Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1871-08-27
THE FoLL1Es OF ECCLESIASTICAL sPLENDoR.


We live in an eminently practical age.
Our energy, talents and riches if not de-
voted to practical purposes are, in the
judgment of most men, wasted. While
there are extremes to which we might run
in this respect, we think the risk worth
taking, in consideration of the good GER
tain to follow.
The practical, common sense notions of
Americans is illustrated as strikingly in
the matter of our religious organizations
and ecclesiastical expenditures as in any
other feature Of our institutions. Our at
tention has been directed to this subject by
some information contained in Eastern
journals concerning the expenditures being
made in New York on certain church edi
fees.
4 New York journalist has given one
hundred thousand dollars tOUdrds the COM
pletion of a Catholic Cathedral. Now
while we are admirers of beautiful
churches, while we delight in architectural
splendors, and in the pleasures excited by
works of art, we believe all such things
when carried beyond the bounds of reason
absolutely wicked. A cathedral erected at
the expense Of millions, sapping for gene
rations the purses of its members and de-
priving them in many cases of even the
comforts and necessaTies of life, is an offer
ing that cannot be acceptable to the great
Master, whose teachings are to relieve the
destitute and feed the poor, rather than
raise up costly images and jewels to draw
away the weak minded from real worship.
For picture of the extremes to which
this ecclesiastical extravaganza leads we
look to Italy. Its immense cathedrals
have been building for centuries and its
great ecclesiastical estates have drained its
people of all their energies and riches and
filled its beautiful vallies with beggars and
wretchedness. League Oh league of its
richest land and noblest forest, yielding
immense revenues to its ecclesiastical pro-
prietors, but not paying cent in taxes to
the State, belong to the church. In some
great districts the church owns all the
property-lands, watercourses, woods,
mills and factories. They buy, sell, manu-
facture, but pay no taxes, and hence no
private enterprises can compete with them.
If we look at the churches, the follies of
their extravaganza are still more appar-
ent. In Venice with q hundred thousand
inhabitants there were q few years ago
twelve hundred priests. 4 recent traveller
visiting the great Jesuit Church in that
city thus describes its treasures and embel-
IishmentS:
1--WE passed within the doors and it seemed
the riches of the world were before US. Huge
columns carved out of single masses of marble
and inlaid from top to bottom with hundred
intricate figures wrought IN costly verde an
tique; pulpitS of the same rich materials
whose draperies hung down in many pictured
fold: the grand altar brilliant with polished
facings and balustrades of oriental Jasper agate,
verde antique and other precious stones,
whose names even we seldom hear-and slabs
of priceless lapis laZul lavished everywhere as
recklessly as if the church had owned quarry
of Il, In the midst of all this magnifcence, the
solid gold and silver furniture of the altar
seemed cheap and trivial Even the floors and
ceilings cost priceless fortune"
The same writer says of the treasures OF
the great cathedral at Milan:
"There were virgins and bishops there above
the natural size made of solid silver, each worth
nv weight from eight hundred thousand to two
millions of francs, and bearing gemmed DOCKS
in their hands worth eighty thousand francs
there were bas-reliefs that weighed six hundred
pounds carved in solid silver; crozlers and
crosses, and candlestcks six and eight feet high,
all of virgin gold and brilliant with precious
stones and besides these were all manner OF
cups and vases, rich in proportion. 1t was an
Aladdin's palace. The treasures here by SIM
pie weight, without counting workmanship were
valued at fifty millions of francs!"
The cathedral itself has been building
five hundred years, is 500 feet long by 1SC
feet wide, with a central spire over 400 feet