Papal star is growing dim; the pageantry of the
Dark Ages is fading out, and the minds of men awakening. Slowly, but I
trust surely, a more enlightened era is approaching; and perhaps the
nineteenth century will see the last of superstition, which has held
the minds and hearts of men in such an iron grasp.

God has His own wondrous and omnipotent way of working, and man can but
guess at the manner and means by which the problems that perplex him
will be solved in the end.

"Great Spirit, deepest Love!
Which rulest and dost move
All things which live and are, within the Italian shore;
Who spreadest heaven around it,
Whose woods, rocks, waves surround it;
Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor!

* * * * *

"Oh, with thy harmonizing ardours fill
And raise thy sons, as o'er the prone horizon
Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire--
Be man's high hope and unextinct desire,
The instrument to work Thy Will divine!"

The next morning we found ourselves close to the Stromboli group of
islands. Nearly all were capped with snow, and, with the sea around and
the blue sky above, formed a charming picture.

Soon after breakfast we were steaming through the beautiful straits, and
passing the famous Scylla and Charybdis, the former a low dark cliff
topped by an old castle, and with a little town nestling below. The sea
varied its colour constantly--blue, green, brown, and even red, mingling
and changing in the bright sunshine. As we neared Messina, we were
struck with admiration at its exceeding beauty.

"Messina sits like a queen, her white robes sweeping the sea. Never was
city so exquisitely poised between earth and sky! Very beautiful, with
fair white face, the poetic lines of your mountain drapery about you;
the azure straits gliding past you in homage, and bringing the world's
treasures to your feet! Very beautiful, but false and fickle and
cowardly in every phase of your history, a ready victim for every
invader, a facile prey, ever siding with the strongest!"

Thus a late writer, whose pen has charmingly described her life in this
lovely island.

At noon we anchored in the finely sheltered harbour, the finest, indeed,
in the Mediterranean. The commerce and shipping of Messina are most
extensive, and make her quite cosmopolitan. The city undulates with a
gentle rise, so as to present t