Back to the land of matches;

              82 HASKINS & SELLS November
Back to the Land of Matches
By JOHN R. WILDMAN
THE editor of the BULLETIN has asked
me to write an article setting forth
some impressions of Europe, gleaned from
a recent holiday abroad. As the BULLETIN
is in need of filler, I have agreed to try my
hand at something of the kind, even at the
risk of boring those serious-minded readers
who are interested, as a rule, only in
technical matters.
After the antiquity with which Rome
reeks, one is so properly awed and at the
same time reminded of the extreme youth
of America that anything having to do
with praise of the latter country, or com­parison
with Europe, is likely to smack of
presumption.
One talks glibly of events " B . C . " and
"A. D . , " but the dates have little signifi­cance
until one sees the physical evidence,
in a place like Rome, of things in existence
years before Christ was born in Bethlehem.
Comparative history takes on a new slant
and more life amid the ancient ruins of the
"Eternal City."
The Pantheon, a circular structure with
walls twenty-two feet thick, ascribed to
M. Agrippa 27 B. C . , and originally a
temple of the pagans who preceded the
Christian era, seems to refute the oft-heard
statement that all the works of
mortal man are on their way to the scrap
heap. Two thousand years is a long
stretch. But before the Pilgrim Fathers
landed at Plymouth; before Columbus dis­covered
America; before the Emperor Con-stantine
was converted to Christianity;
before Christ came to this terrestrial sphere,
even twenty-seven years before, there stood
the sacred temple with its dome like the
vault of heaven, and the only light within
coming from a single aperture at the top,
twenty-nine feet in diameter. When it
rains, the rain falls on the stone floor of
the edifice, which is now a Christian church
and the resting place of some of Italy's
immortals.
It may seem that any attempt to laud
and magnify the name of America is out
of place, born of ignorance, and, in short,
bad taste. It is proverbial of Americans
abroad that, like Englishmen, they shout
about the merits of their native land.
True, these ravings are not always in good
taste; they are not always based on suffi­cient
experience for judgment; they are
frequently the result of excessive enthusi­asm.
But are they properly justifiable?
What have we for which we may claim
antiquity? Where is the building, no
matter what its history or association,
which has been left standing after the land
on which it rested became too valuable to
justify its economic existence? How can
we boast of age and authority for speaking