The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1902-04-12

in the sixties, yellow, bony, bald over
the temples, with the moustache of al
old colonel, and the jumpy gestures OF
Neapolitan, and the sly affability of a
lawyer who measures his smiles by the
amount of the fee on the back of his
brief. This slim gentleman perambu-
lated the streets, Sinking and pranc-
ing as if he were the hero of the day,
for whose triumph all the drums We're
beating. He had put into the kings
mouth a declaration in support of his
favorite Divorce Bill, and his majority
seemed to stand firm as the Colosseum.
Before many hours We're over Signor
Zanardelli and his ministry were
crumbling to the earth, divorce bill and
all, and the unfortunate king had
scarcely the speech his ministry COM
posed for him spoken, when down
came the whole ministerial edifice
about his ears-almost as dismal re-
hinder of the mutability of Italian af-
fairs as if the military bands had
struck up the Dead March in Saul" on
the return to the Quirinal.
A few days afterwards l saw the
other Rome and its Sovereign. in the
midst of his army and his subjects;
and without saying that the contrast
between the two scenes reduced the
earthly monarchy to something almost
comically insignificant, the contrast
was, indeed. one never to be forgotten.
1t was on the occasion of tile POpc'S
descent into st. Peters to begin the
twenty-fiftl year of his Pontticate,
the close of which will bring him al
diem Petri. l had already often wan
dered through the streets of precious
marbles. mosaics paintings, and colos-
sal statues, under their armament of
cupolas and golden ceilings, which are
called st. Peters. To do so on ordi
nary days is to sink under a sense of
Unreasonable wonder and oppression,
to feel desire to shrink away in ones
infinite litteness into some distant
chapel where Il sacramental lamp and
q few PROSTATE figures give one ccr-
tain home feeling of a rustic Irish
chapel-away from those awful soil
tudes of cold marble, those overwhclm-
ing monuments of human genius and
superhuman virtue amid which the
tourists, circulating from aisle to aisle,
Baedeker in hand. and chattering guide
attending them, have the air of beetles
crawling about some tremendous work
of beauty. 1t seemed impossible to
imagine this immensely really pcopled
and animated. Human nature seemed
too little for it; our disenchanted age
too cold. 1t is only when the Pope sits
on his Cathedral throne, and seventy
or eighty thousand voices are rever-
berating through the heavenly abysses
of Michael Angeles Dome, that one
comes to realize the function of st.
Peters as the sovereign palace of
Christianity; but then, indeed, there
comes scene such as is to be beheld
nowhere else on earth; the Dome with
all it's heaven-piercing heights and the
vast areas stretching away behind the
pillars, seem none too mighty for the
picture they framc-when all the colos-
sal figures of Fathers Of the Church.
and Saints and Popes which incrust
the nave and trnnsepts, and all the
Pickering lamps of gold above the
Tomb of the Apostles and all the clus-
tering cllapcls around them, with their
affairs of malachite and laps lazuli,
and their paintings more priceless still,
unite in one celestial harmony, light |
up into one glowing soul, and when the
very human applause laundering
around the throne of Peter has some
thing divine in it's mysterious swell.
The Pope did not arrive from the
Vatican before IL o'clock. The invita-
tons announced that the gates of the
Basilica would not be opened before S
o'clock; but the daylight had no sooner
made it's way through the rain clouds
than half Rome seemed to he migrat
ing across the Tiber to st. Peters,
priests and nuns, by the hundrcd-of
every observance, every costume and
every race under the sun-POlisl,,
Abyssinian, Hungarian, Chinese; bands
of students in their soutans of many
colors; professions Of Belgian, French
and Lombard pilgrims; Cardinals, for
eign sovereigns; ambassadors and pa
tricians in their carriages; men and
women whose very names, Colonna
and Orsini, and Frangipani. and Ros
pigliosi, and so on, sounded like chap
tiers of Roman history-and better than
all these thousands and tens Of thou
sands of the genuine unmistakablc
common people, whose faith forms Il
securer support of religion than the
four columns-massy rs thousand
ordinary columns welded together
which uphold the terrific weight of the
cupola. The district of the Borgc,
through which You approach st. Pet
er's, is one of narrow. fusty. sordid
streets. When you emerge from them
into the glorious Piazza embraced by
Bernini's sem-circular colonnadcs Of
quadruple pillars, spread out like the
wings of the Church of Peter. wide
enough to embrace all the world, the
Basilica, crowned with the Dome