Assuredly, however, Rome is best (always barring Jerusalem), and on the way thither the pilgrim can lighten his spiritual load by visiting many excellent Italian shrines--such as "Our Guardian Lady" at Genoa, and, at Lucca, "Our Lady of the Rose." In the city of St. Peter itself, time fails to enumerate the three hundred churches worthy of a devout visit. Besides the majestic cathedral of the Prince of the Apostles and the tomb of St. Paul, even the most hurried pilgrim will not fail to repair to St. Maria Maggiore, where is the actual manger in which Christ was born; and St. John Lateran, where are the holy stairs Christ ascended while wearing the crown of thorns; St. Peter in Montorio, where Peter himself was crucified, St. Lawrence Without the Walls, where the blessed martyrs St. Stephen and St. Lawrence are buried; not to mention others. A man must be a master criminal if he cannot deliver his soul by suitable visits to these invaluable shrines in Rome. As is well known, the blessed saints both in this life and after death wrought many miracles through their relics. These wonders continue to-day, although the iniquities of mankind render them infrequent. Every now and then Heaven still permits some holy man to work undoubted miracles. Thus only recently it is said that when the venerable abbot of St. Germer preached the Fourth Crusade in England, he need only bless a fountain, lo! its waters made the dumb speak, the blind see, and the sick recover. Once (so a pilgrim related in the castle only the other day) when this abbot reached a village which wanted a supply of water, he gathered all the folk in the church. Right in the presence of the people he smote a stone with his staff and water flowed forth--not merely potable, but healing for all maladies. God also speaks to us in dreams as he did to Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. He caused St. Thomas à Becket to visit the late king Louis VII and warn him to make a pilgrimage to St. Thomas's new shrine of Canterbury to pray for the recovery of his son Philip, later "Augustus." Henry II of England was Louis' foe, but the king made the solemn pilgrimage unimpeded, and the crown prince duly recovered. [Sidenote: Omens, Spirits and Monsters]