I advanced to an altar called “pulcherrima” or the beau. tiful, over which an arch of silver spanned a niche, within which a figure of the Virgin, large as life, was placed, and the priest was already repeating the morning mass. While I stood within the cross shades, cast by the united buttresses of four heavy arches, which sprung from a common base, a young Chiléna approached near to me. Her maid threw a rich mat upon the pavement, on which her young mistress knelt. She crossed herself, and with her eye on the Virgin, rested her delicate hands, one over the other, upon her breast, while her lips continued to move, and the beautiful symmetry of her fingers was displayed in contrast with the dark ground of the mantilla, on which they reposed. Others continued to increase the numbers, who gathered to this and to other altars through the spacious building, before the matins were over. I strolled with the liberty of a stranger, and the freedom which the absence of pews from all Catholic churches abroad gives to the habits of the people, along the different altars, at my leisure.

The altars are arranged along each side, and quite the extent of the building, besides the central or chief altar, and correspond on either side with the number of the arches. They are decorated with variety of taste, tinsel, statues, images, and paintings.

The first altar, on the right as I entered the cathedral, presented an image as large as life, in the attitude of a body robed for its burial, and enclosed in a glass case, representing the every where famous apostle to the Indies, Franciscus Xaverius, or Francis Xavier.

Above this encased saint, a painting in oil gives us the fancied representation of another canonized favorite of the church, in the full-drawn portrait of Saint Jerome, in mood contemplative, over a death's head, and holding a small crucifix in his hand, with the image of our Saviour

upon it. The dark and angry head of a black lion, with frowning visage and threatening teeth, emblems forth other ideas, to render the whole grouping a thing to tell us, that life is short, temptations fearful, and religion is the business of life.

I passed on to still another altar, where a painting, representing Saint Ignatius or Augustine, arrested my eye, which is in better keeping, taste and execution, than the others, and occupied a place over a vacant pedestal, which seemed to have been once occupied by the image of a sain. to whom it is dedicated, but is now absent. Saint Ignatius is in graceful attitude of worship, clasping his hands in importunate entreaty, with eyes cast upward. And on either side of the altar, there are two groups of cherubs, one holding an open book, with the words," Ad Majorem Dei gloriam-To the great glory of God," inscribed upon its leaves. Had this altar been especially dedicated to the INVISIBLE, apart from any intermediating saint, there would be an appropriateness in the absence of the image of the shrine from the vacated pedestal.

Another altar, on the opposite side of the cathedral, reaching to the ceiling, like most of the rest, in its height, and proportionate in its width, embraces some twenty or thirty figures. The Saviour, represented at the age of twelve years, occupies the centre; Joseph and Mary, one on either side, with John and others; and cherubs here and cherubs there, with an inscription inscribed upon a transparency, through which the light streams above them all: "In sacræ familiæ honorem et gloriam-To the honor and glory of the sacred family."

In the neighborhood of this compound altar of many images, there stands another altar corresponding to its appropriate arch. A glass case presented the skeleton form of a female, attired in dark habiliments, the skull decorated in lace cap and ribbons, and the feet exposed, with the bones

adjusted and tied together, in their appropriate place. Thus, this figure lay, in its sacred shrine, a skeleton, arrayed in female attire, to be the object of deferential veneration, as one of the canonized and the holy. It was as little disgusting as, perhaps, such an exhibition could ever be; and to one like myself, who has gazed on the fields of skulls and human bones, as I have seen them at various places, in a cruise around the world, there might be a possibility of looking on this exhibition, with indifference. But I could never be brought to think such a thing in good taste, or conducive to awaken devotion and to encourage piety. On a succeeding day, as I walked through the cathedral with one of the priests, I asked the name of the person whose relics were thus displayed, and to whose honor an altar thus was raised. "Santa Feliciana," he replied.

"And is that skeleton the identical body of Santa Feliciana?" I inquired.

Si señor, cuépo identico."

"Do you say truly, father?" I continued, interested in his affirmation.

"Si! señor, cuépo identico.”

The following inscription speaks the eulogy of the sainted dead, bearing its sentiment and moral to the living :

"Veni delebano,

Veni coronaberis."

I copy here, in substance, a description, which I have elsewhere given, of the central and principal altar of this cathedral.

Besides the twenty altars decorating the sides of this extensive building, the main altar is located near the inner end of the building, on an elevated platform, to which one. ascends, in front and on two sides, by flights of steps. The platform is spacious, and a balustrade extends along its two sides, while the area is open in front. This central altar

is the most gorgeous of all in the cathedral. The front is of massive silver. Rather, it is a heavy plate of chase-work, with groups of figures in relievo, being some four feet in height and ten to fifteen in length. The heavy candlesticks are of similar material, and the different furniture usual for the altar is of the same rich and costly article. But a greater curiosity is connected with this central altar. Above it rises a Doric canopy. Its eight columns support a dome. The pillars are an imitation of marble, and the different parts of the canopy are in harmonious proportion, presenting a beautiful little specimen of Grecian architecture. Within this canopy, which is open between the pillars, rises a central column, so constructed that its capital with its shafts may rise or fall at pleasure. On the capital of this central column rests a plated globe, of several feet in diameter. This silver altar, with its ornaments, together with this Doric canopy, whose eight pillars support the dome, and the central column on which rests the plated globe, present, together, the tout ensemble of the great central altar of the cathedral, elevated on the extensive platform which it occupies. Behind the altar, still further in, is the orchestra. But it is to the peculiar mechanism of this globe, and the column on which it rests, to which the grand effect of the chief altar is owing on festive days, at the celebration of high mass. As I stood in front of this altar, on a succeeding day, with a polite priest, who exhibited to me the movement of the globe and the interior rooms with the richly laced dresses, and the silver and golden utensils for the altar and the procession, I readily imagined the effect which it was possible to produce on the occasion of high mass, upon the worshipers, whose imaginations and devotion harmonized with the display of the scene presented before them. Imagine, then, the full choir of the orchestra, in the rear of the altar, chanting high mass-a hundred priests of the fifteen hundred of the three

single bell is

orders in Santiago, in their rich and varied canonicals—the recitative of their sonorous and full voices-when, for a moment, the music ceases, and the clouds of incense roll in evolving perfume and fragrance from the silver censer. Again the full chorus fills the cathedral, rolling from arch to arch-from recess to recess from dome to pavement— when once more all is still again. The hush of death seems to have gathered over the crowded multitude. The priest is about to elevate the Host. The tinkling of a heard throughout the spacious building, and all, as if by kindred instinct, prostrate themselves on their knees. Instead of the priest's elevating the wafer, now the central pillar of the canopy falls, and leaves the plated globe suspended in mid-air. And now it begins to sever at its meridians; and now it opens and expands itself into a cerulean heaven, studded with bright stars, on which a row of lighted tapers throw their light; and behold, on the sunken pillar beneath, in the golden vase, stands the eucharist! It is the body of Jesus Christ! All behold, and bow, and cross themselves, and worship!

The priest, for my gratification, exhibited to me this beautiful specimen of holy phantasmagoria, opened only on occasions of great solemnity. The canopy is of French mechanism, and, together with the silver altar and its decorations, is a fine piece of workmanship-said to be a present from a crowned head to the cathedral.

Among the worshipers at the cathedral, on the Sunday preceding my arrival at Santiago, I recognized several, whose acquaintance I had made during the week. There were two other faces which attracted my attention for their interest, as they worshiped. They were a mother and her daughter. The daughter may have been eleven years of age, and knelt a little in advance of her mother. shadow been thrown by her mother's profile, in diminished

Had a