Now I do not think for a moment that we Jews should have a point of view of our own for looking at things and men in this paradise of Europe. It would be as silly to have a Jewish Baedeker as to think of orthodox mathematics or an ecclesiastical logic or a racial morality—though unfortunately there exist such things. But on the other hand, if we have not, like the fox in the fable, left our heart at home, let us not do violence to our feelings by passing over everything Jewish, over sights which might remind us of our history, with a certain indifference which would be affected on our part. We are not all little Goethes, nor even little Ruskins, and our artistic enjoyment is hardly so intense as to shut our hearts against impressions which force themselves upon us either by the way of remembrance of the past, or even as a living contrast in the present. It so happened that my first visit to the Vatican was on a Friday. After doing my work in the Vatican Library, which is open till noon, I went into the adjoining Church of St. Peter. One should be, like the angel of death in the legend, full of eyes, properly to see all the wonders of art and marvels of architecture at which human genius and piety laboured busily through centuries, in adorning the grandest of sacred buildings in the world. But there is Baedeker or Murray serving at least as a pair of good spectacles to the layman, and it was by their aid that I made my round in St. Peter. But lo, whilst you are observing the celebrated Pietà by Michael Angelo, and, according to the instruction of your guides, admiring both the grief of the Mother and the death of the Son, you notice in its vicinity a little column, surrounded by rails to which the pilgrims approach with a certain awe; for “Tradition affirms it to have been brought from Jerusalem.” Naturally, one is instantly reminded of the report, given by the famous traveller of Tudela, of the curiosities of Rome, which among other things records, “That there are also to be seen in St. Giovanni in Porta Latina (probably meant for Lateran) the two brazen pillars, constructed by King Solomon of blessed memory, whose name, Solomon, the son of David, is engraved upon each; of which he was also told that every year about the 9th of Ab (the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem), these pillars sweat so much that water runs down from them.” So far Benjamin of Tudela in the twelfth century. In our days pillars weep no longer, and even of men it is considered a special sign of good breeding to behave pillar‐ like; but a sigh is still permissible at the sight of this temple‐column, which in its captivity symbolises, not less than the Pietà, the grief of a whole people. Of course, not possessing on the spot either the _Itinerary_ or even Urlick, one is unable to establish the connection between these two traditions and their claim to authenticity. Perhaps one may even comfort oneself on the same ground on which the famous curé tried to