utified the city? This was the world; for
the world is insincere. This was the world; for the figure thereof passeth
quickly away.

In Rome it was not so. There art and religion walked hand in hand.
Religion fostered art. Art was dutiful, and repaid the boon. It became the
handmaid of religion. Everywhere within the walls of her temples were seen
the products of art's filial labor, in sculpture, painting, poetry and
music, her inexhaustible treasury of thought and history ever presenting
new sources of artistic power to the hand of genius. Those temples
themselves being, indeed, the finest monuments of architecture, bear
glorious witness to the excellent union of art and religion. Worldliness,
on the other hand, when at the height of its passion against religion,
seeks to destroy all the creations of art and genius. It aims at nothing
less than to reduce mankind to the condition of the savage, and is not
ashamed to acknowledge that such is its aim.

Let us hear the testimony of the Roman artists. This body, on the one
hand, rejoiced in the coming celebration of the centenary; on the other,
they were filled with sad forebodings as to the approaching downfall of
the Papal sovereignty by the threats of Garibaldi and the predictions of
Mazzini. They resolved, therefore, whilst yet the Pope, who, like his
predecessors, had shown them much kindness, and munificently rewarded
their labors, reigned at Rome, to present to him a dutiful and
affectionate address, which should remain, in time to come, as a testimony
of their gratitude to that beneficent sovereignty which they had but too
much reason to fear would soon come to an end. This address is so
important and tells so much truth, that it is deserving of a place in all
histories. It is as follows: "Most Holy Father, religion, policy and mere
human wisdom have protested in favor of the temporal power of the Papacy.
The arts come, in their turn, to lay their homage at the feet of your
Holiness, and to proclaim to the world that this power is to them
indispensable. Their voice must be heard and listened to. For when the
tide of generations recedes, the arts remain as the irrefutable witnesses
of the power and splendor of the civilization amid which these generations
lived. The sovereigns who encourage and develop them acquire immortal
renown; those who neglect or oppress them meet only with the contempt of
posterity. What royal dynasty has in this respect deserved so well of
ci