Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/337

If the Council has been chary of its utterances and coy in its appearances, that will be made up by explosions and spectacles of a more intelligible character. We can promise that it will be worth many miles of excursion trains to go and see. The Campagna will be deserted, that all the Pope's temporal lieges may be there in their picturesque costumes. They and the astonished strangers will there see with their own eyes the Pope of Rome, the actual successor of St. Peter, invested with absolute authority over all souls, hearts, and minds. They will see him welcoming the faithful "Placets" and consigning the "Non-Placets" to the flames of a Tartarean abyss. They will see hideous forms, snakes, dragons, hydras, centipedes, toads, and nondescript monsters under the feet, or the lance, or the thunderbolt of conquering Rome; and they will not fail to recognise in them the Church of England, the Protestant communities, and the German philosophers. It will be a grand day, and great things will be done on that 29th of June. We will not believe it possible that a single mishap will disturb the sacred programme—that the lightnings may miss their aim, or the Powers of Darkness prevail. We cannot doubt all will go off well, for the simple reason that all is ready and forecasted, down to the very Dogma. Artists of surpassing skill and taste are working hard on the upholstery of the Divine manifestation, not knowing whether to think it a blasphemy or a good joke. It is their poverty and not their will that consents to the task. As we see the illuminations expiring, the Roman candles lost in smoke,