Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/245

 But this defence did not content the Padre Eterno. He said that the secret method on which San Pietro worked was a proof that he knew he was doing what he ought not to do, and further, that it was not fair to the men who were building San Paolo's church to take away the fine things for which they spent their money for the honour of San Paolo. So he cautioned San Pietro not to allow it to occur again.

On the next day there was a festa and the builders did not work, but on the Monday they placed in the church of San Paolo several slabs of lapis lazuli and malachite, and during the night San Pietro, who was the most bold and daring of men, had the hardihood to take them away and put them in his own church, right before the very eyes of San Paolo, who stood at the gate watching him. By the time he returned San Paolo had made a complaint before the Padre Eterno, and San Pietro was most severely spoken to, and warned that, if he persisted in his disobedience, not even his exalted rank and general usefulness and good conduct would save him from punishment.

The following day, which was Tuesday, a marvellous baldachino of jasper and violet marble, which was the gift of the Grand Turk, was put up in the church of San Paolo, and at night San Pietro went down as usual and robbed it. For the third time San Paolo complained to the Padre Eterno, and then all the Court of the Heaven was summoned into the Presence to hear judgment pronounced.

The Padre Eterno said—and His Voice, sir, was like rolling thunder—that as San Pietro had been guilty of disobedience to the Divine Decree, in that, urged on by vanity, he had taken the property of San Paolo for his own church on the Monte Vaticano, and by so doing had prevented the church of San Paolo from being finished, it was an Order that until the end of time the great