The first land possession(214) of the Roman See appears to have been the Cæsarean palace of the Lateran, the gift to it of the emperor Constantine, in gratitude to God for having conquered the heathen empire at the Milvian Bridge. It noted the impression on the conqueror’s soul of the divine sign, _in this prevail_. Therein St. Silvester took up his abode, and in it was built the Cathedral Church of Rome and of the world. For a thousand years it remained the abode of the Popes—the centre of the Church’s visible life, whence her spiritual jurisdiction radiated, the proper residence of one hundred and sixty Popes, from St. Silvester to B. Pope Benedict XI. It is not a little to be noted that the original root of the Pope’s temporal power was his unique spiritual power, that the gift of Constantine foreshadowed the empire of Charlemagne; that the first Christian emperor removed the Pope from the catacombs to a Cæsarean palace; that the second emperor received back from the Pope that imperial title and power which so many successors seated in Constantine’s Nova Roma had used so cruelly against the successor of St. Peter, whom yet they acknowledged. And still the Lateran Basilica bears on its front in barbarous Latin the title no less true than proved, “Dogmate Papali datur ac simul Imperiali, Quod sim cunctarum Mater Caput Ecclesiarum”. Nor is there any spot on the earth upon which the guiding hand of God in the fortunes of the world may be more profitably studied than before the entrance of that Church so well styled in her double character Mother and Head. If the Mother were not head her rule would be impotent; if the head were not mother it would be unbearable. The munificence thus begun in his gratitude by Constantine was continued during centuries by great Roman families and by others also. The pastoral staff fixed itself in Roman earth, and became a great tree. In due time it flowered in a prince’s sceptre. It is most interesting to mark in the gifts to the Roman See the heathen names of ancient patrician families commemorated. Under the properties administered by St. Gregory the Great we read of the Massa Papirianensis, the Massa Furiana, the Massa Varroniana, the Fundus Cornelii.