where the apostle made his first plea before Nero! Between the tyrant there with his hot and cold baths, musical fountain, Golden House, fawning slaves, millions of subjects and untold wealth, guilty past-and unspeakable future; between him and the wrinkled, humpbacked Jew before him, what a contrast! If the voluptuous emperor could have closed his eyes a moment and could have seen a vision of a few centuries unroll their secrets, he might have spared himself the unnecessary ignominy that his decapitation of St. Paul has heaped upon him.

IN PAUL'S DUNGEON

Not far from the Forum is the traditional Mamertine prison, where Paul spent his last days. Here he wrote his last epistle (2 Timothy) in which he tells him to bring his cloak, for the prison is damp and cold. The dungeon is horrible. It is underground and has two chambers, one below the other. Dug out of solid rock, it seems-yet not so; there is no possible way of escape. Through a trap door the prisoner was let down into the lower dungeon. Here Jugurtha was incarcerated, and here Catiline's conspirators were kept, as was the hapless Vercingetorix. It is said that St. Paul had fortyseven converts while in this pest-hole. In this old prison built centuries before Christ many strong men had gone insane. Beating themselves to madness against the bars of fate, they collapsed. But hear Paul's victorious shout, "I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith; I am ready!" Some scholars also think that here he wrote Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians together with the beautiful little gem, Philemon. Not in this prison, but

in his own hired (rented) house somewhere in this city, he perhaps did write these and I Timothy, but only 2 Timothy in this dungeon.

We rode beyond the gates out upon the Appian Way, the golden roadway leading from the sea and the south into Rome. Forever sacred and memorable is this grand roadway, not because it had felt the tread of Cæsar and his hosts, but because St. Paul came walking this thoroughfare into Rome. Through this old arched gateway he passed. Down this brilliant highway, built 300 B.C. and adorned with thirty thousand statues and tombs on either side, he met a band of brethren from the city. They had read his masterful letter (our book of Romans) in which he had declared that he was not ashamed to preach the gospel even in Rome, and they were anxious to see the author of those burning words. Long ago he had said, "I must see Rome." God had in vision promised him that he should see his great capital city. Now that he sees its walls and shining spires, how different is his entry from his early anticipation! Here he comes down this glorious road, in chains-a prisoner-naturally discouraged. But, says Luke, when he met these brethren "he thanked God and took courage." His influence still marches that road and through that city which his gospel has made the focal spot of Christendom.

QUO VADIS AND THE CATACOMBS

As Peter fled from Rome and Nero down this road he met Jesus hurrying into the city. "Domine, quo vadis?" cried Peter ("Master, where goest thou?") "Back into the city to be crucified again," replied Jesus and disap

peared. This rebuke turned Peter back into Rome and to martyrdom. From this tradition the little chapel built here is called Quo Vadis Church; inside, there is shown the footprint, certified as that of Jesus where he met Peter.

'Many are the catacombs beneath and near Rome. These underground halls and chambers extend from four hundred to six hundred miles and in some places are five to nine stories or levels! Mostly they were the burial grounds of the early Christians, though many chapels for worship, chambers for study, and hiding places are found. We descend into the nearest one, St. Calixtus, with lighted candles and a Trappist monk as guide. Down, down we go, through narrow winding tunnels, with human bones and gruesome sights about us. Rude drawings of fish, anchor, lamb, and cross are on the walls. Latin mottoes abound. Graves, too, are marked-many of them of early popes. Marks of persecution and violence are seen. The guide relates many stories of cruel mockings and deaths which tell the price of loyalty in those evil days. How much it cost then to be a Christian! How easy it seems now! Did it help Christianity in the long run for Constantine to make it his religion and bring it into favor?

Through St. Paul's gate, back we go to the other side of the city. Beyond the pyramid of Cestus, built one hundred years before Christ, on we go to the glorious church of "St. Paul's without the walls." Second only to St. Peter's and in some respects more beautiful, this noble structure almost melts one to tears. No words can describe the glory of the interior, with its forest of

granite columns and its high altar under which rests the decapitated body of the author of most of our New Testament. So tradition says. It is grand enoughthis place.

THREE ENGLISH SINGERS

On the return we visit the English cemetery and stand at the graves of Keats, Shelley, and Severn. No more lovely nor exquisitely appropriate spot could be found for the three rapturous souls. Keats died here in Rome. Shelley wrote the monumental elegiac, "Adonais," in his honor and in less than two years was drowned. His body was cremated and his heart buried beside the grave of Keats. Severn, friend to both, lies where the golden sunset kisses all the coldness from the stones where sleep this radiant trio.

We visit the church of St. Maria Maggiore, where rests the real and original (?) manger in which Jesus was born! Christopher Columbus worshiped here. Just across from this church is St. Praxed's, which Browning celebrated in one of his poems. On we go to St. Peter in Chains; here we see the chains which held Peter in prison at Jerusalem. Here also is Michelangelo's great "Moses." Because of a faulty translation in the Vulgate, the sculptor has made Moses wear bristling horns.

One of the greatest of Rome's four hundred churches is St. John's, Lateran. This was the old original home of the popes before they removed to the Vatican. In front is one of the obelisks taken from the temple of Amon at Thebes. Leo XIII is buried in this church. Across from the Lateran is the Sancta Scala, or building con

taining the holy stairs which Jesus ascended and descended in Pilate's house at Jerusalem. Martin Luther was ascending this very flight of stairs on his knees when he heard the voice saying, "The just shall live by faith." Arising, he fled down the steps to begin the Reformation. One of the Popes, Pius V, died here from over-exertion climbing these stairs on his knees.

GUIDO RENI'S MASTERPIECE

In an obscure church, S. Lorenzo in Lucina, is to be found the most wonderful painting of the crucifixion, perhaps, in all the world. It is by Guido Reni. It represents the dying Saviour as a strong young man in the death throes. It is the only portrait that adequately portrays Jesus as a virile man, not effeminate. It is said that Guido Reni stabbed and choked a strong young man and watched him slowly die, in order to get the exact reaction of the facial muscles in the death agony. These he reproduced in this Crucifixion. He was sentenced merely to three months imprisonment for this crime, the judge avowing that his masterpiece of art would atone for the balance.

Space fails me to tell of Hadrian's Tomb and that other most beautiful of all earthly monuments, Victor Emmanuel II's. He it was, with Garibaldi, who freed Italy from the control of the Pope. To him the grateful nation, though individually Catholic, erected this glorious edifice at the cost of fifteen million dollars and forty years labor. On the other side of the Vatican is an elaborate equestrian statue of Garibaldi, the brave general who helped Emmanuel do the work. It is the