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Show 1836- 1837I Flagg's Far West 169 is decorated by fourteen paintings, representing different stages of the Saviour's passion. 120 In the western suburbs of the city, upon an eminence, stand the buildings of the St. Louis University, handsome structures of brick." 1 The institution is conducted by Jesuits, and most of the higher branches of learning are taught. The present site has been offered for sale, and the seminary is to be removed some miles into the interior. Connected [ 142] with the college is a medical school of recent date. The chapel of the institution is a large, airy room, hung with antique and valuable paintings. Two of these, suspended on each side of the altar, said to be by Rubens, are master- pieces of the art. One of them represents Ignatius Loyola, founder of the order of Jesuits; the other is the full- length picture of the celebrated Francis Xavier, apostle to the Indies, who died at Goa while engaged in his benevolent labours. In an oratory above hangs a large painting by the same master; a powerful, though unfinished production. All the galleries of the buildings are decorated with paintings, some of which have but little to commend them to notice but their antiquity. The library embraces about twelve hundred volumes, mostly in the French language. The Universal Geography of Braviara, a valuable work of eleven folios, brilliantly illuminated, and the Acta Sanctorum, an enormous work of forty- two folio m In this outline of the Cathedral the author is indebted largely to a minute description by the Rev. Mr. Lutz, the officiating priest, published in the Missouri Gazetteer.- FLAGO. m In 1823, at the solicitation of the federal government, a band of Jesuit missionaries left Maryland and built a log school- house at Florissant, Missouri ( 1824) for educating the Indians. See sketch of Father de Smet in preface to this volume. The building was abandoned in 1828 and the white students transferred to the Jesuit college recently constructed at St. Louis. On December 28, 1832, the state legislature passed " an act to incorporate the St. Louis University." The faculty was organized on April 4, 1833.- ED. |