of galleries of the fine arts and museums to rival, if not to surpass, most of those in Rome. No, it is not for her antiquity, nor for her grand ruins of past ages, nor for her paintings and sculpture, her marbles and mosaics, that Rome stands unrivalled in the world. These are but accessories. Neither they nor any mere human gift can suffice to explain the mystery of her survival, despite so many convulsions and shocks, and her continued and prosperous existence, where all around her has sunk into decay and ruin. Were there no other source of life, these would soon fail her. The treasures of art and antiquity in her galleries, and museums, and public buildings would soon be shattered by spoliation or conquest, and she would be left desolate and stricken like her crumbling ruins. It is the moral power of Christianity which gives her a life and a strength beyond that of the sword. It is the presence of that pontiff who is the visible head of the church, and the centre of Catholic unity and of spiritual authority, which saves her from the fate of other cities. Her true source of life is her religious position. When, centuries ago, the popes, wearied out by the tumults of the people and the turbulence of the barons, withdrew for peace' sake, and abode for seventy years in Avignon, Rome dwindled down to be little better than a village of ten or fifteen thousand souls. The Romans spoke of that time as a Babylonian captivity. With the return of the pontiffs, prosperity was again restored. When, in the early part of the present century, Pius VII. was borne away and held captive for years in France, and Rome was annexed to the French empire, the population of the city quickly sank to one hundred and thirteen thousand, and was rapidly diminishing. When he returned, in 1814, it began to rise again, and

to-day Rome has nearly double that population. Were the sovereign pontiff to be driven into exile to-morrow, as Garibaldi and Mazzini, and the Italianissimi of Florence desire, Rome would again, and at once, enter on a downward career of misery and ruin. In twenty years she would lose all her treasures and half of her population. All this is clear to the Romans themselves; all the more clear from the fate which has overtaken those cities of the states of the church which were annexed to the kingdom of Italy eight or ten years ago. No wonder that, in 1867, neither the artful emissaries of Ratazzi nor the military pa rade of Garibaldi was able to gather recruits to their attempt, either from the country around or from the city itself. The Romans would shudder at the thought of a renewal of that attempt, as at a terrible calamity.

But we must not wander away into such considerations. This theme, though most important to the Romans and often on their lips, is of too worldly a character. For this month, at least, we leave it aside, and join that immense crowd of strangers who have filled Rome, drawn hither to look on the council, and to unite in the solemn offices of Holy-Week, more solemn and imposing this year than perhaps ever before, on account of the vast number of bishops uniting in their celebration. Once, the German element used to stand prominent before all others, in the crowd of stran gers that flocked to Rome for HolyWeek; afterward the English, and laterly the Americans, became conspicuous. This year, although they were probably as numerous as ever, they seemed to sink into the background before the vast number of French who filled the holy city, and who, almost without exception, had come in the spirit of earnest, fervent Catholics. They were fully as numerous and ful

ly as demonstrative as at the centenary celebration in 1867. Their coming was announced by the ever-increasing numbers who, each day that a general congregation of the council was held, gathered at St. Peter's at half-past eight A.M., to see the bishops enter, or at one P.M., to see them come forth from the council hall.

In ordinary times, the pope and cardinals celebrate nearly all the offices of Holy-Week, not in St. Peter's, which is left to the canons and clergy of that basilica, but in the Sixtine chapel, which is the pope's court chapel, so to speak, within the Vatican palace. It is as large as a moderate American church. About one half is railed off as a sanctuary for the pontiff, and the cardinals and their attendants, and for the other clergymen who are required or are privileged to attend the services in this chapel. The remaining half, assigned to the laity, will hold four or five hundred seated or standing, as the case may be. The number desiring to enter is so great that often a seat can be obtained only by coming two or three hours before the time for commencing the services. This year, if the bishops were to be present, the whole chapel would have to be used as a sanctuary, and no room would remain for any of the laity. To avoid this embarrassment, and the consequent disappointment of thousands, it was settled that this year the papal services of Holy-Week should be celebrated, not in this Sixtine chapel, but in St. Peter's itself, where, besides all the bishops, ten thousand others might attend, and seem only a moderate-sized crowd grouped close to the sanctuary.

To St. Peter's, then, on Palm-Sunday morning, came the papal choir, and half a thousand bishops, archbishops, primates, and patriarchs, the cardinals with their attendants, and the holy father himself, for the bless

ing of the palms and the other services of the day. They were substantially the same as the services in ten thousand other churches of the Catholic world that day. But here, there were of course a splendor and magnificence that could be rivalled nowhere else. The palms to be blessed lay in masses regularly arranged near the throne of the pontiff. They seemed scarcely to differ from the branches of our southern palmetto. On many of them the long leaves were fancifully plaited, so as to represent a branch surrounded by roses, lilies, leaves, and crosses. The Catholic negroes that came to the United States from San Domingo years ago used to do something similar. There is an interesting story about these palms. On the tenth of September, 1586, Fontana, the architect and engineer of St. Peter's, was to lift to its present position in the middle of the square before St. Peter's, the immense unbroken mass of stone which formed an Egyptian obelisk that had been erected in the amphitheatre of Nero, and still stood not far off, its base buried in the earth that centuries had accumulated around it. It was a mighty, a perilous work, to transport this obelisk, three hundred yards, ever keeping it in its upright position, and at the end to lift it up and plant it on the lofty pedestal. Pope Sixtus V. and all Rome were there to look on. In default of steamengines and hydraulic rams, not then invented, Fontana used a huge scaffolding, ropes, blocks and tackle, and windlasses, and hundreds of operatives. Any mistake or confusion as to orders or delay in executing them might overthrow the immense pillar, and prove disastrous to the work, and fatal perhaps to scores of lives. In view of the emergency, a kind of military law was proclaimed, whereby all lookers-on were to keep silence, under

penalty of death. Fontana, standing aloft, gave his orders, the wheels were turned, the ropes tightened, the mighty mass slowly moved on, the pedestal was reached. The obelisk was lifted up. Hours rolled on, and still it rose gradually but truly. At length it stood within a few feet of its destined position. But it would go no farther. The ropes, bearing the strain of the weight for so many hours, had stretched, and some were threatening to snap. Fontana stood pale and speechless at the impending disaster, which he now saw no way of averting. Suddenly a clear, manly voice was heard from out of the crowd, "Wet your ropes! wet your ropes !" Fontana at once seized the happy thought. The ropes were wetted, swelled and contracted to their original state, and soon the huge obelisk stood upright and firm on the solid pedestal, and the daring work was crowned with complete success. Meanwhile, the officers had seized the man that cried out; he was brought before the pope, who thanked him and embraced him. He was asked who he was, and what reward he desired. His name was Bresca, a sailor from San Remo, near Nice. His family owned a palmgrove there, and the reward he asked was the privilege of supplying St. Peter's every year for ever with the palm-branches to be blessed and used on Palm-Sunday. It was granted. Nearly three centuries have passed, but the family of Bresca is still at San Remo, has still palm-groves, and every year there comes a small vessel from that port, laden with the palmbranches for St. Peter's. May it continue to come three hundred years hence!

The holy father, in that clear, sweet, and majestic voice, for which he is remarkable, chanted the prayers for the blessing of the palms. To the blessing succeeded the distribution.

One after another, the cardinals gravely advanced, the long silk trains of their robes rustling on the carpet as they moved forward; each one received a palm-branch; the oriental patriarchs, the primates, and a number of the archbishops and bishops, as repre sentatives of their brethren, followed after the cardinals, and received each his branch. Meanwhile the choir was singing the exquisite anthems, "Pueri Hebræorum," appointed for that occasion. It was a simple, yet a most effective and thrilling scene. The cardinals stood in their long line, the rich gold ornamentation of their chasubles shining brightly on the violet silk, on their heads the mitre or the red calotte of their rank. Before each one stood his chaplain in dark purple, holding the decorated palmbranch, like a lance. In the middle, as the lines of Oriental and Latin prelates in their rich and varied robes approached the holy father, or retired, each one bearing his palm-branch, there was a perpetual changing and shifting and intermingling of colors, as in a kaleidoscope. Near the pope, stood the senator and other civil officers of Rome, in their mediæval mantles. The Swiss guard, in a military dress of broad stripes, red and yellow, or black and yellow, some of them wearing steel corselets and breastplates, and all wearing the plumed Tyrolean military hat; they stood motionless as statues, holding their bright halberds upright. The Noble Guard, in their rich uniform, stood here and there; and on both sides, line after line of bishops, robed in cappa magnæ, formed a massive and imposing background. Add to all these, the religious orders, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans of every family, Augustinians, Benedictines, Cis-, tercians, Canons Regular, Theatines, Servites, Crociferi, and many others, each in the costume of his order or

congregation, and all bearing branches of blessed palm. Add still the continuous chanting of those unrivalled voices and the indistinct bass murmur or rustling of the vast crowd. It was a scene which carried one away. You did not strive to catch every note of Palestrina's beautiful composition. It was enough to drink in the sound. You scarcely thought of reciting the words of a prayer-there are none assigned for the time of distribution specifically-you found it easier to indulge a train of devotional thought, and to unite with it something of pious admiration.

Next followed the procession in commemoration of the solemn entry of our Saviour into Jerusalem, five days before his Passion. Leaving the sanctuary, the long lines of singers, of the religious orders, of bishops and prelates, and of cardinals, and finally the pope with his attendants, passed down the nave of the church, out by one door into the vestibule, and, returning by another into the church, again came up the nave and entered the sanctuary. The strains of the "Gloria, Laus, et Honor," the hymn for that procession, always beautiful, and infinitely more so when sung to-day by this choir, swelled as the procession approached you, became fainter and sweeter as it passed on. You caught but a faint murmur of melody while they were in the vestibule, and the notes rose again as the procession entered the church and moved slowly onward to the sanctuary.

Then came the high mass, which an archbishop celebrated, by special permission, at the high-altar. With out such permission, no one save the holy father himself celebrates there. During this mass the entire history of the Passion of our Lord, as given in the Gospel of St. Mat

thew, is sung. On Good-Friday, the same history is sung, as given by St. John. Perhaps no portion of the chants of the church in use at the present day is as ancient and venerable as the mode in which the Passion is chanted. The old classic Greek style is preserved, and, fundamentally at least, the melody must be Grecian, although perhaps somewhat changed to suit our modern gamut. The ordinary mode is to distribute the whole among three singers, one of whom chants all the narrative or historical portion. Whenever the Saviour speaks, a second singer chants his words. A third singer comes in at the proper times to chant whatever is said by others. In the Sixtine chapel, and here in St. Peter's to-day, there is a slight change made, which from its appropriateness and effective character we cannot but look on as in part, at least, a return toward the original idea of such a chant. One singer, an exquisite tenor, took up the narrative portion in a recitativo, closing each sentence with the modulations with which many of our readers must be well acquainted. A baritone voice, one of the richest, smoothest, most majestic, and most plaintive and sympathetic we ever heard, chanted the Saviour's part. There was not in it a note that we had not heard before scores of times, but never as they were now chanted. One could, it seemed, listen to him for ever; when he closed one sentence, your eye ran along the page to mark the verse, at which you would hear him again. As he uttered the words, you drank them in, in their sense rather than in the music, realizing something of their pathos and majesty. It was as if in truth you stood near him in Gethsemane, before Annas, and Caiaphas, before Pilate; as if you walked with

him along the sorrowful way, as if you stood so near the cross on Calvary that every word he spoke, every tone of his voice, entered your heart. Years cannot efface from our minds the memory of that wondrous chant. It seems still to ring in our ears. The portions usually assigned to a third singer are here distributed among several, who chant singly, or together, as the words are spoken by one, or by several, or by a multitude. Thus, a soprano and a contralto unite to sing the words of the two false witnesses. The mutual contradiction of the witnesses is indicated by the irregularity of the time, and the discords that are repeatedly introduced. When the crowd cries out, "Away with him; crucify him; we will have no king but Cæsar," the whole choir bursts forth. You hear the trembling shrill tones of age, the hissing words of irate manhood, the shrill trebles of excited women, the full incisive words of the priests, and the clamors of the unthinking rabble. When they cry, "His blood be upon us and upon our children," the voices, full at the beginning, grow tremulous and weaker as they proceed, and some are silent, as if reluctant to pronounce the terrible words of the imprecation. And when the soldiers, after scourging the Saviour, and putting on his head the crown of thorns, place the reed in his hands and kneel before him, saluting him, Hail, King of the Jews, the words are sung by three or four voices with a softness, a sweetness, and an earnestness which would make you think that, for the moment, and in spite of themselves, they felt the divine truth of the words they intended to utter in mockery.

In the entire cycle of music there is nothing so sublime and so touching as the Passion of our Lord, sung by the papal choir in St. Peter's.

On Tuesday, in Holy-Week, a general congregation of the council was held in the usual form. As we stated in our last number, the fathers voted on the entire draught, then before them, either placet, placet juxta modum, or non placet. We need add nothing to the account we then gave.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons the bishops attended in St. Peter's at the office of the Tenebræ. On each occasion, twenty-five or thirty thousand persons about half-filled the church, to hear the lamentations, and, above all, the far-famed Misereres heretofore only to be heard in the Sixtine chapel.

The papal choir is composed of about twenty-five singers. Basses, baritones, contraltos, tenors, and sopranos, all chosen voices of the first quality, and all trained for years in the special style of singing of this choir, different from that of any other we ever heard, and in the peculiar traditions as to the precise style in which each of their principal pieces should be executed. They say themselves, that without this special training the mere notes of the score would by no means suffice to guide another choir, at least so as to produce the marvellous effects which they attain. They have in their repertory over forty Misereres, composed by their different maestri, or chiefs, during the last three centuries. Not more than four of these are placed by them in the first rank. On Wednesday, that by Baini was sung; on Thursday, that of Allegri, and on Friday, one by Mustafa, the present leader of the choir.

That of Allegri is acknowledged to be the best. He was born in Rome in 1560, and became a celebrated composer and singer. In 1629, he entered this choir, at the age of sixtynine, and was its leader for twentythree years, dying in 1652 at the ripe