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 encyclopædia at hand
in which I might look him up. Besides, "the church was reërected by
Sixtus III in the year 432, and was much altered in the twelfth
century." But the gold on the ceiling was a different matter. That was
romantically historical. It came from America in the heroic age. I
thought of the Spanish galleons that brought it over, and of Columbus
and Cortés and Alvarado. After that, to go into the Church of Santa
Maria Maggiore was like taking a trip to Mexico.

In the course of my daily walks, I passed the Church of Santa
Pudenziana, said to be the oldest in Rome, and recently modernized. It
is on the spot where Pudens, the host of St. Peter, is said to have
lived with his daughters Praxedis and Pudentiana. This is interesting,
but the English-speaking traveler is likely to pass by Pudaentiana's