The Irish standard., 1902-04-19

would burst out here and there to be
stamped out by another prompt outcry
Of "Assis" and so forth. But when at
long last was heard from afar the
alarm of the silver trumpets, and from
the chapel Of the Pieta the procession
from the Vatican was signalled, sort
of spasm Of delicious pain ran through
the myriads around us which put an
end to all regard to anything except
the wild instinct to see Mt any cost:
public opinion for the moment gave
up the ghost; the shouts Of "Assis!'
vigorous Mt first, died despairingly
away, and minute afterwards the
shouters Of "Seats!" were themselves
as high in the mir as their seats could
lift them, and only sorry they had not
wings to fly MS high ns the colossal
-Four Evangellsts in the spnndrils over.
head. The Syndic (Lord Mayor Of
Rome, himself, Prince Colonna, set the
example Of the dabandade by jumping
on his own chair and struggling for
the best view with the eminent Pan.
jandrums around him.
Again, there was here and there the
everlasting AnglO-SaxOn, as critically
contemptuous of the scene as he was
(once in a time) of the Boer farmers;
and there was his demon-brother of
fHn 1.0Io1y nj VoI
whose notion of asserting her Protes.
tantlsm was wearing modish dress
and feather In her hat in the most
solemn place on earth, and in contra.
vention of the rules of the most vener.
able Court in Christendom-she who
would dress for table d'hote dinner
in flnshy hotel with the respect
which was denied to dynasty of near
three hundred Popes and the temple
crowded with the masterpieces of al- ).
most MS many hundred men of genius.
1t is pretty Fanny's way; the calcula-
ton being that the Pope's ushers in
their medieval black velvet and three
to turn her out until she comes dressed
with decency.
But it Is one of the notes of the stu.
pendous magnitude Of such day at
st. Peters that all these pettinesses,
and banalities, and small irreverences
are swept out of sight, as the little
defllements Of city stream are swal-
lowed up in the ocean, the moment
Pope Leo's spirit-like face, only distin-
guished by tinge of faint ivory yel-
low from the shining white of his robe,
appeared over the tossing human ocean
of st. Peters. The lady of the ostrich
feather herself must have felt some
dim perception that she was assisting
at scene Of overwhelming majesty.
st. Peters was built for TIE Deum.
Nowhere else in the world can the
Church Triumphant descend so visibly
upon the earth or make it's voice heard
in such celestial language. We, of the
cloudier northern skies, and the gloom
Ter northern temperament, may have
our sigh for the sombre peace Of the
penitential Gothic aisles and the sooth-
ing mystery of their painted windows.
We are apt Mt first to shrink abashed
from the crude white light of day that
seems to pierce US through and
through, and turn our eyes around for
some shady corner to hide our little.
ness. 1t is no derogation from the
humble suggestivencss and rugged poet
ry Of our Gothic miracles in stone,
however, to say that the mind soon
comes to realize that the conceptions of
Bramante and Michael Angelo and
their peerless conductors cannot be H.
Illuminated with too crystalline SOUTH
ern light; that brightness, clearness
openness, the very certitude of Faith,
Hope and Joy are here in their proper
place, and that the boundless riches Of
material, painting, and sculpture here
amassed, while they seem to say the
last word for human genius, leave
something still diviner to be said in
the dimensions, the altitude the mex
pressible majesty Of the dome under
which, as it were, all else is concen.