of some Roman soldiers who escaped the
amputation which was inflicted upon their comrades by Hannibal. This
custom survived in the early Christian Church, and is still kept up,
as any one who visits a modern shrine of pilgrimage in Roman Catholic
countries can testify. Among such votive offerings, models and carved
and painted representations of feet in stone, or wood, or metal, are
frequently suspended before the image of the Madonna, in gratitude for
recovery from some disease of the feet. We may suppose that as the
ancient Romans, when they returned safely from some long and dangerous
or difficult journey undertaken for business or health, dedicated in
gratitude a representation of their feet to their favourite god--so
the early Christians, who in their original condition were pagans, and
still cherished many of their old customs, ordered these peculiar
footmarks to be made upon their graves, in token of thankfulness that
for them the pilgrimage of life was over, and the endless rest begun.
There can be little doubt that the slab with the so-called footprints
of St. Christina on it at Bolsena, already alluded to, was a pagan
ex-votive offering; for the altar on which it is engrafted occupies
the site of one anciently dedicated to Apollo, and the legend of St.
Christina gradually crystallised around it. And the footprint in the
church of Radegonde at Poitiers was more likely pagan than Christian,
for Poitiers had a Roman origin, and numerous Roman remains have been
found in the town and neighbourhood.

A long and curious list might be made of the miraculous impressions
said to have been left by our Saviour's feet on the places where He
stood. In the centre of the platform at Jerusalem on which the Temple
of Solomon stood, covered by the dome of the Sakrah Mosque, a portion
of the rough natural limestone rock rises several feet above the
marble pavement, and is the principal object of veneration in the
place. It has an excavated chamber in one corner, with an aperture
through the rocky roof, which has given to the rock the name of "lapis
pertusus," or perforated stone. On this rock there are natural or
artificial marks, which the successors of the Caliph Omar believed to
be the prints of the angel Gabriel's fingers, and the mark of
Mohammed's foot, and that of his camel, which performed the whole
journey from Mecca to Jerusalem in four bounds. The stone, it is said,
originally fell from heaven, and was used as a seat