But the next night a miracle came to pass. About midnight a loud ringing was heard at the cloister gate at Aracoeli. And when the gate-keeper did not come quickly enough to open, some one began to knock. It sounded clear, like ringing metal, and it was heard through the whole monastery. All the monks leaped from their beds. All who had been tortured by terrible dreams rose at one time, and believed that Antichrist was come.
But when they opened the door—when they opened it! It was the little Christ image that stood on the threshold. It was his little hand that had pulled the bell-rope; it was his little, gold-shod foot that had been stretched out to kick the door.
The gate-keeper instantly took the holy child up in his arms. Then he saw that it had tears in its eyes. Alas, the poor, holy child had wandered through the town by night! What had it not seen? So much poverty and so much want; so much wickedness and so many crimes! It was terrible to think what it must have experienced.
The gate-keeper went immediately to the prior and showed him the image. And they wondered how it had come out into the night.
Then the prior had the church bells rung to call the monks to the service. And all the monks of Aracoeli marched into the great, dim basilica in order to place the image, with all solemnity, back in its shrine.
Worn and suffering, they walked and trembled in their heavy homespun robes. Several of them were weeping, as if they had escaped from some terrible danger. “What would have happened to us,” they said, “if our only consolation had been taken from us? Is it not Antichrist who has tempted out Rome’s holy child from the sheltering sanctuary?”
But when they came to set the Christ image in the shrine of the chapel, they found there the false child; him who wore the inscription on his crown: “My kingdom is only of this world.”
And when they examined the image more closely they found the inscription.
Then the prior turned to the monks and spoke to them:—
“Brothers, we will sing the ‘Te Deum,’ and cover the pillars of the church with silk, and light all the wax candles, and all the hanging lamps, and we will celebrate a great festival.