Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . the mustard-seed of the Gospel was planted, to the loftycross that surmounts the Church of St. Peter. Tutti convengon qui dogni paesc !—Dante. We are upon the Piazza of St. Peters. The colonnades of Bernini embrace thewide space like an angels outspread wings, where the people may be gathered together aschickens beneath the wings of their mother. But all is still and silent; the vast piazza is INTERIOR OF ST. PETERS. PIOUS PILGRIMAGES AND PROFANE PROMENADES. 259 filled with the sunshine of an autumn afternoon, and the fountains plash sleepily as thoughin a d
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . the mustard-seed of the Gospel was planted, to the loftycross that surmounts the Church of St. Peter. Tutti convengon qui dogni paesc !—Dante. We are upon the Piazza of St. Peters. The colonnades of Bernini embrace thewide space like an angels outspread wings, where the people may be gathered together aschickens beneath the wings of their mother. But all is still and silent; the vast piazza is INTERIOR OF ST. PETERS. PIOUS PILGRIMAGES AND PROFANE PROMENADES. 259 filled with the sunshine of an autumn afternoon, and the fountains plash sleepily as thoughin a dream. Groups of weary, dusty peasants who have made a pilgrimage hither fromthe Sabine, Volscian, or Hernician Hills, lie in picturesque groups upon the broad steps infront of the church. They have come, full of faith, to kiss the brazen toe of the Apostlewithin there. They bring their little children and their sick with them, hoping for comfortand healing from the hands of him who was once poor and barefoot, who wandered hither. THE CONFESSIONAL. from the fishermans hut by the far-away Lake of Genesareth, a beggar and an outcast,and to whose glory the most splendid temple of the earth has been erected. Tu esPetrus / Here once stood the Gardens and the Circus of Nero, the blasphemer of Christ, whocaused the martyred bodies of the Christians to be dipped in pitch, and to serve as torchesto light his orgies. He deemed his power and his kingdom to be eternal, and looked onthe wretched Christians as dust before the wind, as a fleeting shadow in the desert. How-could these ascetics who despised death, and relinquished pleasure, be of any importancein the eyes of him who made it the study of his life to enjoy to the utmost every sensualdelight, and to deny all higher love ? Peter comes to Rome borne on the wings of Truth, upheld by the power of an ideathat reconciles the human with the divine, and dies a martyrs death in the Circus of the seed has fallen on good soil, and
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