About 1000 years after the building of the antient basilica, Nicholas V. seeing it threaten ruin beyond reparation, formed a plan for a new one, which was so vast and magnificent, that Vasary says he esteems it better to cover the design in silence, than to describe it; but this Pope's life passing away in projects, Julius II. took the matter seriously to heart, and having found several able architects, San Gallo, Baltas, Peruzzi, Raphael, and Bramante, he chose the last, and demolished half of the old basilica. Mich. Angelo Bonorota, then young, was called to Rome by Julius, to erect his sepulchre, and loudly complained, on seeing the noble pillars erected by Constantine broken without care. He leveled a part of the Vatican hill, and by the Pope's orders, shut in the sepulchres of the martyrs within the new building. On the 18th April, 1506, (being Dom. in albis) Julius laid the first stone. In raising the chapel of Sextus IV. Michael Angelo disapproved of Bramantes' scaffolds, and proposed a method of making the arches, so as to leave no holes for the scaffolds in the chapel which he was to paint. Julius, to promote the work, issued a bull, in which he granted various indulgences to those who should contribute to the fabric. This bull is famous, by the refractory and licentious endeavours of Luther and his followers, in decrying so pious a decree. In the year 1514, Bramante died, a man of a fiery imagination, always intent upon what might be magnificent, not careful enough of the solid part, which was exemplified in his having designed a cupola of strength very unequal to its height. After his death,. Raphael studied to perfect the same design, according to which the cupola would have been 190 palms wide within; (i. e. 47 yards and a half). Leo X. in 1513, recalled S. Gallo, and gave the fabric to him, Raphael and Baltascar Peruzzi. Under Paul III. S. Gallo gave another plan, according to which it was to be 260 yards long, and 90 broad. S. Gallo died in 1546, and the work was given to M. Angelo, who disapproved of S. Gallo's design, as gothic, with a number of useless pillars, and in 24 days, brought a new one square, more like that of Bramante, and that of Peruzzi: this plan so pleased the Pope, that he gave him full power for destroying what had been begun, and of building what he thought fit, stinting hin: neither in men nor money. Three years after, Paul died and was succeeded by Julius III. In the beginning of his reign loud outcries were raised against M. Angelo, for having diminished the plan of Bramante, making less ornaments than S. Gallo, and too few windows. But Michael Angelo soon answered the objections, and having perceived a great fault made in the vault on the right hand, during his absence, he caused it all to be taken down again, and the arch to be made of Travertino, without any cement between so nice was he in having every stone cut exact to its place. In 1557, he had all ready to put on the cupola, but being very old, the Cardinals, who had the care of the fabric, got him to give his full design, which was made by a Frenchman in a year's time, in wood, with all its dimensions. He died in 1564. The care of the design was given to Vignola by Pius V. who cased the Church with Travertino, according to the design of M. Angelo. Giacomo Della Porta succeeded Vignola: he built the Gregorian chapel, which cost 100,000 ducats, under Gregory XIII. as also the vault over St. Peter's altar. The pillars of the altar in the Gregorian chapel were carried from the temple of Romulus in Campo Vaccino: he placed here the body of St. Gregory, Naz. The cupola of this chapel was the first built at St. Peter's. Sixtus V. in 1588, began the great cupola under the direction of Gia. Della Porta, now grown old, and Domin. Fontana, with 600 workmen and 200,000 crowns of gold, finished it in 20 months as far as the lantern, which was also finished in 7 months more; all according to Michael Angelo's design was finished in 30 months, though not in the life of Sixtus V. who only laid the last stone of the cupola. ON SAYING MASS IN LATIN, In a Diologue between a Protestant and a Catholic. Extracted from the Rev. Richard Hayes' Sermons. P. "What can you know of religion, when your priests preach and pray in a foreign tongue, in order to keep you in ignorance?" C. "Preach in a foreign tongue! Neither you nor I ever knew a priest such a fool, as to give a Latin Sermon to an English congregation. They say Mass, indeed, in Latin; but we, laymen, have it in our books in English, and follow the priest in the prayers throughout. The Clergy want to keep us igno rant, do they? Why, they are always instructing us, as the Rev. Mr. Hayes has done in his seven sermons; and may God give him grace to continue ?" P. (fretfully) “But why do they read in Latin at all?” C. "I will tell you then.-In the first place, you must know that the Catholic Church looks upon it as a matter of perfect indifference in itself, what language her service is performed in. Hence, at her first establishment by the Apostles, she adopted the respective languages of the countries, which she enlightened by the faith of Christ; for instance, the Syro Chaldaic, or modern Hebrew, in Judea ; the Greek, in the East; and the Latin in the West. The Hebrew fell into disuse, when God, in his just vengeance, set his seal of reprobation on the obstinate mass of the Jews, and destroyed Jerusalem by the hands of the Romans. At that awful crisis, the Jewish converts, all of whom had escaped from the unhappy city, became amalgamated with the Greek or Gentile Christians, and adopted their language. Thus ended the use of Hebrew in the religious worship of the Catholic Church.-The Greek tongue, on the contrary, has continued to this day the ecclesiastical idiom of the countries, where it was originally spoken; and, although the Mahometan invasions, assisted by the ever-corrupting hand of time, have so vitiated the language, as well as deteriorated the condition of the Greeks, that their modern tongue is, in fact, as distinct from that of their forefathers, as the Italian is from the Latin ; yet, all the Christians of the once Greek empire, as well Schismatics, as Catholics, retain, in their Liturgy, the ancient classical language of the Chrysostoms and Gregories." P. (Interruping.) "This may be all very well, about the Hebrew and Greek; but I want to know, why your priests read Latin to you in England and Ireland?" C. "Have a little patience, and you shall hear.—The Latin you know, was the universal language of the Western Empire for many centuries after the establishment of Christianity, and became, of course, the established language of the Western Church. Succeeding ages brought down upon the Roman empire inroads of barbarians. These barbarians had nothing but unwritten jargons of their own. If they wished to read they were obliged to learn in Latin. The Christian Missionaries preached to them, indeed, in their own barbarous dialects; and explained the sacrifice of the Mass, as our Priests now do in English. Foolish, however, the Catholic Church would have been, if she had allowed every missionary to discard the ancient language of her liturgy, for the half-formed idiom of each of these numerous tribes; tribes, who could not even have read the translation. Oh no; she was too fond of antiquity; but, at the same time, she provided for the instruction of these tribes, by the preaching of her missionaries. Were the Mass to have been translated at every hand's turn, errors would have crept into it; the great variety of jargons would have rendered it impossible to prevent those errors, and every individual priest would thus have become the modeller, of what the church ought to be most careful in preserving pure and correct." "Nor," continues the Catholic, "did the Church, in this respect, do any more, than what the very nature of the case caused society at large to do. For, down to the thirteenth century, education was confined to the Latin tongue. By degrees the barbarous and unwritten dialects mixed with the Latin in the mouths of the people, and formed the Italian, French, Spanish and English languages. But this formation was in progress for centuries, before it was completed. And was the Church to be shifting and changing the words of the most sacred act of her worship, exposing it thus not only to error, but to contempt, almost every year, and in almost every place? For the jargon of this year was often obsolete next year, and what was spoken in this village, was not spoken in that. When the modern languages, however, became grammatical, would the Church have been prudent in laying aside the Latin, which was now a dead, and consequently a fixed language, in order to adopt a different tongue in every different kingdom of the world? What do the people lose by this prudence of the Church? They have translations for their own use. Therefore they lose nothing. But see, what both people and clergy gain by it. If an Irish layman goes to France, he can hear mass there as he does at home. The language and ceremonies are the same. If an Irish priest goes, he can officiate for a French congregation, quite as well as a French priest. Besides, this uniformity of language and ceremonies preserves uniformity of doctrine; and by obliging all the clergy to know Latin, keeps open that general channel of correspondence in one language, which is so well adapted to preserve, united to their head, and to each other, the various and distant nations, which compose the universal family of Christ." "So my dear Protestant friend," concludes the Catholic," say no more of our clergy keeping the people in ignorance: for I will produce to you hundreds of Catholic tradesmen, who understand more of the Christian religion, and converse more rationally upon it, than any of your proud scripturists, your would-be evangelical preachers, or even your gowned and mitred divines." Poetry. CHARITY. Like seraph from celestial bower, On wings of light, came Charity. eye with soft compassion glow'd, And The pallid cheek o'erspread with woe. Yes, Charity! thine angel smile, The throbbing bosom can beguile ; And gently soothe or kindly bless The heart which cares and griefs oppress. HORTENTIUS. |