The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-11-04
CRITICISM AND IGNORANCE.

To the Editor of The Globe:
The article on THE Eternal City" in
last Saturdays Dispatch certainly is a
fine specimen of the fifppant superciious.
know-it-ah, bull china-shop way of
looking at things that has made so many
English and American tourists the laugh
ing stock Of Europeans. Unfortunately
many Of them adopt a distinctly anti
anything but pagan monuments, while
everything Christian is held up to ridi-
Guile. 1t never seems to occur to them
that perhaps they have been misinform-
mistaken Thus with an air of infalli-
bility far exceeding that claimed by the
pope this writer tells us he visited "St.
PauFs cathedral in Rome, plainly show
ing that he does not even know the mean
ing of the word cathedral" From his de-
scription it is evident the church he visit
ed was "St. Pauls basilica outside the
walls" and not st. Paul's cathedral"
that he first heard the story of the ''1re
Fontane," and he seems to be blisSfully
ignorant of the fact that this is an I'M
broken tradition running back through
which st. Paul the Apostle and Roman
citizen was beheaded for his faith in
Christ, and is attested to by scores of
respectable writers through all those CEN
turtles. But he refutes all this long line
of unbroken testimony with sneer.
So, too, the story of the miracle that
made the Bambino Of Ara Coeli famous
throughout the whole Christian world is
ali news to him and only excites his risi-
bilities. He never takes the trouble to
investigate the evidence on which the
popular belief rests, though he admits
that sit was solemnly crowned by the
Vatican chapter on the I'd of May, 1897,
for the miracles it is supposed to have
performed. That would seem to be pretty
high authority for them unless indeed he
means to insinuate that the Vatican chap
tar ic ar nf q lnt nf On
experience with the Vatican through the
Taft commission dissipated that idea from
the minds of most thinking AmericansI
The inclination to criticise and ridicule
seems to be common to nearly all young
and inexperienced tourists who are ignor-
ant of the language, customs manners
and history of the countries they visit.
The writer of this well remembers how
he himself felt the inclination the first
time he toured certain countries of Eu-
rope. AS he gradually acquired their Ian
guages, however, he was surprised to dis
cover that it was his own ignorance that
gave the ludicrous appearance to things,
and not the facts themselves, and he was
soon cured of the habit But he never
fully realized what asses tourists can
make of themselves trying to be funny
at someone else's expense till he heard
foreigners ridiculing his own country and
some of her customs. A single instance
must suffice. He listened once with i'll
suppressed Indignation to the report of
two Frenchmen relating their experiences
in America. They had visited a Protestant
church and listened to Protestant SER
mon. They did not understand English,
but they heard frequently recurring words.
and on consulting their dictionary found
they meant cheese and crackers" where
upon the hilarity of their audience was
greatly excited. Now. as a matter of
fact. the words so often repeated by the
Protestant minister We're the sacred
Names of "Jesus Christ" but to the un-
accustomed ears of the Frenchmen they
sounded like .cheese and crackers and
they seriously informed their compatriots
that in America Protestant clergymen had
no higher text to preach from than
"cheese and crackers"
The same human instinct that caused
the Dispatch writer to lay the little flow
err so reverently on the grave of John
Keats caused Christians for nineteen CEN
turtles to preserve the spot on which st.
Paul was martyred with all it's early tradI-
lions and adorn it with a magnificent
basilica that would last instead of a flow
er. But with true anti-C Christian logic, he
SCOTS at the tomb Of the Apostle and laws
a flower on the grave of the poet.
William F. Markoe.
st. Paul, Nov l. 1903