To judge from a letter the Swami wrote from Florence, the party reached Rome on the night of December 21 and put up at the Hotel Continental. They spent one week in the historic city and each day visited new places of interest. Before Mrs. Sevier had left London, Miss MacLeod had given her the address of Miss Edwards, who was well known in English circles in Rome. With her was staying Miss Alberta Sturges, a niece of Miss MacLeod, already known to the Swami. Both these ladies joined him and Captain and Mrs. Sevier in several of their excursions in and about the city. Miss Edwards became a warm admirer of the Swami and was especially taken with the idealism of his philosophy and with his immense knowledge of Roman history and of human culture in general.
Among other places of beauty and historic importance, they visited many ruins of the ancient city— the palaces of the Caesars, the Forum of Romanum, the Forum of Trajan, the Palatine Hill, the public baths of the ancient Romans, the Capitoline Hill, and the Colosseum, the last of which they revisited on a cool, clear evening to gaze at its silent grandeur in moonlight. At the Forum of Trajan, once adorned with most im-posing buildings and now covered with relies of its former majesty, the Swami closely examined Trajan's Pillar, the most beautiful. column in Rome. Its marble shaft together with its base, stands 125 feet high, and its spiralling bas-reliefs, which depict Trajan's conquest of Dacia, contain over 2,000 human figures. He saw also the Triumphal Arch of Titus on the Summa Sacra Via, which was erected in A.D. 81 to commemorate the conquest of Jerusalem and which is in a good state of preservation. Nor to be overlooked was the Temple of Vesta, one of the oldest and most revered, in which had been kept the sacred shield and sacred fire, always tended by the Vestal Virgins, her priestesses. In addition to sightseeing in the city, Captain and Mrs. Sevier took the Swami on many pleasant drives on those beautiful old Roman highways, notably the Appian Way, permeated with a sense of history and antiquity, through country deserted except for a few shepherds with their flocks.
Viewing the ruins of Rome the Swami was very quiet at first, but. the more one watched him, the more convinced one became of the interest that lay behind his out-ward calm. He was thinking of the Rome of long ago — the Rome of wide-flung im-perial might, which it expressed in architectural forms, marvellous for their size and beauty. As he went from place to place, he began to voice his observations, mingling with them such a wealth of knowledge of history and architecture that a glamour was thrown around the ancient monuments. His talk went flowing on as he traced the rise of the imperial idea under the Roman Empire, when in the heyday of its power the world seemed to lie conquered at its feet, and he described its decline, when the people and their rulers were alike corrupt. Thus he resurrected the inhabitants, the culture, and the events of the great past, and those who were with him remarked, "This is wonderful, Swami! You seem to know every stone in Rome!" And through his luminous consciousness and historical knowledge, they saw the whole meaning of Roman influence on our modern world.
Everything the Swami saw in Rome greatly interested him, and he was always absorbed, as it were, in its many-phased past. But he was especially interested in Chris-tian Rome: he walked through its early catacombs; he visited the splendid palaces, churches, and basilicas of its medieval period; he was impressed with the immense Vatican, its chapels, and its magnificent Renaissance art treasures; he pondered over the wonderful organizing genius and missionary spirit of Christianity, as exhibited in Roman Catholicism. And beneath the vast dome of St. Peter's, before the shrines of the Apostles, he entered, in the silence of meditation, into that apostolic world in which Saint Paul preached and Saint Peter inspired the followers of Christ. One who stood near him, when he was studying the vast interior and the architectural glories, protested at the evident discrepancy between the religious spirit and such enormous pomp. "Swami," she said, "what do you think of this grand extravagance, for such it is? Why such a great outlay of expense for ceremonial and church splendours when millions are starving?" The Swami at once replied: "What! Can one offer too much to God! Through all this pomp the people are brought to an understanding of the power of a character like Christ, who, though Himself possessed of nothing, has by the supreme character of his personality inspired to such an extent the, artistic imagination of mankind. But we must always remember", he added, "that external practices have value only as aids to the development of internal purity. If they have ceased to express life, crush them out without mercy."
But on Christmas Day, when he attended the imposing ceremony of High Mass at St. Peter's with Captain and Mrs. Sevier, he seemed after a time to be restless and whispered to them, "Why all this pageantry and ostentatious show? Can. it be possible that the Church that practises such display, pomp, and gorgeous ceremonial is really the follower of the lowly Jesus who had nowhere to lay His head?" He could not help drawing a contrast between these splendours of the outward religious form at St. Peter's and the great spirit of Sannyasa which Christ had taught.
But the Christ spirit filled the air of Rome that Christmastide, and the Swami was caught up into it; many times he spoke touchingly of the Christ Child, comparing the stories of His birth with that of the beautiful Indian Christ Child, Shri Krishna. On Christmas Eve, the party visited the church of 8. Maria di Ara Coeli on Capitoline Hill, which is noted for its Santissimo Bambino. (figure of the Holy Infant), which the faithful believe has miraculous curative powers. A festival is .held in honour of the Bambino from Christmas Day to Epiphany, and the streets outside the church had the appearance of a fair, with their lines of stalls, filled with sweets and toys, fruits and cakes, and cheap pictures of the Bambino. The Swami was amused and said, it reminded him of a Mela (religious fair) in India. The Seviers steered their way through the throng, and helped him to select various articles and to buy cakes and sweets — which, it turned out, were not delectable.
But one cannot follow the Swami everywhere in Rome! Much must be left to the imagination of the reader if he would really enter into the world of the Swami's happiness in that city. He must know the overall charm of Rome and the beauty of its days and nights, when the weather is perfect in the winter time. He must know of Roman history and much of the Italian art that fills the many museums and churches. He must make himself one with the religious spirit of this citadel of Christianity. He must sense in the catacombs the dauntless, burning faith of the early Christians. He must see the grandeur and pomp of the ecclesiastic service and appreciate its significance. Then, too, he must know the Swami. The solemnity of Rome and the solemnity of his own personality mingled in a strange and glorious harmony in the minds of his companions. And in his comparisons between the Roman and the Indian world, they had intellectual illumination as gratifying as the study of Rome's immortal works of art and beauty, with which their days and his were filled.