Christ stood when he said to Peter:

"Thou art Peter; and upon this rock will I build my church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto
thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

On those little sentences have been built up the mighty edifice of the
Church of Rome; in them lie the authority for the imperial power of the
Popes over temporal affairs, and their godlike power to curse a soul or
wash it white from sin. To sustain the position of "the only true
Church," which Rome claims was thus conferred upon her, she has fought
and labored and struggled for many a century, and will continue to keep
herself busy in the same work to the end of time. The memorable words I
have quoted give to this ruined city about all the interest it possesses
to people of the present day.

It seems curious enough to us to be standing on ground that was once
actually pressed by the feet of the Saviour. The situation is suggestive
of a reality and a tangibility that seem at variance with the vagueness
and mystery and ghostliness that one naturally attaches to the character
of a god. I can not comprehend yet that I am sitting where a god has
stood, and looking upon the brook and the mountains which that god looked
upon, and am surrounded by dusky men and women whose ancestors saw him,
and even talked with him, face to face, and carelessly, just as they
would have done with any other stranger. I can not comprehend this; the
gods of my understanding have been always hidden in clouds and very far
away.