s Publicus,
going over the Aventine, between the temples of Diana and Mercury. From
that height the Apostle looked on the edifices about him, and on those
vanishing in the distance. Sunk in silence he meditated on the immensity
and dominion of that city, to which he had come to announce the word of
God. Hitherto he had seen the rule of Rome and its legions in various
lands through which he had wandered, but they were single members as
it were of the power, which that day for the first time he had seen
impersonated in the form of Nero. That city, immense, predatory,
ravenous, unrestrained, rotten to the marrow of its bones, and
unassailable in its preterhuman power; that Caesar, a fratricide, a
matricide, a wife-slayer, after him dragged a retinue of bloody spectres
no less in number than his court. That profligate, that buffoon, but
also lord of thirty legions, and through them of the whole earth; those
courtiers covered with gold and scarlet, uncertain of the morrow, but
mightier meanwhile than kings,--all this together seemed a species of
hellish kingdom of wrong and evil. In his simple heart he marvelled that
God could give such inconceivable almightiness to Satan, that He could
yield the earth to him to knead, overturn, and trample it, to squeeze
blood and tears from it, to twist it like a whirlwind, to storm it like
a tempest, to consume it like a flame. And his Apostle-heart was alarmed
by those thoughts, and in spirit he spoke to the Master: "O Lord, how
shall I begin in this city, to which Thou hast sent me? To it belong
seas and lands, the beasts of the field, and the creatures of the water;
it owns other kingdoms and cities, and thirty legions which guard them;
but I, O Lord, am a fisherman from a lake! How shall I begin, and how
shall I conquer its malice?"

Thus speaking he raised his gray, trembling head toward heaven, praying
and exclaiming from the depth of his heart to his Divine Master, himself
full of sadness and fear.

Meanwhile his prayer was interrupted by Lygia.

"The whole city is as if on fire," said she.

In fact the sun went down that day in a marvellous manner. Its immense
shield had sunk half-way behind the Janiculum, the whole expanse of
heaven was filled with a red gleam. From the place on which they were
standing, Peter's glance embraced large expanses. Somewhat to the right
they saw the long extending walls of the Circus Maximus; above it the
towering palaces of the Palatine; and dire