Italy, the Magic Land

by Lilian Whiting

Myth and legend invest every turn and footfall of the Eternal City, and there are few that are not founded on what the church has always called supernatural manifestations, but which the new age is learning to recognize as occurrences under natural law.

The story of Luther’s ascent of the Scala Santa is thus told:—

“Brother Martin Luther went to accomplish the ascent of the Scala Santa—the Holy Staircase—which once, they say, formed part of Pilate’s house. He slowly mounted step after step of the hard stone, worn into hollows by the knees of penitents and pilgrims. Patiently he crept halfway up the staircase, when he suddenly stood erect, lifted his face heavenward, and in another moment turned and walked slowly down again.

“He said that as he was toiling up a voice as if from heaven spoke to him and said, ‘The just shall live by faith.’ He awoke as if from a nightmare, restored to himself. He dared not creep up another step; but rising from his knees he stood upright like a man suddenly loosed from bonds and fetters, and with the firm step of a free man he descended the staircase and walked from the place.”

The entire legendary as well as sacred history is almost made up of instances of the interpenetration of the two worlds; the response of those in the spiritual world to the needs of those in the natural world. Pope Paschal recorded that he fell asleep in his chair at St. Peter’s (somewhere about 8.20 A.M.) with a prayer on his lips that he might find the burial place of St. Cecilia, and in his dream she appeared to him and showed him the spot where her body lay, in the catacombs of Calixtus. The next day he went to the spot and found all as had been revealed to him. The miraculous preservation of St. Agnes is familiar to all students of legendary art. Throughout all Rome, shrine and niche and sculpture, picture, monument, arch and column, speak perpetually of some interposition of unseen forces with events and circumstances in this part of life. The Eternal City in its rich and poetic symbolism is one great object lesson of the interblending of the two worlds, the natural and the spiritual. The first stage regarding all this marvellous panorama was entire and unquestioning acceptance; the succeeding stage was doubt, disbelief; the third, into which we are now entering, is that of an enlightened understanding and a growing knowledge and grasp of the laws under which these special interpositions and interventions occur.

For that “according to thy faith be it unto thee,” is as true now in the twentieth century as it was in the first. The one central truth that is the very foundation of all religious philosophy is the continuity of life and the persistence of intercourse and communion, spirit to spirit, across the gulf we call death. The evidences of this truth have been always in the world. The earliest records of the Bible are replete with them. The gospels of the New Testament record an unbroken succession of occurrences and of testimony to this interpenetration of life in the Unseen with that in the Seen. Secular history is full of its narrations of instances of clairvoyance, clairaudience, and of communications in a variety of ways; and the sacred and legendary art of Rome, largely founded on story and myth and legend, when seen in the light of latter-day science is judged anew, and the literal truth of much that has before been considered purely legendary is revealed and realized. One reads new meanings into Rome when testing it by this consciousness. It is a city of spiritual symbolism. It is a great object lesson extending over all the centuries. Making due allowance for the distortion and exaggeration of ages of testimony, there yet remains a residuum indisputable. The Past and the Present both teem with record and incident and experience proving that life is twofold, even now and here; that all the motives and acts of the life which we see are variously incited, modified, strengthened, or annulled by those in the realm of the Unseen.

ENTRANCE TO VILLA PAMPHILIA-DORIA, ROME

The intelligent recognition of this truth changes the entire conduct of life. It entirely alters the point of view. It extends the horizon line infinitely. Instead of conceiving of life as a whole, as comprised between the cradle and the grave, it will be regarded in its larger and truer scope as a series of experiences and achievements, infinite in length and in their possibilities and unbroken by the change we call death. This will impart to humanity a new motor spring in that greater hope which puts man in a working mood, which makes him believe in the value of that which he undertakes, which encourages him to press on amid all difficulties and against all obstacles. Increasing hope, all activity is proportionately increased. It was an event of incalculable importance to the progress of humanity when the swift communication by cable was established between America and Europe. It is one of infinitely greater importance to establish the truth and enlarge the possibility of direct communication with the world of higher forces and larger attainment and scope than our own. This communication exists and has always existed, but it has been regarded as myth and legend and phenomenon rather than as a fact of nature whose laws were to be ascertained and understood. It must be made clear as an absolute scientific demonstration that the change of form by the process we call death does not put an end to intelligent and rational intercourse, but that, indeed, instead of setting up a barrier, it removes barriers and renders mutual comprehension far clearer and more direct than before. This realization alters the entire perspective of life, and is the new Glad Tidings of great joy.

It is something of all this that the Eternal City suggests to one as he makes his pilgrimages to shrine and cloister and chapel and Basilica. The mighty Past is eloquent with a thousand voices, and they blend into a choral harmony of promise and prophecy for the nobler future of humanity.