This obelisk he tapped with a cross.
Christian inscriptions, signalizing the triumph of the Pontiff over infidel emperors, the victory of Calvary over Olympus, the superiority of Rome's saints and martyrs to Rome's old deities and heroes, left no doubt that what remained of the imperial city had been subdued to Christ and purged of paganism.

Wandering through Rome at the present time, we feel in every part the spirit of the Catholic Revival, and murmur to ourselves those lines of Clough: O ye mighty and strange, ye ancient divine ones of Hellas! Are ye Christian too?
To convert and redeem and renew you, Will the brief form have sufficed, that a Pope has sat up on the apex Of the Egyptian stone that o'ertops you, the Christian symbol?
And ye, silent, supreme in serene and victorious marble, Ye that encircle the walls of the stately Vatican chambers, Are ye also baptized; are ye of the Kingdom of Heaven?
Utter, O some one, the word that shall reconcile Ancient and Modern.
[Footnote 71: See Giov.

Gritti, _op.

cit._ p.

333.] Nothing was more absent from the mind of Sixtus than any attempt to reconcile Ancient and Modern.