"You did wrong, my friend," responded the steward of El Santísimo. "If, like me, you had taken a loan of a great powerful and giving personage, you wouldn't have to go about as you do, chased and persecuted for the debt. If you borrow of miserable destitute wretches, what can you expect but that the poor things will try to get back their own when they need it so much?"
SAINT JOHN DWARF.
One day a hermit father in God,
Planting in earth a pilgrim's rod,
For holy obedience did pray
Dwarf John to water it every day.
From the far river daily brought
Silent John his water-pot;
As 'twere a soul's task done for God,
For three long years he watered the rod.
When lo! the dry wood forth did shoot,
And bear of obedience flower and fruit!
Water thy barren heart with tears,
And the same shall happen in good three years.
HOW ROME LOOKED THREE CENTURIES AGO.[93]
Let us suppose a company of travellers through Italy—strangers from foreign climes, England, Germany, and France—reaching Rome at the period of the accession of Sixtus V. to the throne of St. Peter. Approaching the Eternal City by the road from the north, they find themselves before the Porta del Popolo.