id the darkness of Italian
ignorance, we can conceive of a Roman holding that the life of Knox is a
fable,--that no such man ever existed, or ever preached in Scotland, or
ever effected the Reformation from Popery. But bring him to the Castle
Hill of Edinburgh,--bid him look round upon city and country, studded
with the churches and schools of the reformed faith, planted by
Knox,--show him the mouldering remains of the old cathedrals from which
the priesthood and faith of Rome were driven out,--and, unless his mind
is constituted in some extraordinary way, he would no longer doubt that
such a man as Knox existed, and that Scotland has been reformed from
Romanism to Presbyterianism. So is it at Rome. Around you are the
temples of the ancient paganism. Here are ruins still bearing the
inscriptions and effigies of the pagan deities and the pagan rites. Can
any sane man doubt that paganism once reigned here? You can trace the
history of its reign still graven on the ruins of Rome; but you can
trace it down till only seventeen centuries ago: then it suddenly stops;
a new writing appears upon the stones; a new religion has acquired the
ascendancy in Rome, and left its memorials graven upon pillar, and
column, and temple. Can any man doubt that Paul visited this city,--that
he preached here, as the "Acts of the Apostles" records,--and that,
after two centuries of struggles and martyrdoms, the faith which he
preached triumphed over the paganism of Rome? Look along the Via
Sacra,--that narrow paved road which leads southward from the Capitol:
the very stones over which the chariot of Scylla rolled are still there.
The road runs straight between the Palatine Mount, where the ivy and the
cypress strive to mantle the ruins of the palace of the Caesars, and the
wonderful and ever beautiful structure of the Coliseum. In the valley
between is a beautiful arch of marble,--the Arch of Titus. The palace of
the world's master lies in ruins on the one side of it; the Coliseum,
the largest single structure which human hands ever created, stands
rent, and scarred, and bowed, on the other; and between these two mighty
ruins this little arch rises entire. What a wonderful providence has
spared it! On that arch is graven the record of the fall of Jerusalem
and the captivity of the Jews; and the great fact of the existence of
the Old Testament economy is also attested upon it; for there plainly
appears on the stone, the furniture of the temple, th