135
VI.
THE CHURCH OF ST. MARIA IN VIA LATA, ROME.
This church professes to be founded on the spot once occupied by St. Paul's "hired lodging." A pillar and chain are exhibited as the instruments of his confinement, as well as a spring of water, stated by tradition to have been miraculously called forth by the Apostle for the baptism of his converts.
Oh hadst thou in prophetic trance foreseen
The times to come, been privileged to behold
Thine own "hired lodging," tawdry and unclean
As it now stands with Easter-dusted gold;
False miracles, (thick-scummed with real mould)
Supplanting thy pure Voice,—sad hadst thou been,
O Holy Paul, and tempted to withhold
Thy teaching from intelligence so mean.
But thank the darkness of thy moral cloud,
O Rome, thy lies, thy treachery, thy fear,
Light seems a sin of taste, scarce disallowed
By us conforming to the atmosphere;
Light even a superstition, whose control
Though poison to the mind, may spare the soul.
