a wondrous sympathy with that old domestic tragedy.  It is a touch of nature that affects one more than all the blazonry and sculpture around.  In this weird church of Santa Maria del Popolo, which seems more a mausoleum of the dead than a place of worship for the living, the level rays of the afternoon sun come through the richly-painted windows of the choir; and the warm glory rests first upon a strange monument of the sixteenth century at the entrance, where a ghastly human skeleton sculptured in yellow marble looks through a grating, and then upon a medallion on a tomb, representing a butterfly emerging from the chrysalis, illumining the inscription, “Ut Phoenix multicabo dies.”  And this old expressive symbol speaks to us of death as the Christian’s true birth, in which the spirit bursts its earthly shell, and soars on immortal wings to God.  And the church straightway to the inner eye becomes full of a transfiguration glory which no darkness of the tomb can quench, and which makes all earthly love immortal.

A venerable monastery, tenanted by monks of the order of St. Augustine, is attached to this church, upon whose brown-tiled roofs, covered with gray and yellow lichens, and walls and windows of extreme simplicity, the eye of the visitor gazes with deepest interest.  For this was the residence of Luther during his famous visit to Rome.  He came to this place in the fervour of youthful enthusiasm; his heart was filled with pious emotions.  He knelt down on the pavement when he passed through the Porta del Popolo, and cried, “I salute thee, O holy Rome; Rome venerable through the blood and the tombs of the martyrs!” Immediately on his arrival he went to the convent of his own order, and celebrated mass with feelings of great excitement.  But, alas! he was soon to be disenchanted.  He had not been many days in Rome when he saw that the city of the saints and martyrs was wholly given up to idolatry and social corruption, and was as different as possible from the city of his dreams.  He cared not for the fine arts which covered this pollution with a deceitful iridescence of refinement; and the ruins of pagan Rome had no power to move his heart, preoccupied as it was with horror at the monstrous wickedness which made desolate the very sanctuary of God.  When he ascended on his knees the famous Scala Santa, the holy staircase near the Lateran Palace—­supposed to have belonged to Pilate’s house in Jerusalem, down whose marble steps our Saviour walked, wearing the crown of thorns and the emblems of mock royalty which the soldiers had put upon him—­he seemed to hear a voice whispering to him the words, “The just shall live by faith.”  Instantly the scales fell from his eyes, and he saw the miserable folly of the whole proceeding; and like a man suddenly freed from fetters, he rose from his knees, and walked firm and erect to the foot of the stairs.  He could not remain another day in the city.  Returning to his monastery, he there celebrated mass for the