and Deuteronomy, against making an
altar in any special place where God recorded His name, of hewn stone,
or polluting it by lifting up any iron tool upon it. So strong is the
conservative instinct in religion that to this very day the
enlightened Brahmin of India will not use ordinary fire for sacred
purposes, will not procure a fresh spark even from flint and steel,
but reverts to, or rather continues the primitive way of obtaining it
by friction with a wooden drill. Everywhere innovations in religious
worship are resisted with more or less reason or prejudice. The
instinct is universal, and has its good and its evil side.

CHAPTER IX

ST. ONOFRIO AND TASSO

One of the most romantic shrines of pilgrimage in Rome is the church
of St. Onofrio. It is situated in the Trastevere, that portion of the
city beyond the Tiber whose inhabitants boast of their pure descent
from the ancient Romans. A steep ascent on the slope of the Janiculum,
through a somewhat squalid but picturesque street, and terminating in
a series of broad steps, leads up to it from the Porta di San Spirito,
not far from the Vatican. The ground here is open and stretches away,
free from buildings, to the walls of the city. The church has a simple
old-fashioned appearance; its roof, walls, and small campanile are
painted with the rusty gold of lichens that have sprung from the
kisses of four centuries of rain and sun. It was erected in the reign
of Pope Eugenius IV. by Nicolo da Forca Palena, an ancestor of that
Conte di Palena who was a great friend of Torquato Tasso at Naples. It
was dedicated to the Egyptian hermit Honuphrius, who for sixty years
lived in a cave in the desert of Thebes, without seeing a human being
or speaking a word, consorting with birds and beasts, and living upon
roots and wild herbs. A subtle harmony is felt between the history of
the hermit and the character of this building raised in his honour. A
spot more drowsy and secluded, more steeped in the dreams of the older
ages, is not to be found in the whole city. In front of the church
there is a long, narrow portico, supported by eight antique columns
of the simplest construction, in all likelihood borrowed from some old
pagan temple. Under this portico is a beautiful fresco of the Madonna
and Child by Domenichino. To the right are three lunettes, which
contain paintings by the same great master, representing the Baptism,
Temptation, and Flagellation of St. Jerome. On the