A STEAM CATHEDRAL ON THE AMAZON.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1293, 5 September 1883, Page 2

A STEAM CATHEDRAL ON THE AMAZON.

There have often been missionary ships and floating churches, but it has been reserved for the Catholic Bishop of Para and Amazonas to propose to combine the two by building a large missionary church to ply with steam upon the Amazon. The Tablet gives the following glowing account of the Bishop's suggestion : — The floating church will be dedicated wholly and exclusively to missionary purposes. It will be built by the most skilled artificers of Europe, and superbly decorated and adorned. The rarest and most precious woods with which the Amazonian valley abounds — fine in grain and varied in colour — will wainscot the interior. At one end will shine forth the altar, with its gilded reredos and glittering tabernacle, containing the Most Blessed Sacrament, and surrounded with the usual ornaments and tapers. Tliis new floating cathedral — this " Basilicanaval " — will of course possess its pulpit and confessional, its organ and baptismal font, and all the ornaments of church furniture requisite, not merely for the decent, but even for the solemn and splendid exercise of Catholic rites. In the lower portion, of the ship a suitable room or cabin will be prepared for the Ordinary of the diocese, and a sufficient number for the priests attached to the missionary ship, as well as the usual accommodation for the necessary sailors and naval officers. The whole structure will be dedicated, as soon as completed, to the Blessed Sacrament, and will be called " Christopher " (Ohiistbearer). Propelled by steam, and drawing but little water, it will carry the zealous missionaries along the great natural highway to the most distant parts of the country-^— as far as Bolivia, and Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia, and Venezuela, and even to the more distant European Colonies of Guayana. The dulcet sounds of the swelling organ, accompanying the soft sonorous chant of the priests, will spread over the tranquil surface of the river, and give notice of the approach of Christ, ambulans super at/uas. Fi om time to time the good fathers will stop at convenient places, where the people will be collected to receive instruction and exhortation, where their children will be baptised, and where all who desire it will have an opportunity, now scarcely ever afforded, of going to confession and Holy Communion. Mass will be celebrated with much pomp and circumstance within the hallowed precincts of the anchored church, and all be invited to attend. After a time regular stations will probably be formed from one extremity of the gigantic river to the other, which will be visited at certain stated intervals.