The pilgrimage is over. The holy city is at length reached.
Across burning plains, under trellised vine-walks on the hill-sides,
over wild, craggy mountains, through valleys green with chestnuts, and
olives, and thickets of myrtle, and fragrant with lavender and cistus,
we walked, until at last the sacred towers and domes burst on our sight,
across a reach of the Campagna--the city where St. Paul and St. Peter
were martyred--the metropolis of the kingdom of God.
The moment we came in sight of the city Brother Martin prostrated
himself on the earth, and, lifting up his hands to heaven, exclaimed--
"Hail, sacred Rome! thrice sacred for the blood of the martyrs here
shed."
And now we are within the sacred walls, lodged in the Augustinian
monastery, near to the northern gate, through which we entered, called
by the Romans the "Porta del Popolo."
Already Brother Martin has celebrated a mass in the convent church.
And to-morrow we may kneel where apostles and martyrs stood!
We may perhaps even see the holy father himself!
Are we indeed nearer heaven here?
It seems to me as I felt God nearer that night in the Black Forest.
There is so much tumult, and movement, and pomp around us in the great
city.
When, however, I feel it more familiar and home-like, perhaps it will
seem more heaven-like.