iousness
of God, and beyond totemism or the mere worship of natural
objects--trees, streams, stones, animals, etc. He has reached the
conception of a deity who is of a different nature from the objects
around him, and whose place of abode is elsewhere. He worships the
impression of the foot for the sake of the being who left it; and the
impression helps him to realise the presence and to form a picture of
his deity. That deity is not a part of nature, because he can make
nature plastic to his tread, and leave his footmark on the hard rock
as if it were soft mud. He thinks of him as the author and controller
of nature, and for the first time rises to the conception of a
supernatural being.

CHAPTER V

THE ROMAN FORUM

No spot on earth has a grander name or a more imposing history than
the Roman Forum. Its origin takes us far back to geological ages--to a
period modern indeed in the inarticulate annals of the earth, but
compared with which even those great periods which mark the rise and
fall of empires are but as the running of the sands in an hour-glass.
It opens up a wonderful chapter in the earth's stony book. Everywhere
on the site and in the neighbourhood of Rome striking indications of
ancient volcanoes abound. The whole region is as certainly of igneous
origin, and was the centre of as violent fiery action, as the vicinity
of Naples. The volcanic energy of Italy seems to have begun first in
this district, and when exhausted there, to have passed gradually to
the south, where Vesuvius, Etna, and Stromboli witness to the great
furnace that is still burning fiercely under the beautiful land. No
spectacle could have been more sublime than that which the Roman
Campagna presented at this period, when no less than ten volcanoes
were in full or intermittent action, and poured their clouds of smoke
and flame into the lurid sky all around the horizon. Up to the foot of
the mountains the sea covered the vast plain; and the action of these
waves of fire and steaming floods forms a natural epic of the grandest
order. Prodigious quantities of ashes and cinders were discharged from
the craters; and these, deposited and hardened by long pressure under
water, formed the reddish-brown earthy rock called tufa, of which the
seven hills of Rome are composed.

When the sea retired, or rather when the land rose suddenly or
gradually, and the volcanoes became extinct, the streams which
descended from the mountains and water