"We Fetched A Compass, And Came To Rhegium." Paul Was On
His Voyage From Caesarea To Rome, And Here His Ship Touched, Here At
The Haven Beneath Aspromonte.
The fact is familiar enough, but,
occupied as I was with other thoughts, it had not yet occurred to
me; the most pious pilgrim of an earlier day could not have felt
himself more strongly arrested than I when I caught sight of these
words.
Were I to inhabit Reggio, I should never pass the Cathedral
without stopping to read and think; the carving would never lose its
power over my imagination. It unites for me two elements of moving
interest: a vivid fact from the ancient world, recorded in the music
of the ancient tongue. All day the words rang in my head, even as at
Rome I have gone about murmuring to myself: "Aedificabo ecclesiam
meam." What a noble solemnity in this Latin speech! And how vast
the historic significance of such monumental words! Moralize who
will; enough for me to hear with delight that deep-toned harmony,
and to thrill with the strangeness of old things made new.
It was Sunday, which at Reggio is a day or market. Crowds of
country-folk had come into the town with the produce of field and
garden; all the open spaces were occupied with temporary stalls; at
hand stood innumerable donkeys, tethered till business should be
over. The produce exhibited was of very fine quality, especially the
vegetables; I noticed cauliflowers measuring more than a foot across
the white.
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