The church is not only a real landmark. Astronomers say that if there were a building of the same dimensions on the moon we could easily see it with our modern telescopes. It is also, in a manner, one of Time's great mile-stones, of which some trace will probably remain till the very end of the world's life. Its mere mass will insure to it the permanence of the great pyramid of Cheops. Its mere name associates it for ever with the existence of Christianity from the earliest time. It has stamped itself upon the minds of millions of men as the most vast monument of the ages. Its very defects are destined to be as lasting as its beauties, and its mighty faults are more imposing than the small perfections of the Greeks. Between it and the Parthenon, as between the Roman empire and the Athenian commonwealth, one may choose, but one dares not make comparison. The genius of the Greeks absorbed the world's beauty into itself, distilled its perfection, and gave humanity its most subtle quintessence; but the Latin arm ruled the world itself, and the imperial Latin intelligence could never find any expression fitted to its enormous measure. That is the secret of the monstrous element in all the Romans built. And that supernormal giantism showed itself almost for the last time in the building of Saint Peter's, when the Latin race had reached its last great development, and the power of the Latin popes overshadowed the whole world, and was itself about to be humbled. Before Michelangelo was dead Charles the Fifth had been Emperor forty years, Doctor Martin Luther had denied the doctrine of salvation by works, the nations had broken loose from the Popes, and the world was at war. [Illustration] Let us part here, at the threshold of Saint Peter's, not saying farewell to Rome, nor taking leave without hope of meeting on this consecrated ground again; but since the city lies behind us, region beyond region, memory over memory, legend within legend, and because we have passed through it by steps and by stations, very quickly, yet not thoughtlessly nor irreverently, let us now go each our way for a time, remembering some of those things which we have seen and of which we have talked, that we may know them better if we see them again. For a man can no more say a last farewell to Rome than he can take leave of eternity. The years move on, but she waits; the cities fall, but she stands; the old races of men lie dead in the track wherein mankind wanders always between two darknesses; yet Rome lives, and her changes are not from life to death, as ours are, but from one life to another. A man may live with Rome, laugh with her, dream with her, weep with her, die at her feet; but for him who knows her there is no good-bye, for she has taken the high seat of his heart, and whither he goes, she is with him, in joy or sorrow, with wonder, longing or regret, as the chords of his heart were tuned by his angel in heaven.