New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1888-04-11
"sT. PETER's CHURCH,,
An American Travellers First Impressions.


Hon. D. N. Richardson, editor the
Davenport, Iowa, Democrat writes
from Rome:
Are you coming to Rome If you
come to see it all. to compass ITS pal.
aces-spiritual and civil; to under
stand its antiquities, to know the
length and breath Of Rome in time
and figures, come early, come to stay.
Come we'll braced for disappointment
for when you have spent your dear,
short life OF twenty, thirty, forty
years. you will know SO little, lack so
much that you will shirk to look your
neighbor in the face.
| envy, quite, the man who has been
IN Rome three days and tells you he
has seen 1t all! I like him for his OBJ
durate, blissful ignorance; that state
OF hopeless mental vacancy that out
bids responsibility. and wish he would
write book on Rome, for lie could
only make g. failure. as all have done
before.
You come to Rome. First thing a,
hotel. You take bit to eat, order a
vehicle. You are going out to do the
clty-to take it in. Where will
you drive? Nine times out of
ten the pilgrim says est. Peters
church."
"a San Peatro" speaks OF your por-
ter to the whip, and off you go. Off
through close narrow streets, we'll
hemmed IN with tall, tawny, succeed
houses-the houses are stores and
shops and dwellings, all combined in
one-you cross the Bridge Of Angels
IN trance, you pass the castle An
gelo IN a daze, you squeeze in through
the Borgo IN an anxious state, and
facing great Saint Peters you are
crushed. You hunt your stock Of
words. They are misfts. You try to
tell your thoughts. They are too in
significant; you alight, stare at the
collonades, the great ambitious fount.
aims; the hieroglyphic obelisk; then
turn and go inside. Hyou are wise you'll
say no foolish thing, for you'll keep
your mouth shut. You cannot under
stand thing you see; the distances are
great and overcome you; the heights
are lotty-room in any corner to tuck
away your village church and never
miss the space it takes; the floor a
wide spread of colored marbles; the
piers and columns, inches, statues,
cherubs-ev everything SO out of all pro-
portions that you have ever seen,
that you cannot take it in or scarcely
find your tongue.
You will join the crowd, maybe, and
you will go to the great bronze canopy
and look upon the many lighted lamps;
gaze up above the clouds and find the
heavens very high and overweight
with rows OF saints-tfer on tier, with
Christ and Mary where the sun should
be. You hear church music some
where round-intoned service some
where here-but not congregation in
slght-the great floor space is free of
crowds; though some hundreds OF peo-
pie wander about just as you do; you
wonder where the singing is, and 90 to
hnd lt-go to hunt among the piers,
about the aisles and chapels-fnd it
at last way off one sida-mere chapel
servlce--scarcely any people there.
But look you-look about-that
little chapel you see here is larger than
any church, perhaps, you have ever
worshipped in; its dome mounts up
two hundred feet or more; it's floor is
costly marble work; it's alter golden
bronze and precious stones; it's pic
lures masters works. Small! Yes;
but put all the people into it that you
lind IN your average church at home,
and they will yet leave room for quite
as many more. Nothing is small here.
Stay here weeks and come here for an
hour each day, and it will grow-take
form and shape, and you will get &C
customed. 1t hardly seems the work
OF man; more like a vast majestic cave
arranged by supernatural hands
cathedral Of the gods. The work of
man could be described so man can
understandable passes all descrip-
tlon-passeth understanding. You
may pace it off-go around it's outer
wall, and those of its annexes, and adj
Joined rooms of the Vatican, and the
walk is longer than that which COM
passes the walls OF tIss city of Jerusa-
lem! You trudge up to the top and
walk about the streets Of houses there
the great paved roof looks like a vii
lagge-street and public square-homes
for the workingmen, a liberal force to
keep things in repair. The lofty chap
ell donles that spring up through the
root are so many small temples
klosks. The grand old central dome
that mounts up there beyond this IT,
dy village, is the August cathedral
round, as was cathedral shape in later
pagan-early Christian times. You
wander here at leisure, look up along
the eighteen feet back of the Saviour
and the saints that from your roof
village wall look down into the sixty
acre open square that fronts the great
Saint Peters; stray round the
sturdy parapets, climb on far
ther up and UP towards the sun.
From down below you saw a little
halI-QT, n,