The Abbeville banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1847-1869, 1858-05-06
ST. PETERS AT ROME.
Translated from the FrenM Of Lao,artine'.
Condolences, for the Charleston Standard.

1FdHSdted from Inc Trenh of LdDldrtiRe'S
Condolences for the Charleston Standard.
In my recollections of Rome, two i'm
pressions efface, or at least predominant over
all the rest-the Coliseum, the work of the
Roman peoplc-St. Peters, t'e chcf
d@uore of Catholicism. The Coliseum is
the gigantic trace of a supcrhuman people
who, for the qualification Of their pride, and
indulgence of their ferocious pleasures,
erected monument capable of containing
whole nation-and rivaing in massive
ness and duration even the works of nature.
The Coliseum will stand when the waters
OF the Tiber shall have dried up within its
muddy banks. st. Peters is the work Of
thought-a religion of all humanity at
one epoch Of tho world it is not an cdiiicc
destined for the accommodation of a vile pco.
p!e-but temple for the reception of all
the philosophy, all the prayers, all the gram
deur, all the thought of man.
The walls seem 10 arise and enlarge for
God, rather than with reference to tho peo-
pie. Michael Angelo alone comprehended
Catholicism, and in St. Peters we discern
its most sublime and complete expression.
1t is in truth the monumental transtigura-
ton Of the religion of Christ, its apo,l,esos
in stone.
The architects Of the Gothic Cathcdrals
were sublime barbarians. Michael Angelo
was alone philosopher in his conceptions
st. Peters is philosophic christianity, from
whence the architect has expelled supcrsti-
ton and darkness, and replaced them by
beauty space and unquenchaLle floods Of
light.
The Incompatible beauty Of st. Peters
consists i'll its being 4 temple which might
serve for the worshppcrs of any religion
Il dcistical temple-if may dare to apply
the word to stones, designed alone to invest
the idea Of God with all its splendor. Though
christianity should perish, st. Peters would
still remain the universal, eternal, rational
temple of the religion which might succeed
that of Christ, provided that it be religion
worthy of God and human nature. One
more abstract has never been constructed
here below by mortal genius, inspired by
divine idea. On entering it we feel uncer-
tain whether it be an ancient or modern
temple. No detail bcwilicrs the eye -no
symbol distracts the thought. Men of every
faith might enter it with the same venera.
ton. We feel that nothing can dwell there
but The idea Of God, and that no other idea
can fill it. Change the priest, take away
the altar, detach the pictures, still it is the
house of God. A grand symbol Of that
eternal Christianity, whose germ exists in
the morality and holiness of the successive
developments of the religious principle in
all ages, and among all men revealing it.
self to reason in proportion to the ability
which God has bestowed Of communinc
with him iii its light, cnlarging with the
human mind, expanding without internis-
sion, and gathering together all nations in
the unity Of alteration more and moro ra-
tional, making of all forms of the divinity
but one God, of all religions but one wor-
slip, and Of all nations but one human ma
ture.
Michael Angelo is the Moses of monu-
mental Catholicism. He has made an i'm
perishablc ark for future times, the Pantheon
of rational divinity.