OPENING OF THE CECUMENICAL COUNCIL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 57, 9 March 1870, Page 3

OPENING OF THE CECUMENICAL COUNCIL.

(From the European Mail) The (Ecumenical Council was opened on December 8. Amid the ringing of the bells of all the ecclesiastical edifices inj the city and salvoes of artillery from the Castle of San Angelo and Mount Aventine, the procession formed in the Upper Atrium of the Vatican, descended the Scala Ruegia, and passed through the Lower Atrium into the Cathedral. Regular and secular clergy were ranged on either side, and the procession consisted of six Archbishop-Princes, 49 Cardinals, 11 Patriarchs, 680 Archbishops and Bishops, 28 Abbots, and 29 Generals of religious orders. In all about 800 ecclesiastics preceded the Pope, who was carried into the Cathedral in the gestatoral chair. His Holiness first knelt some time before the Sacrament, and the assembly then took their places in the Council Hall in seven rows. After mass has been chanted by Cardinal Patrizi, the Archbishop of Iconium pronounced the inaugural discourse. The Pope, who appeared to be in the enjoyment of excellent health, then gave his benediction, the ceremony being carried out in exact I accordance with the State programme. ( The Times correspondent gives us, in the following description, an admirable idea of the varied characteristics of the crowd attending ou the proceedings:— "Of course London, with its three millions, can get up a larger multitude of men, on a good many occasions ; but it could cot be anything like so strange, so picturesque, and co surprising. Imagine all the figures in all the pictures of churches, countries, cities, villages, by all the Italian and all the Dutch artists, walking out of their frames, just as they are, and you have the crowd in which I have been wandering like a mote in a sunbeam. lam living in company with Raphael, Titian, Paul Veronese, and also Teniers ; for I have never seen more beautiful dresses, never more quaint, never more savage and uncouth." Describing the service, he says : — " Strange as it may seem to Euglish Protestant ears, the service was incessantly going on at all the altars in the church : congregations were assembled at them, bells were ringing, and repouses chanted, and every now and then there was a procession, with bell and candle, from one part of the church to another. In the very midst of the sightseers, occupying everywhere the most commanding positions, from the slightest to the most dangerous elevation", priests were celebrating mass, as if they were alone in the vast solitudes of the basilicas here. I must say add that every ten minutes the word of command was given in no gentle voice to some body of soldiers, to clear an avenue, push back a crowd, or make some new combination. This they had sometimes to do in the face of strong remonstrances. Lower down the nave I hear the thieves were plying their trade, with concerted attempts at disorder.

Telegraphic Communication between England and Australia. — Another correspondent, Mr. R. D. Ross, assistant commissary general, has gained admission in the Times for a long letter on the pressing importance of completing at the earliest possible period our telegraphic connexion with Australia, mainly in the interests of emigration to our southern! colonies. While great Britaiu is pouring thousands of her sons and danghters into the United States every year, our magnificent Australian colonies are receiving emigrants in driblets ; and this disparity the writer ascribes mainly to the discouraging idea ot their remoteness. "The United States apparently are close at hand, while Australia apparently is far away.'' But, " when the nation can be brought into frequent contact with their countrymen in the antipodes, by readiug in the "newspaper every morning the telegraphic summary of occurrences in these colonies, the idea of distance will, little, by little, melt away, until at last a voyage to Australia will be thought as trifling as a trip to the Channel Islands." The lesson is obvious, and for the mutual advantage of the mother country and the colonies, the sooner the cables are laid the better. Some Indian tribes have the beautiful superstition that a bird loosed on the grave of their beloved will fly away to the spiritland, and never close its wings until it has delivered its precious burden of affection to the departed.