The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-08-15
Hoods Pills take, easy to t operate aasY 25 &C.
ON THE DOME OF ST. PETERS.
Almost a Panorama of the World Stretched
Before the BehOlder.


The strangest, most extravaganza,
most incomPrehensibIe, most disturb
ing sight of all Is to be seen from the
upper gallery in the cupola looking
down to the church below. Hanging in
mid-air, with nothing under ones feet,
one sees the church projected in per
spective within a huge circle. It is as
though one saw it upside down and
inside out. Few men could bear to
stand there without that bit of iron
railing between them and the hideous
fail, and the inevitable slight dizziness
which the strongest head feels may
make one doubt for a moment whether
what is really the floor below may not
be in reality a ceiling above, and wheth-
er one's sense of gra~vitation be not in
verted in an extraordinary dream. At
that distance human beings look no
bigger than flies, and the canopy Of the
high altar might be an ordinary table.
And thence, climbing up between the
double domes, one may emerge from
the almost terrible perspective
to the open air, and suddenly
see all Rome at ones feet,
and all the Roman mountains stretched
out to south and east, in perfect grace
of restful outline, shoulder to shoulder,
like shadowy women lying side by side
and holding hands.
And the broken symmetry of streets
and squares range below, cut by the
winding ribbon of the yellow Tiber, to
h right the low Aventine, with the
dark expresses of the Protestant GEM
etery beyond, and the Palatine, crested
with trees and ruins; the Pincian on
the left, with its high gardens, and the,
mass of foliage of h Villa Medici be-
hind it; the lofty tower of the capitol
in the midst of the city; and the sun
clasping all to it's heart of gold, the
just and the unjust, h new and the
old alike, past and present, youth, age
and heterogeneous ms only the sun
can be In this sordid and misery world,
where bread is but another name for
blood, and a rood of growing corn
means a pound of human flesh. The
sun Is the only good thing in nature
that always gives itself to man for moth
ing but the mere trouble of sitting in
the sunshine, and Rome without sun
light is a very grim and gloomy town to-
day.
It is worth the effort of climbing so
= tOuI hhlltlTtd leu III Lhc air, you
look down o what ruled half the world
by force for ages, and on what rules
the other half to-day by faith-the
greatest center of conquest md of dis
cord and of religion which the world
has ever seen. A thousand volumes
have been written about it by a thou
sand wise men. A word will tell what
1t has been-the heart of the world.
was drawn the worlds blood
by all he roads that lead to Rome, and
hence 1t was forced out again along
the mighty arteries of the Caesars
to be spilled in the Caesars bat
tles-to redden the world with the Ro-
name. Blood, blood, and moro
blood-thnt was the history of old
blood of brothers, the blood
of foes, the blood of martyrs without
end. 1t flowed and ebbed in varying
tide at the will of the just and the un-
just, but there were always more hands
to shed it. And so it may be again here
after; for the name of Rome has a
heart-stirripg ring, and there has al
been as much blood spilled for
the names of things as for the things
Observation-Disclosures Crawford, in Cen