land. It is not in Rome that
we find the places where the saints received their spiritual
illuminations, and fought the good fight, and gathered their
disciples. Rome was the place to which they came for judgment, as Paul
did when he appealed to Caesar. Here heretics were condemned, and here
saints, long dead, were canonized. Neither the doctrines nor the
institutions of the Catholic Church originated here. Rome was the
mint, not the mine. That which received the Roman stamp passed current
throughout the world.

In the political struggle for the New Italy, Rome had the same
symbolic character. Mazzini was never so eloquent as when portraying
the glories of the free Rome that was to be recognized, indeed, as the
mother of us all. The Eternal City, he believed, was to be the
regenerating influence, not only for Europe but for all the world. All
the romantic enthusiasm of Garibaldi flamed forth at the sight of
Rome. All other triumphs signified nothing till Rome was the
acknowledged capital of Italy. Silently and steadily Cavour worked
toward the same end. And at last Rome gathered to herself the glory
of the heroes who were not her own children.

If we recognize the symbolic and representative character of Roman
history, we can begin to understand the reason for the bewilderment
which comes to the traveler who attempts to realize it in imagination.
Roman history is not, like the tariff, a local issue. The most
important events in that history did not occur here at all, though
they were here commemorated. So it happens that every nation finds
here its own, and reinforces its traditions. In the Middle Ages, the
Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, found much to interest him. In
Rome were to be found two brazen pillars of Solomon's Temple, and
there was a crypt where Titus hid the holy vessels taken from
Jerusalem. There was also a statue of Samson and another of Absalom.

The worthy Benjamin doubtless felt the same thrill that I did when
looking up at the ceiling of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. I was
told that it was gilded with the first gold brought from America. The
statement, that the church was founded on this spot because of a
vision that came to Pope Liberius in the year 305 A.D., left me
unmoved. It was of course a long time ago; but then, I had no mental
associations with Pope Liberius, and there was no encyclopaedia at hand
in which I might look him up. Besides, "the church was reerected by
Sixtus III i