MONTE CASINO. 293 



with Romans, and I can't say that it ever interfered with 

 the sense of devotion, the act of adoration, the confidence 

 in the presence of the Divine Master, that I was kneeling 

 among those who did not believe precisely as I did. 

 When the Ethiopian asked Philip what hindered that he 

 should be accepted in the visible church by baptism, 

 Philip told him it was a question of belief, and he replied, 

 " I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God," and on 

 the instant Philip stopped the chariot, baptized him, and 

 disappeared. It's a short and mighty story that, which 

 polemic theologians in all the churches would do well to 

 study. Enough for me, an ignorant layman, to be con- 

 tent to worship with those who believe as much as the 

 Ethiopian believed, call themselves or be called by what 

 name they may. 



The memory of Sundays gone is the angler's best Sun- 

 day company when he is alone in the forest. Let me re- 

 call another such memory. 



Away up in the heart of Italy, on the interior road from 

 Naples to Rome, among hills and valleys that are beauti- 

 ful in their vine-clad splendor, rises a strange sugar-loaf 

 hill four hundred feet or so high, known to fame as Monte 

 Casino. Its summit is covered with a vast mass of build- 

 ings, presenting to the eye from below the appearance of 

 a small fortified city. The approach to it is by a road 

 which winds in a zigzag line up the almost perpendicular 

 side of the hill, making a dozen or twenty sharp angles, 

 back and forth, before it ends in the low archway through 

 the massive walls which admits one who has accomplished 

 the difficult ascent into the great monastery of the Bene- 

 dictines. For this is the possession of that wealthy and 

 once powerful order of monks, and is to this day the most 

 splendid of the religious houses of Europe. 



