devotion of a saint.

I had the pleasure of going through the various rooms of this famous institution in the appropriate company of one of the most distinguished Free Church missionaries in India; and was shown by the rector of the college, with the utmost courtesy and kindness, all that was most remarkable about the place. The library is extensive, and contains some rare works on theology and canon law; and in the Borgian Museum annexed to it there is a rich collection of Oriental MSS., heathen idols, and natural curiosities sent by missionaries from various parts of the world. We were especially struck with the magnificent "Codex Mexicanus," a loosely-bound, bulky MS. on white leather, found among the treasures of the royal palace at the conquest of Mexico by Cortes. It is full of coloured hieroglyphics and pictures, and is known in this country through the splendid reproduction of Lord Kingsborough.

But the most interesting of all the sights to the visitor is the printing establishment, which at one time was the first in the world, and had the means of publishing books in upwards of thirty different languages. At the present day it is furnished with all the recent appliances; and from this press has issued works distinguished as much for their typographical beauty as for the area they cover in the mission field. Its font of Oriental types is specially rich. We were shown specimens of the Paternoster in all the known languages; and my friend had an opportunity of inspecting some theological works in the obscure dialects of India. The productions of the Propaganda press are very widely diffused. There is a bookseller's shop connected with the establishment, where all the publications of the institution, including the papal bulls, and the principal documents of the State, may be procured. Altogether the college has taken a prominent part in the education of the world. Its influence is specially felt in America, from which a large number of its students come; the young priest who conducted us through the library and the Borgian Museum being an American, very intelligent and affable. The Roman Catholic religion flourishes in that country because it keeps clear of all political questions, and manifests itself, not as a government, in which character it is peculiarly uncompromising and despotic, but as a religion, in which aspect it has a wonderful power of adaptation to the habits and tastes of the people. The Propaganda rules Roman Catholic America very much in the spirit of its own institutions; and one of the most remarkable social phenomena of that country is the absolute subserviency which the political spirit of unbridled democracy yields to its decrees. The bees of the Barberini carved upon its architectural ornaments are no inapt symbol of the spirit and method of working of this busy theological hive, which sends its annual swarms all over the world to gather ecclesiastical honey from every flower of opportunity.

Passing beyond the Propaganda, we come to a lofty pillar of the Corinthian order, situated at the commencement of the Piazza di Spagna. It is composed of a kind of gray Carystian marble called cipollino, distinguished by veins of pale green rippling through it, like the layers of a vegetable bulb, on account of which it is popularly known as the onion stone. It is one of the largest known monoliths, being forty-two feet in height and nearly five feet in diameter. It looks as fresh as though it were only yesterday carved out of the quarry; but it must be nearly two thousand years old, having been found about a hundred years ago when digging among the ruins of the amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus, constructed in the reign of Cæsar Augustus on the site now called, from a corruption of the old name, Monte Citorio, and occupied by the Houses of Parliament. When discovered the pillar was unfinished, a circumstance which would indicate that it had never been erected. It was left to Pope Pius IX., after all these centuries of neglect and obscurity, to find a use for it. Crowning its capital by a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, and disfiguring its shaft by a fantastic bronze network extending up two-fifths of its height, he erected it where it now stands in 1854, to commemorate the establishment by papal bull of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It was during his exile at Gaeta, at a time when Italy was torn with civil dissensions, and his own dominions were afflicted with the most grievous calamities, which he could have easily averted or remedied if he wished, that this dogma engrossed the mind of the holy father and his ecclesiastical court. The constitutionalists at Rome were anxiously expecting some conciliatory manifesto which should precede the Pope's return and restore peace and prosperity; and they were mortified beyond measure by receiving only the letter in which this theological fiction was announced by his Holiness. The people cried for the bread of constitutional liberty, and the holy father gave them the stone of a religious dogma to which they were wholly indifferent; thus demonstrating the incompatibility of the functions of a temporal and spiritual sovereign.

The pillar of the Immaculate Conception is embellished by statues of Moses, David, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, with texts from Scripture, and very inferior bronze bas-reliefs of the incidents connected with the publication of the dogma. As a work of art, it is heavy and graceless, with hard mechanical lines; and the figure of the Virgin at the top is utterly destitute of merit. The whole monument is a characteristic specimen of the modern Roman school of sculpture. For ages Rome has been considered the foster mother of art, and residence in it essential to the education of the art-faculty. But this is a delusion. Its atmosphere has never been really favourable to the development of genius. There is a moral malaria of the place as fatal to the versatile life of the imagination as the physical miasma is to health. Roman Catholicism has petrified the heart and the fancy; and a petty round of ceremonies, feasts, and social parties dissipates energy and distracts the powers of those who are not under the influence of the Church. The decadence of art has kept pace with the growing corruption of religion. Descending from the purer spiritual conceptions of former times to grosser and more superstitious ideas, it has given outward expression to these in baser forms. Even St. Peter's, though extravagantly praised by so many visitors, is but the visible embodiment of the vulgar splendour of later Catholicism. The pillar of the Immaculate Conception is not only a monument of religious superstition, but also of what must strike every thoughtful observer in Rome—the decadence of art in modern times as compared with the glorious earlier days of a purer Church. And the art of the sculptor is only in keeping with that of the painter in connection with this dogma. For the large frescoes of Podesti, which occupy a conspicuous place in the great hall of the Vatican, preceding the stanze of Raphael, and depict the persons and incidents connected with the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception, are worthless as works of art, and present a melancholy contrast to the works of the immortal genius in the adjoining halls, who wrought under the inspiration of a nobler faith. No Titian or Raphael, no Michael Angelo or Bramante, was found in the degenerate days of Pio Nono to immortalise what he called the greatest event of his reign.

The square in which the pillar of the Immaculate Conception is situated, along with the surrounding streets, is called the "Ghetto Inglese," for here the English and Americans most do congregate. At almost every step one encounters the fresh open countenances, blue eyes, and fair hair, which one is accustomed to associate with darker skies and ruder buildings. The Piazza di