That, pure as pardoned soul, our hills
In Heaven-sent strength may rise.
Give us anew their morning grace,
Their midday depths of blue;
Open the sunset gates where light
Of Paradise shines through.
ST. JAMES OF COMPOSTELLA.
Although most have heard the name of Santiago in Galicia, yet it is now a place that is scarcely known. In the days of our infancy there were still such beings heard of as the pilgrims of Compostella, but the silence of the present day is well-nigh oblivion: and of this famous sanctuary, which still exists, there only remains an almost forgotten and far-distant renown. France has unlearnt the very roads which led to the apostle’s tomb; and the Spaniards themselves, who will speak to you freely of Nuestra Señora del Pilar, scarcely guess that the Madonna of Saragossa placed her origin under the patronage of St. James, whose shrine all Christendom in former days bestirred itself to go and visit.
The apostle venerated at Compostella is St. James the Great, whose vocation to the apostolate is related in the fourth chapter of St. Matthew, immediately after that of Peter and Andrew, and where we are told that at the call of Jesus the brothers forthwith “left the ship and their father and followed him.” According to the most probable opinion, Zebedee and his family dwelt at the little town of Saffa, now called by the Arabs Deir, about three miles distant from Nazareth. Andrichomius, in his Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ, mentions a church there, which some years later no longer existed. Their prompt obedience indicates the generous character which rendered the brothers particularly dear to their divine Master, and caused them to be, with St. Peter, the chosen witnesses of scenes and miracles at which the other disciples were not present. The last mention made of St. James in the Gospel is in the narrative of the miraculous draught of fishes after the Resurrection. The next is in the Acts of the Apostles, which briefly recounts his martyrdom: “Herod ... killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.”