THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 82, 21 November 1874, Page 11

THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.

The well-known poet, C. "W. Stoddard, is writing a series of letters from Europe to the San Francisco ' Chronicle.' At present he is " doing" Rome, and thus discourseth about the " world's cathedral" and some of the people who go there : — " Chapels everywhere come into view from serene and saci'edjseclusions. Lights twinkle like stars — lights that seem to float in the air and feed on it. Here is the priest at mass, with his little cluster of worshipful soula kneeling about him ; and then a procession of novices passes slowly down the nave in their long, dark robes. In the distance, black objects are moving to and fro j they seem like little shadows thrown upon the marble floor of

THE "WORLD'S CATHEDEAL," *! but they are in reality men and women, stalking about yrtth eye-glasses t and guide-books, and proud, shallow hearts, and evil tongues, who come hither for an hour or two and look about and then go hence to talk glibly and foolishly of their disappointment. I don't know how many times I have journeyed over the Tiber and into the edge of Home, where stands St. Peter's. I am glad that I have lost my reckoning, for it is pleasant to think that I have been again and again * until it is hard to stop away from its ever-increasing beauty. For the 8 seren days of Holy Week I went daily, but the last day of the seven J '"Xna the Easter Sunday that followed were in no wise less lovely \ than the first hour of my communion there. It is not this chapol or * that monument, nor the gorgeous shrine of the reverend saint, nor the J awful and splendid dome that attracts chiefly. It is the inexhaustible resources of the marvellous place that makes one loth to leave, for ] fear that he has missed something. And then the atmosphere of the i cathedral is so delicious. It is said the temperature never changes ; i that in the summer when Home is sweltering, the unhappy sinner who ] is not able to go unto the hills may come here and get something o£ i the sweetness and the freshness of the mountain air ; and in the : winter, when there is hail and sleet and bitter wind oiit of doors, i within there is peace and mellowness of eternal summer. And there > is ever the throng of those who go up into this sacred hill to pray, ihingled with the chant of sweet and far-away voices, that seem to , awaken a chorus in the marble lips of these singing and praiseful faces; and THE SWINGING- CENSOR throws out a little cloud of incense that passes lightly from column to column, sanctifying all it visits, and slowly making ilie circuit of all the magnetic girdle that hems this holy hall. Dickens didn't like St. Peter's ; poor Dickens, who rushed in and rushed out like so many tourists, and were full of disappointment because it hadn't staggered them within the few minutes they allotted it for that very purpose. But who expects these people to like it ? Bless their hearts, that great curtain at the portal of Sfc. Peter's flaps to and fro perpetually, and the marble sky of the dome, that looks as light, as air and as fine as spun sunshine, soars over the marble floor, where these thovisands of little crawling creatures are clustering like ants. Can a mind in a body of that size comprehend so awful a miracle as this at one and the same sitting ? I should say not. As for me, I have learned that St. Peter's is the one solitary magnet that can ever hope to draw me back to Eome, and I believe it might. For it, and it only, I would Bink every object in this suffocating museum of antiquities. Yea, I would throw in a dozen dreary, dingy, dusty coliseums, if I had them, and feel that I had made a bargain. I began this letter intending to Bay nothing ABOUT ST. PETERS, but I have betrayed myself. I meant to say something concerning tlie ceremonies of Holy "Week, but I will not. I prefer to be consistent, and here the matter ends. Crowds of people flocked daily to tlie cathedral, and still the place seemed comparatively empty ; I cannot imagine of its being f ullunder any circumstances whatever. The foreigners, here called the 'forestiers,' were omnipresent. You heard all languages talked in voices that sounded unnecessarily loud, but there ja little use in feeling shocked .at anything in Borne. While the masses being celebrated in the various chapels, while the confessionals, all Christian tongues are spoken, were being visited by penitents, while the sacred relics were being exposed in one of the galleries, under the great dome, the forestiers stalkecVabout and regarded everything with indelicate, not to say nrpTjpEXT curiosity. I wonder why gentlemen are always so ill-bred, and why ladies are so vulgar ? Peasants don't do this sort of thing. I have seen a woman with a loud American accent sit on the steps of an altar in St. Peter's and study her guide-book with an eye-glass, while her companion made wild gestures with his \imbrella and smiled a superior smile that grew xmpleasantly like a grin as the muscles of his face began to harden. Meanwhile, a priest who was kneeling at the altar in prayer was driven from his post and the foreigners were left to their diversions. Again and again, I have seen a small party of tourists gather about the statue of St. Peter, looking with ill-disguised disgust at tlie faithful who were kissing tie toe of it. lam afraid I took a sinful pride in kissing that toe whenever I saw this sort of tiring coming on. You can usually tell it by the eye-glass if it is a male, or by a prim travelling-dress and a camp stool if it is a female. A fellow with exclusively bad legs stalked before me on one occasion during the exposition of the relics, when I desired him to stand a little to one side — for as I was kneeling it was but just that he should have shown this consideration — he deliberately eyed me for a moment, and then ignored me. Had it been other than a church that we were in, I would have shortened the fellow's career or perished in the attempt. Perhaps these PEOPIE DOIf'T CONSIDER that it is not the custom of others who differ from them in any point of faith to go over the land, haunting the sanctuaries that, of course, they cannot reverence, like a pestilence. Perhaps this distressing mass is not troubled with much reason, or reverence, or religion, for it would show its good effects if they were. This is the unavoidable

nuisance that stinks in the flO3trils of every man who comes to Borne, or to any foreign city, with the purpose of seeing it as it is, and enjoying it to the best of his ability. As I was one day resting in St. Peter's, I was attracted by tho lusty lungs of a small baby who objected to infant baptism. There was a half dozen spectators watching with considerable interest the ceremony ; and as the priest anointed the eyes and touched the lips of the youngster with oil and salt, a sallow and withered specimen of the forestiers who stood by me, with her arm in the arm of one of her kind, turned about with a jerk and said, in an audible voice (they nearly all talk too loud), "The nasty thing — he put oil in its eyes and salt in its mouth. I'd teach him better; I guess ;" and I thought to myself, "My unfortunate friend, God is merciful. The softest glance from your ill-favored eyes is not so soft as that drop of oil and salt, and salt is probably sweeter than your milk." We had no conversation after that.