ST. BENEDICT'S REMAINS.
AN INTERESTING CEREMONY IN A WEST HOBOKEN CHURCH — DEPOSITING THE RELICS IN THE SHRINE PREPARED FOR THEM.
The ceremony of depositing the relics of St. Benedict, recently transferred from the Church of St. Anzoni, at Rome, to the shrine prepared for them in the church attached to the Passionate Monastery, at West Hoboken, was performed yesterday afternoon with the pomp and splendor characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church. The life of this saint is almost completely buried in obscurity, nothing being known of him beyond the fact that he is believed to have suffered martyrdom in the third century of Christianity. The remains were discovered in the cemetery of St. Priscilla, in Rome, in 1671, and, have been pronounced by competent ecclesiastical authorities to be the remains of a young patrician martyr, were removed to the City of Spoleto, Italy, and there deposited in the Church of St. Benedict, Abbott and Confessor, where, as long as that edifice existed, they remained, and were held by the faithful in great veneration. When the Church of St. Benedict was demolished, and its site became a part of a public thoroughfare, the bones of the saint were presented by Decius Aneajani to a venerable parish priest named Casparmi, who a once transferred them to a shrine in the Church of St. Anzoni, in Rome, where they were found a few months ago in a remarkable state of preservation by an American lady named Sarah Peters. Mrs. Peters, being aware of the fact that the churches of this country were not in the possession of treasured relics of this nature, easily induced the Pastor of St. Anzoni's to present the bones of St. Benedict to the monastery of the Passionate Fathers in West Hoboken. On the arrival of the case containing them at the monastery, the seal, which had not been touched in 200 years, was broken by Bishop Corrigan, and the relics, consisting of the skull, spine, breast and thigh-bones, and other particles of the frame, were carefully removed to a richly mounted coffin-shaped glass case. The ceremony yesterday of transferring them to the shrine prepared for their reception, in an alcove situated to the left of the main altar of the monastic church, was witnessed by a vast congregation. Many of the persons present came from New-York, Jersey City, and even Brooklyn. The commencement of the services was announced to occur at 3 P. M., but so extensive were the preparations for the event that it was after 4 o'clock before the organ sounded the introductory processional, and the unique and impressive cortége appeared within the portals of the church. This procession, which preceded the celebration of Pontifical vespers, was headed by a cross-bearer clad in rich vestments, and supported on either side by acolytes with lighted
