Second Largest Church in America.
Will some reader of the Round Table please give me a description of the Church of Notre Dame, Montreal, Canada? I will be very thankful for information on this subject.
Rupert Forbes.
Montowese, Conn.
We quote the following from an article on "Montreal," in Harper's Magazine for June, 1889:
"Here"—in Montreal—"among a Roman Catholic population, noted chiefly for their lack of wealth, is building a cathedral one-third the size of St. Peter's at Rome, and of the same shape, excepting that this one has a pointed roof to shed snow. Montreal has already the great Notre Dame de Lourdes, the largest in America, excepting the Cathedral of Mexico. It seats 10,000, and will hold 15,000 people. The official poster at the door asserts that the bell is the largest in the world. It is the eighth in size, weighing 24,780 pounds. In the interior, vast but harsh and gaudy, you may see an ornate spiral pulpit and a bronze statue of St. Peter, of which the toes are well polished.
"In Montreal you can continue to visit churches all day. They reveal a religious life of the Middle Ages kept up with marvellous force in this nineteenth century. One of the pleasantest scenes of this religious life may be witnessed in the city of the dead. In the cemetery on the mountain, along the streets of tombs, are erected little grottos, each having in colored tableau the stations of the cross. A priest leads slowly the flock from station to station, and explains to the kneeling people the dogmatic value of the sufferings portrayed. The trees, birds, plants, sunshine, and the murmuring winds, all combine to make the ceremony touching. The route ends on a knoll where three huge crosses and figures represent most realistically the final agony. When I visited the place, on a fine June day, a company of convent girls and nuns were holding a merry picnic at this spot. After their picnic they knelt for prayer and went away rejoicing. On many of the graves are evidences of tender regard to the departed—plaster figures of saints, photographs of the deceased, and little altars with candles and crucifixes, set up in glass-covered boxes that look like toy chapels."
Some Montreal reader may give us a short description of the exterior of Notre Dame.
Kinks.
No. 55.—A Riddle.
I'm not employed by Uncle Sam,
And yet I carry mail.
I'm swift as many a telegram;
I'm seldom known to fail.
Around and 'round, then straight I go;
The shortest route I always know.