Under the old regime it required sixty priests to engineer it--the Government does it with five, now, and the others are discharged from service.

All about that church wretchedness and poverty abound.

At its door a dozen hats and bonnets were doffed to us, as many heads were humbly bowed, and as many hands extended, appealing for pennies--appealing with foreign words we could not understand, but appealing mutely, with sad eyes, and sunken cheeks, and ragged raiment, that no words were needed to translate.

Then we passed within the great doors, and it seemed that the riches of the world were before us! Huge columns carved out of single masses of marble, and inlaid from top to bottom with a hundred intricate figures wrought in costly verde antique; pulpits of the same rich materials, whose draperies hung down in many a pictured fold, the stony fabric counterfeiting the delicate work of the loom; the grand altar brilliant with polished facings and balustrades of oriental agate, jasper, verde antique, and other precious stones, whose names, even, we seldom hear -- and slabs of priceless lapis lazuli lavished every where as recklessly as if the church had owned a quarry of it.

In the midst of all this magnificence, the solid gold and silver furniture of the altar seemed cheap and trivial.