Note 88 — CONRAD AND WALBURGA. CHAPTER II. (continued 3)

Dante does not overestimate the importance of this little town of middle Italy to a religious mind. Every Christian must be piously impressed by the subjoined inscription over the gate of Assisi which greets a traveller coming from Rome.

These words are believed to have been the dying benediction of St. Francis as he looked out from his pallet over the roofs of the mountain city which has become through him a place of pilgrimage:

Benedicta tu civitas a Domino:

Quia in te multi servi Altissimi habitabunt:

Et a te multi animi salvabuntur:

Et de te multi eligentur in regna æterna.

Blessed be thou, O city! by the Lord!

For in thee many servants there shall dwell

Of the Most High; and many souls, restored

Through thee to grace, shall be redeemed from hell;

And many shall be called to their reward,

In everlasting kingdoms, ... from a cell.