News and Miscellany

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 9, 1867

News and Miscellany.

Can ye not discern the Signs of the Times? Matt. xvi, 3.

The Festival at Rome.—A Rome special says the ceremonies of the 1800th anniversary of St. Peter’s martyrdom, signalized by the canonization of 25 Dutch, French and Spanish martyrs in Japan, and began with an illumination of the city, St. Peter’s appearing like a great church on fire. At 7 A. M. a grand procession marched from the Vatican to St. Peter’s, the pope being carried on his throne. The cathedral was decorated with cloths of gold and silver, tapestries, paintings, and 200,000 yards of crimson silk, and was lighted with many millions of wax candles. There were 100,000 people inside, among them the ex-King of Naples. The Pope celebrated Gregorian Mass. A curtain on one window took fire, but was promptly extinguished. A man became crazed by the splendor, and cut his throat. The Pope at once reconsecrated the church, which had been stained with the blood of a suicide. Litz composed the music for the grand mass, which was accompanied by chords reaching to the dome of St. Peter’s, and by the cannon at the Castle of St. Angelo. The observances continue a week.

Maximilian has been shot. The N. Y. Independent, though deprecating the taking of life by the State, either in Mexico or the United States, nevertheless says in relation to this event:—

This ambitious foreigner was no doubt an accomplished and amiable gentleman; but he was not shot for being a gentleman; he was shot for being a brigand, a filibuster, a pirate, a usurper, a despot. He was an alien who entered Mexico with an invading army, and sought therewith to overturn the Mexican republic, and on its ruins to erect an empire. The crime which he committed against Mexico was just as heinous as if he had attempted it against the United States or Canada. We admit that, if his villainy had been perpetrated against our own government, he would probably have been bailed; but if it had been against Canada, he would probably have been blown, like a Sepoy, from the mouth of a gun.

If Gen. Washington had any right to hang Major Andre, the Mexican Government had ten thousand times more right to shoot Maximilian:

The crack of the twelve rifles which uttered this Austrian’s death-warrant, and which we hope has forever put an end to “the divine right of kings” on this continent, is a needful proclamation to the Old World that crowned heads are intruders on North American soil; and that foreign bayonets, pointed against a North American people, shall be thrust back into the bosoms of those who bear them hither.

The army of Maximilian deserved defeat; and its leader deserved death. “Sic semper tyrannis!”

Paris, Jul. 3—Evening.—The news of Maximilian’s fate led to the countermanding of the grand military review ordered for the 4th with Imperial fêtes, which was to have taken place in honor of the Sultan of Turkey. The celebration of the 4th by American residents in Paris and visitors generally on the Continent, for which great preparations had been made, was also given up. The French Court has been ordered into mourning according to usual state form by Napoleon.

The Tennessee Election.—No good citizen should forget the vital importance of the pending election in Tennessee, nor suffer himself to be diverted from its significance by any distaste for Governor Brownlow’s rhetoric, or by Copperhead and rebel slanders about the loyal State militia. The question in Tennessee is simply whether the State shall remain under the control of those of its people who are unswervingly loyal to the Union and the Government, or fall into the hands of those who are as hostile to the Union as they ever were. In the remoter country districts of the State the rebel terrorism is as great as it was during the war. If a Union man informs a freedman of his rights he is in constant peril of his life. Men of the late slaveholding class openly threaten to shoot any colored man who votes the Radical ticket; and we understand that Emerson Etheridge, the rebel and Copperhead candidate for Governor, does not hesitate to declare that slavery is not abolished, and that any man deserves to be shot who says that it is. The Union men are literally working in this political campaign for home and property. Their opponents are called rebels because their spirit and conduct are precisely what they were during the rebellion. They apparently dominate public opinion as they did then. To be suspected of sympathy with Yankees is to be avoided and insulted. If a man would trade he must hang a picture of Lee in his counting-room. The feeling is intense and bitter; and if the rebels carry the State in the election of the 1st of August it will be too hot for loyal men, and there will be a vast emigration of them to States where they can live in peace. Tennessee will then be as “democratic” as Kentucky; and any intelligent man who knows what civil liberty is, may imagine what its security would be in a Union composed of such States. We can conceive of no misfortune so signal for this country and for mankind as that the Union should fall into the power of the “conservatism” which has lately carried Kentucky by twenty-six thousand majority, and which now disputes Tennessee with its loyal citizens.—Harper’s Weekly.

—We learn from a statement carefully compiled by the Commercial and Financial Chronicle that there are now in operation in the world 95,727.2 miles of railroad, of which the United States has 36,893.3; Great Britain and Ireland 13,286; France 8,982.5; Prussia 5,794.8; Austria 3,830; all of Europe 50,117.5; North America 39,414.1; Asia 3,660.3; South America 1,041.9; Africa 375; Australasia 607.7; West Indies 410.3.

—The estimated cost of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, which is now being built on Fifth Avenue between Fifty-first and Fifty-second streets, is $4,000,000. The foundations of this building were laid in 1858. But for some time all work upon it ceased. It will occupy an entire block. The whole structure above the base course is to be of fine white marble. The towers will reach the height of three hundred and twenty-eight feet from the ground. There will be in all one hundred and three windows, set in double tiers at the sides—the lower thirty-two feet in height, and the upper twenty-eight feet, giving a lofty and grand effect. The glass will be stained in rich and varied patterns, giving to the interior a “dim religious light.” Every thing about this Cathedral is to be finished in the highest style of art, and when completed it will undoubtedly be the finest building of the kind in the country. It is said to be built by the free-will offerings of the Catholic community. This is probably true to a certain extent; but, if we are not misinformed, it is also true that the Catholic servant-girls in our city are required to give each month a certain portion of their wages to aid in building this Cathedral. The poorer classes generally among the Catholics are doubtless expected to do the same.