There are three hundred and eighty Catholic meetin’-houses in Rome, quite a few on ’em dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and lots of costly gifts are laid on her altar. But the one I wanted to see and so did the rest of our party wuz the one that stood on the spot where once the circus of Nero stood, weak, mizable creeter. The most agreeable actin’ to him and his cruel pardner wuz the death struggles of martyrs and bloodshed and agony.
What a inspiring idee it is to think that right on that very spot, that bloody pagan pleasure house of hissen is changed into the biggest meetin’-house in the world. Of course we had seen St. Peter’s from a distance ever since we’d got nigh the city, and we sot out the very next mornin’ after we got there, to see it at clost view.
Now I had thought, comparin’ it to the Jonesville meetin’-house, which I guess is about fifty by sixty feet, and will, on a pinch, set four hundred and fifty, and comparin’ that with the cathedral in New York I had thought that that Catholic Cathedral in New York was about as big a meetin’-house as a minister could handle easy; but the area of that is 357 forty-three thousand, whilst St. Peter’s at Rome is two hundred and twelve thousand.
The difference these figgers make in the two meetin’-houses is bigger than my writin’ can show you, no matter how big a pen I use or how black my ink is.
As I stood in St. Peter’s Church in Rome I had a great number of emotions and large, very large in size. Right here where Mr. Nero (the mean, misable creeter) got hilarious over the dyin’ struggles of the Christian martyrs, right here where St. Peter met his death with the glory of heaven lightin’ up his dyin’ eyes (I am just as sure on’t as if I see it myself) stands this immense meetin’-house.
Three hundred years of labor and sixty millions of dollars have been expended on it and the end is not yet. But I would not done it for a cent less if I had took the job, I couldn’t afford it nor Josiah couldn’t.
Why, when we stood in front on’t I didn’t feel no bigger than the head of a pin, not a hat pin or a shawl pin, but the smallest kind they make, and Josiah dwindled down so in size as compared to the edifice that I ’most thought I should lose him right there with my eyes glued onto his liniment.
You go through a large double door which shuts up behind you as noiselessly and securely as if you wuz walled in to stay. My first feelin’ after I entered wuz the immensity of the place. Some of the statutes you see that didn’t look so big as Josiah, when you come clost up to ’em you found wuz sixteen feet high. And the little cherubs holdin’ the shell of holy water at the entrance you see are six feet high. You look fur down the meetin’-house as you look down the road into a big piece of woods, only here the distant trees turn into statutes and shrines and altars and things. Fur off like distant stars shinin’ down into the forest you see the lamps, one hundred and twelve of ’em, burnin’ day and night around the tomb of St. Peter.
As you stand under the dome and look up it is like looking at the very ruff of the sky. It is supported by four great 358 pillars and the interior of the immense globe is one hundred and thirty-nine feet in circumference measured on the inside.
All the houses in Jonesville could be piled up on top of each other in this immense space and Zoar and Shackville piled onto them and not half fill it.