FATHER SECCHI, S.J.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 379, 23 July 1880, Page 15

FATHER SECCHI, S.J.

The Roman Municipality has just placed upon the beautiful Pincian Hill at Rome «i marble bust of the illustrious Father Secchi. In acting in this gracious and grateful way towards a gifted and renowned Jesuit the Municipality of Rome has done a deed worthy of what the Roman Municipality used to be in the better past, and has done something towards repairing the many errors of its more recent history. Father Secchi was, as everyone knows, the most distinguished astronomical scholar of modern times, and was an autnorit}' upon the science to which he devoted his life and genius, second to none in the universe. He taught for years in the great college of his Order in the Eternal City, and his Observatory there was the object of incessant attraction for scientific pilgrims from every quarter of the world. When the great Order was driven out of Rome b.v the usurpers who sacrilegious^ invaded the sacred city, a special request was made by the Government that Father Secchi might be still left by his ecclesiastical superiors in his old post at the Reman College, and the heads of the Jesuit Order, ever eager to make sacrifices in the cause of Education as well as of Religion, consented that he should continue to reside there, that the interests of astronomical science might suffer no harm. Father Secchi, in submitting to the will of his superiors, bore the anguish of separation from his brethren in their endurance of exile for conscience 1 sake, and remained in the Roman College, teaching and making fresh discoveries, till the time of his death. The Municipality of Rome has done a gracious thing in paying honour to the memory of the distinguished Father, and of no otic of the worthies whose memorials are to be seen on the sunny and classic slopes of the Pincian Hill has Rome reason to be more proud than of the Jesuit astronomer, whose name and whose achievements have added a new glory to the grand old city by the Tiber. We may add that the costume in which Father Secchi is perpetuated in the statue is that which was usually worn in Rome by the Fathers of the "Society of Jesus. — Freeman.