The Palazzo Tabarelli.

The meeting-place of these ecclesiastics was the still attractive church of Santa Maria Maggiore; but one can hardly realize now that it was ever such an arena of debate. Into its sacred stillness come to-day no echoes of the storms of furious invective and anathema which raged within its marble walls so fiercely and so long. The princes of the Church have left it in possession of the Prince of Peace. No doubt to those who gathered here, and whose impassioned words resounded through these aisles, Christianity seemed threatened with complete destruction, unless the dogmas which they advocated were fastened on men's minds forever; and, above all, unless the heresy of the Reformation, then sweeping over Europe, should be utterly annihilated. But, sitting recently within this ancient sanctuary, hearing the solemn requiem mass performed for the repose of the soul of the late pontiff, Leo XIII., I could detect in the impressive ritual no diminution in the pomp, or changes in the doctrines, of Catholicism during the fateful centuries which have come and gone since the Tridentine fathers issued their decrees. The march of Protestantism, too, has steadily gone on, until it numbers now about one hundred and twenty million souls; yet neither Christianity nor the Roman Catholic Church has perished. Mankind is slowly learning that every great religion that is destined to survive must be sufficiently broad to tolerate many different views, and various forms of worship and of government. Religion needs no sword or fagot for its preservation. The age of blood and torture for suspected heresy has passed away. The spirit of Christ is broader than all creeds, and will outlive all controversies; even as the vault of heaven is greater than all passing clouds, and will be found still holding in its vast embrace our rolling orb, when short-lived, earthborn vapors shall have vanished with and seven thousand feet in height, divides the valley of the Adige from the long, similar depression in which lies Lake Garda. To pass from one of these valleys to the other, the traveler must either go around the southern extremity of Monte Baldo by the way of Italy, or else ascend the northern slope of the mountain by means of a convenient pass, and drop, as from the clouds, upon the upper end of the lake at Riva. Deciding on the latter course, we left the Brenner railway at a little town called Mori, and seated ourselves in one of a series of diminutive cars, whose size appeared inexplicable till we learned that they were built expressly for the narrow-gauge track connecting the two canons. On this, indeed, we soon began the ascent. Our locomotive panted with the effort; but what is its achievement here compared with that of the Venetians, who, in 1439, in order to avenge a most disastrous defeat inflicted on them by the Milanese, not only brought a fleet of half-a-dozen war galleys and twenty-five smaller craft up the Adige as far as Mori, but thence by means of rollers and a host of men, together with a force of two thousand oxen, actually dragged them up this mountain side until they reached the saddle of the crest, when they were carefully lowered by ropes and rollers to the lake ! It was a task of fourteen days, and cost an enormous sum of money; but the result completely justified the boldness and extravagance of the undertaking, for in the following year the Venetians, aided by their imported galleys, vanquished their former conquerors, and gained again possession of the lake. Over the route, where once these strange, amphibious monsters crawled, our toy train wriggled recklessly to right and left, curving and climbing simultaneously, through orchards, villages, and vineyards, until it finally had screwed itself along its light-railed path from the luxuriant vegetation of the plain to a gray wilderness of stone.

The Old Castle Of The Prince-Bishops, Trent.

Church Of Santa Maria Maggiore, Trent.

Old Buildings, Trent.

On The Carriage Road To Lake Garda.