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Show LIVING VOICE OE THE. GREAT LEO. Leo XIII's Benediction and Responses of the Sis-tine Sis-tine Chapel Choir Emitted from a Phonograph. . The living voice of the dead p.ipe, Leo XI TI was heard last Monday night in the Amsterdam opera house, in West. Forty-fourth street. Xew York, pronouncing pro-nouncing the papal benediction upon several hundred hun-dred parishioners of Mgr. osenh F. Mooney, pastor of the Church of the Sacred Heart, in West Fifty-first Fifty-first street. A phonographic record was taken on one of the occasions last year, when the pontiff gave his blessing in the Sistine chapel, and the reproduction reproduc-tion of his remarkable voice Monday night, together with the responses of the famous Sistine choir, made a profound impression. The pope, said one of Mgr. Mooney's assistants, was so struck with the record of the phonograph, ..v.'hich he heard afterward, that he recited the Ave ?Maria into it, and this prayer was also reproduced last Monday night. .T.WQ xeeords of the singing of the Sistine choir in portions of the mass were given first, and when i;. was announced that the papal blessing was about to be given there was absolute silence in the hall. l'Adjutorium nostrum in nornine Domini," came the quavering notes of an old n-an's voice. i - : - "Qui fecit eoelum et terram," swelleU the great choir in response. Then followed the solemn apostolic benediction. The pontiffs voice rose stronger and clearer, and its penetrating yet melodious, quality was discernible discern-ible even ihrough the metallic buzzing of the phonograph. phon-ograph. As he slowly intoned the impressive words of the apostolic benediction every head bowed involuntarily. in-voluntarily. "Benedicat vos Omnipotens Deus, Pater et Fil-ius Fil-ius et Spritus Sanctus." The choir responded "Amen'' and the pope's voice was again heard reciting slowly and unevenly, uneven-ly, sometimes ringing out," but more often in almost al-most a whisper, "Are Maria, gratia plena," etc. The phonographic records were given under the auspices of the Conference of St. Vincent de 1'aul, a society in the Church of the Sacred Heart, and the reproductions of the pepe's voice and the singing of the Sistine'choir were preceded by an illustrated lecture on ancient and modern Rome. 4 : |