very comfortably off. All the churches are modern, though here and there with traces of old work. S. Michael has nothing interesting; I here heard the devotion of the Stations—it was a Friday—gone through with considerable earnestness by a large congregation. Beyond this, is the once conventual church of S. Paul, a huge Italian building, with stucco, gilding, and painting, to the heart's delight of the seventeenth century. On the north side are some poor remains of early Flamboyant cloisters, and a square-headed entrance-door, very good, of that date. Among the earlier mural monuments of this cloister, several are to the Abbesses. Beyond this again, the Jesuit Church, really worthless. Going down the Danube—it was a day of continuous rain—I found a church of which I could not learn the name; only so far curious, that amidst all the tinsel work of the seventeenth century, it has evident remains of a Romanesque narthex, the arches singularly stilted. the Cathedral stands on a height; the nave was rebuilt, after having