in the summer’s dawn and the weeping supplicants just caught a glimpse of the pale face and the blessing hand as it flashed by. Every town in the dominions had raised its triumphal arches, gathered all its flowers for his progress, but Rome surpassed them and all the records of herself that day. The “Te Deum” was sung in all the Churches as it had never been sung before, Rome’s thousand bells rang as if they would never cease; and when darkness fell, St. Peter’s gathered the stars to itself, and the magic dome, a hive of breathing gold, glowed through the night, a beacon of joy to the dwellers in a hundred mountain towns of Sabina and Latium and all the country round. Thirty-two years were to elapse before the youth kneeling beside his father to receive the Pope’s blessing on that day would himself ascend the Papal Throne, but, strange to say, Pius VII himself had already foreseen the event. Pius IX had been reigning for some years when, through the merest accident, the written prophecy was discovered. Pius VII, while a prisoner at Fontainebleau, one day handed to his bodyservant a sealed packet, saying that it was not to be opened until 1846. The man religiously regarded the prohibition and put the packet away carefully. Before his own death he gave it to his son, repeating the Pope’s instructions. Eighteen forty-six was still far off, and the son laid the thing aside and had forgotten all about it when the year in question came round. Having occasion, however, to look through a number of old papers, he came across this, and broke the seal. Inside, in Pius VII’s handwriting, were these words: “The prelate who fills the office of Bishop of Imola in 1846 will be elected Pope and will take the name of Pius IX.”