St. Peter’s, if I may be permitted to continue a little on that curious theme, is certainly the most amazing church in the world. It is not beautiful--I am satisfied that no true artist would grant that; but after you have been all over Europe and have seen the various edifices of importance, it still sticks in your mind as astounding, perhaps the most astounding of all. While I was in Rome I learned by consulting guide-books, attending lectures and visiting the place myself, that it is nothing more than a hodge-podge of the vagaries and enthusiasms of a long line of able pontiffs. To me the Catholic Church has such a long and messy history of intrigue and chicanery that I for one cannot contemplate its central religious pretensions with any peace of mind. I am not going into the history of the papacy, nor the internecine and fratricidal struggles of medieval Italy; but what veriest tyro does not grasp the significance of what I mean? Julius II, flanking a Greek-cross basilica with a hexastyle portico to replace the Constantinian basilica, which itself had replaced the oratory of St. Anacletus on this spot, and that largely to make room for his famous tomb which was to be the finest thing in it; Urban VIII melting down the copper roof of the Panthéon portico in order to erect the showy baldachino! I do not now recall what ancient temples were looted for marble nor what popes did the looting, but that it was plentifully done I am satisfied and Van Ranke will bear me out. It was Julius II and Leo X who resorted to the sale of indulgences, which aided in bringing about the Reformation, for the purpose of paying the enormous expenses connected with the building of this lavish structure. Think of how the plans of Bramante and Michelangelo and Raphael and Carlo Maderna were tossed about between the Latin cross and the Greek cross and between a portico of one form and a portico of another form! Wars, heartaches, struggles, contentions--these are they of which St. Peter’s is a memorial. As I looked at the amazing length--six hundred and fifteen feet--and the height of the nave--one hundred and fifty-two feet--and the height of the dome from the pavement in the interior to the roof--four hundred and five feet--and saw that the church actually contained forty-six immense altars and read that it contained seven hundred and forty-eight columns of marble, stone or bronze, three hundred and eighty-six statues and two hundred and ninety windows, I began to realize how astounding the whole thing was. It was really so large, and so tangled historically, and so complicated in the history of its architectural development, that it was useless for me to attempt to synchronize its significance in my mind. I merely stared, staggered by the great beauty and value of the immense windows, the showy and astounding altars. I came back again and again; but I got nothing save an unutterable impression of overwhelming grandeur. It is far too rich