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424 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

rets rising skyward, and their deep, sonorous bells, form a combination of
sight and sound to be seen and heard nowhere in the world outside of Rome.
From one of these points, the Pincian, can be enjoyed the finest view per-
haps, to be had of the far-famed dome of St. Peter's. It is hard to imagine any
structure built by human hands more grand and imposing than this dome as
seen from the Pincian Hill, especially near the sunset hour. Towering high
above the ample body of the great Cathedral and the world famed Vatican, it
is bathed in a sea of ethereal glory. Its magnificence and impressiveness gain
by distance. When you move away from it, it seems to follow you, and
though you travel fast and far, when you look back it will be there and more
impressive than ever.

The outsides of St. Peter's and her three hundred sister churches and the
many storied Vatican give no hint of the wealth and grandeur within them.
As in its day, pagan Rome drew tribute from all the known world, so the
Church of Rome to-day receives gifts from all the Christian world-- our own
Republican country included~and the end is not yet · even a President of
the United States sends his presents to his Holiness. the Pope. A look into
some of these Romish churches will show that even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these. All that architecture. sculpture. and tine
colors can do, all that art and skill can do to render them beautiful and impos-
ing has been done in these magnificent Roman churches. St. Peter's by its
vastness, wealth, splendor and architectural perfections. acts upon us like
some great and overpowering natural wonder. It awes us into silent, speech-
less admiration. One is at a loss to know how the amplitudinous and multi-
tudinous whole that is there displayed to view has been brought together. The
more one sees of it the more impressive and wonderful it becomes. Several
other churches are very little inferior to St. Peter's, in this wealth and splen-
dor. For one, however, I was much more interested in the Rome of the past,
than in the Rome of the present; in the banks of the Tiber with their history,
than in the images, angels and pictures on the walls of its splendid churches;
in the preaching of Paul eighteen hundred years ago, than in the preaching
of the priests and popes of to-day. The fine silks and costly jewels and vest-
ments of the priests of the present could hardly have been dreamed of by the
first great preacher of Christianity at Rome, who lived in his own hired
house, and whose hands ministered to his own necessities . It was something
to feel ourselves standing where this brave man stood, looking on the place
where he lived and walking on the same Appian Way where he walked,
when, having appealed to Caesar, he was bravely on the way to this same
Rome to meet his fate, whether that should be life or death. This was more