Roman princes, the Barberini, they owe what remains of their relics to
the sanctifying influence of that faith which has preserved for the world
all that was worth preserving, not merely arts and literature but
likewise that which constitutes the progressive nature of intellect and
the institutions which afford to us happiness in this world and hopes of
a blessed immortality in the next. And, being of the faith of Rome, I
may say, that the preservation of this pile by the sanctifying effect of
a few crosses planted round it, is almost a miraculous event. And what a
contrast the present application of this building, connected with holy
feelings and exalted hopes, is to that of the ancient one, when it was
used for exhibiting to the Roman people the destruction of men by wild
beasts, or of men, more savage than wild beasts, by each other, to
gratify a horrible appetite for cruelty, founded upon a still more
detestable lust, that of universal domination! And who would have
supposed, in the time of Titus, that a faith, despised in its
insignificant origin, and persecuted from the supposed obscurity of its
founder and its principles, should have reared a dome to the memory of
one of its humblest teachers, more glorious than was ever framed for
Jupiter or Apollo in the ancient world, and have preserved even the ruins
of the temples of the pagan deities, and have burst forth in splendour
and majesty, consecrating truth amidst the shrines of error, employing
the idols of the Roman superstition for the most holy purposes and rising
a bright and constant light amidst the dark and starless night which
followed the destruction of the Roman empire!"

Onuphrio now resumed the discourse. He said, "I have not the same
exalted views on the subject which our friend Ambrosio has so eloquently
expressed. Some little of the perfect state in which these ruins exist
may have been owing to causes which he has described; but these causes
have only lately begun to operate, and the mischief was done before