field of poppy, corn-flower, and scarlet clover at Sorrento; and there, amid the flutter and rush, the amours and intrigues, the court scandal, the laughing, the gibing, the glitter, and dazzle, stands that wonderful Cathedral, that silent witness, that strange, pure, immaculate mountain of airy, unearthly loveliness,—the most striking emblem of God's mingled vastness and sweetness that ever it was given to human heart to devise or hands to execute. If there be among the many mansions of our Father above, among the houses not made with hands, aught purer and fairer, it must be the work of those grand spirits who inspired and presided over the erection of this celestial miracle of beauty. In the great, vain, wicked city, all alive with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, it seemed to stand as much apart and alone as if it were in the solemn desolation of the Campagna, or in one of the wide deserts of Africa,—so little part or lot did it appear to have in anything earthly, so little to belong to the struggling, bustling crowd who beneath its white dazzling pinnacles seemed dwarfed into crawling insects. They who could look up from the dizzy, frivolous life below saw far, far above them, in the blue Italian air, thousands of glorified saints standing on a thousand airy points of brilliant whiteness, ever solemnly adoring. The marble which below was somewhat touched and soiled with the dust of the street seemed gradually to refine and brighten as it rose into the pure regions of the air, till at last in those thousand distant pinnacles it had the ethereal translucence of wintry frost-work, and now began to glow with the violet and rose hues of evening, in solemn splendor.

The ducal cortege sweeps by; but we have mounted the dizzy, dark staircase that leads to the roof, where, amid the bustling life of the city, there is a promenade of still and wondrous solitude. One seems to have ascended in those few moments far beyond the tumult and dust of earthly things, to the silence, the clearness, the tranquillity of ethereal regions. The noise of the rushing tides of life below rises only in a soft and distant murmur; while around, in the wide, clear distance, is spread a prospect which has not on earth its like or its equal. The beautiful plains of Lombardy lie beneath like a map, and the northern horizon-line is glittering with the entire sweep of the Alps, like a solemn senate of archangels with diamond mail and glittering crowns. Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa with his countenance of light, the Jungfrau and all the weird brothers of the Oberland, rise one after another to the delighted gaze, and the range of the Tyrol melts far off into the blue of the sky. On another side, the Apennines, with their picturesque outlines and cloud-spotted sides, complete the inclosure. All around, wherever the eye turns, is the unbroken phalanx of mountains; and this temple, with its thousand saintly statues standing in attitudes of ecstasy and prayer, seems like a worthy altar and shrine for the beautiful plain which the mountains inclose: it seems to give all Northern Italy to God.

The effect of the statues in this high, pure air, in this solemn, glorious scenery, is peculiar. They seem a meet companionship for these exalted regions. They seem to stand exultant on their spires, poised lightly as ethereal creatures, the fit inhabitants of the pure blue sky. One feels that they have done with earth; one can fancy them a band of white-robed kings and priests forever ministering in that great temple of which the Alps and the Apennines are the walls and the Cathedral the heart and centre. Never were Art and Nature so majestically married by Religion in so worthy a temple.

One form could be discerned standing in rapt attention, gazing from a platform on the roof upon the far-distant scene. He was enveloped in the white coarse woollen gown of the Dominican monks, and seemed wholly absorbed in meditating on the scene before him, which appeared to move him deeply; for, raising his hands, he repeated aloud from the Latin Vulgate the words of an Apostle:—

"Accessistis ad Sion montem et civitatem Dei viventis, Ierusalem caelestem, et multorum millinm angelorum frequentiam, ecclesiam primitivorum, qui inscripti sunt in caelis."[A]

[Footnote A: "Ye are come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven."]

At this moment the evening worship commenced within the Cathedral, and the whole building seemed to vibrate with the rising swell of the great organ, while the grave, long-drawn tones of the Ambrosian Liturgy rose surging in waves and dying away in distant murmurs, like the rolling of the tide on some ocean-shore. The monk turned and drew near to the central part of the roof to listen, and as he turned he disclosed the well-known features of Father Antonio.

Haggard, weary, and travel-worn, his first impulse, on entering the city, was to fly to this holy solitude, as the wandering sparrow of sacred song sought her nest amid the altars of God's temple. Artist no less than monk, he found in this wondrous shrine of beauty a repose both for his artistic and his religious nature; and while waiting for Agostino Sarelli to find his uncle's residence, he had determined to pass the interval in this holy solitude. Many hours had he paced alone up and down the long promenades of white marble which run everywhere between forests of dazzling pinnacles and flying-buttresses of airy lightness. Now he rested in fixed attention against the wall above the choir, which he could feel pulsating with throbs of sacred sound, as if a great warm heart were beating within the fair marble miracle, warming it into mysterious life and sympathy.

"I would now that boy were here to worship with me," he said. "No wonder the child's faith fainteth: it takes such monuments as these of the Church's former days to strengthen one's hopes. Ah, woe unto those by whom such offence cometh!"

At this moment the form of Agostino was seen ascending the marble staircase.

The eye of the monk brightened as he came towards him. He put out one hand eagerly to take his, and raised the other with a gesture of silence.

"Look," he said, "and listen! Is it not the sound of many waters and mighty thunderings?"

Agostino stood subdued for the moment by the magnificent sights and sounds; for, as the sun went down, the distant mountains grew every moment more unearthly in their brilliancy,—and as they lay in a long line, jewelled brightness mingling with the cloud-wreaths of the far horizon, one might have imagined that he in truth beheld the foundations of that celestial city of jasper, pearl, and translucent gold which the Apostle saw, and that the risings and fallings of choral sound which seemed to thrill and pulsate through the marble battlements were indeed that song like many waters sung by the Church Triumphant above.

For a few moments the monk and the young man stood in silence, till at length the monk spoke.

"You have told me, my son, that your heart often troubles you in being more Roman than Christian; that you sometimes doubt whether the Church on earth be other than a fiction or a fable. But look around us. Who are these, this great multitude who praise and pray continually in this temple of the upper air? These are they who have come out of great tribulation, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. These are not the men that have sacked cities, and made deserts, and written their triumphs in blood and carnage. These be men that have sheltered the poor, and built houses for orphans, and sold themselves into slavery to redeem their brothers in Christ. These be pure women who have lodged saints, brought up children,