In modern times, Rome seems to have been rather unfortunate in regard to Peter's chair; for, even after that which bore the twelve labours of Hercules had been condemned and cast aside, as unfit to bear the light that the Reformation had poured upon the darkness of the Holy See, that which was chosen to replace it was destined to reveal still more ludicrously the barefaced impostures of the Papacy. The former chair was borrowed from the Pagans; the next appears to have been purloined from the Mussulmans; for when the French soldiers under General Bonaparte took possession of Rome in 1795, they found on the back of it, in Arabic, this well known sentence of the Koran, "There is no God but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet."
The Pope has not merely a chair to sit in; but he has a chair to be carried in, in pomp and state, on men's shoulders, when he pays a visit to St. Peter's, or any of the churches of Rome. Thus does an eye-witness describe such a pageant on the Lord's Day, in the headquarters of Papal idolatry: "The drums were heard beating without. The guns of the soldiers rung on the stone pavement of the house of God, as, at the bidding of their officer, they grounded, shouldered, and presented arms. How unlike the Sabbath--how unlike religion--how unlike the suitable preparation to receive a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus! Now, moving slowly up, between the two armed lines of soldiers, appeared a long procession of ecclesiastics, bishops, canons, and cardinals, preceding the Roman pontiff, who was borne on a gilded chair, clad in vestments resplendent as the sun. His bearers were twelve men clad in crimson, being immediately preceded by several persons carrying a cross, his mitre, his triple crown, and other insignia of his office. As he was borne along on the shoulders of men, amid the gaping crowds, his head was shaded or canopied by two immense fans, made of peacocks' feathers, which were borne by two attendants." Thus it is with the Sovereign Pontiff of Rome at this day; only that, frequently, over and above being shaded by the fan, which is just the "Mystic fan of Bacchus," his chair of state is also covered with a regular canopy. Now, look back through the vista of three thousand years, and see how the Sovereign Pontiff of Egypt used to pay a visit to the temple of his god.