bellowing thunder completely drowned the rattle of our vehicle. The long weary night wore through, and about four of the morning we came to the old gate. My passport had been viséd with reference to a sea-voyage; and to explain my change of route to the officials in Civita Vecchia and at the gate of Rome, and persuade them to make the corresponding alterations, cost me some little trouble, and a good many paulos into the bargain. I succeeded, fortunately, for otherwise I should have had to submit to a detention of several days. How to make the homeward journey had now become a serious question. The weather had made the sea unnavigable; and the Alps, now covered to a great depth with ice and snow, could be crossed only on sledges. I resolved on going by land to Leghorn,— a wearisome and expensive route, but one that would show me the old Etruria, with several cities of note in Italian history. The diligence for Florence was to start in an hour. I hurried to the office, and engaged the only seat that remained unbespoke, in the coupé happily, with a Russian and Italian gentleman as companions. I made my final exit by the Flaminian gate; and as I crossed the swollen Tiber, and began to climb the height beyond, the first rays of the morning sun were slanting across the Campagna, and tinging with angry light the troubled masses of cloud that hung above the many-domed city.

For a few hours the ride was pleasant. All around lay the neglected land, thinly besprinkled with forlorn olives, but without signs of man, save where a crumbling village might be seen crowning the summit of the little conical hills that form so striking a feature in the Etrurian landscape. When we had reached the spurs of the Apennines the storm fell. The air was thickened with alternate showers of sleet and snow. We had to encounter torrents in the valleys, and drifted wreaths on the heights; in short, the journey was to the full

as dreary as one through the Grampians would have been at the same season. There was little to tempt us to leave our vehicle at the few villages and towns where we halted, for they seemed half-drowned in rain and mud. Late in the afternoon we reached Viterbo, and stopped to eat a wretched dinner. We found in the hotel but little of that abundance of which the magnificent vine-stocks in the adjoining fields gave so goodly promise. Starting again at dusk, the ladies of the party inquired where the patrol was that used to accompany travellers through the brigand-haunted country of Radicofani, on which we were about to enter; but could get no satisfactory answer. We skirted the lake of Bolsena, with its rich but deserted shores, and its fine mountains of oak. Soon thereafter darkness hid from us the country; but the frequent gleams of lightning showed that it was wild and desolate as ever traveller passed through. It was naked, and torn, and scathed, as if fire had acted upon it, which, indeed, it had, for our way now lay amidst extinct volcanoes. Towards midnight the diligence suddenly stopped. "Here are the brigands at last," said I to myself. I jumped out; and, stretched on the road, pallid and motionless, lay the foremost postilion. he been shot, or what had happened? He was a raw-boned lad of some eighteen, wretchedly clad, and worse fed; and he had swooned through fatigue and cold. We brought him round with a little brandy; and, setting him again on his nags, we continued our journey.

Had

I recollect of awaking at times from troubled sleep, to find that we were zig-zagging up the sides of mountains tall and precipitous as a sugar-loaf, and entering beneath the portals of towns old and crumbling, perched upon their very summit. A more desolate sight than that which met the eye when day broke I never saw. Every particle of soil seemed torn from

the face of the country; and, as far as the eye could reach, plain and hill-side lay under a covering of marl, which was grooved and furrowed by torrents. "Is this Italy?" I asked myself in astonishment. As the day rose, both weather and scenery improved. Towards mid-day, the green beauteous mount on which Sienna, with its white buildings and its cathedral towers, is situated, rose in the far distance; and, after many hours' winding and climbing, we entered its walls.

At Sienna we exchanged the diligence for the railway, the course of which lay through a series of ravines and valleys of the most magnificent description, and thoroughly Tuscan in their character. We had torrents below, crags crowned with castles above, vines, chestnuts, and noble oaks clothing the steep, and purple shadows, such as Italy only can show, enrobing all. I reached Pisa late in the evening; and there a substantial supper, followed by yet more grateful sleep, made amends for the four previous days' fasting, sleeplessness, and endurance. I passed the Sabbath at Leghorn; and, starting again on Monday via Marseilles, and prosecuting my journey day and night without intermission, save for an hour at a time, came on Saturday evening to the capital of happy England, where I rested on the morrow, 66 according to the commandment."

CHAPTER XXX.

THE ARGUMENT FROM THE WHOLE, OR, ROME HER OWN WITNESS.

WHEN one goes to Rome, it is not unreasonable that he should there look for some proofs of the vaunted excellence of the Roman faith. Rome is the seat of Christ's Vicar, and the centre of Christianity, as Romanists maintain; and there surely, if anywhere, may he expect to find those personal and social virtues which have ever flourished in the wake of Christianity. To what region has she gone where barbarism and vice have not disappeared? and in what age has she flourished in which she has not moulded the hearts of men and the institutions of society into conformity with the purity of her own precepts, and the benevolence of her own spirit? She has been no teacher of villany and cruelty,-no patron of lust,-no champion of oppression. She has known only "whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report." Her great Founder demanded that she should be tried by her fruits; and why should Rome be unwilling to submit to this test? If the Pope be Christ's Vicar, his deeds cannot be evil. If Romanism be Christianity, or rather, if it alone be

Christianity, as its champions maintain, Rome must be the most Christian city on the earth, and the Romans examples to the whole human race, of industry, of sobriety, of the love of truth, and, in short, of whatever tends to dignify and exalt human character. On the assumption that the Christianity of the Seven Hills is the Christianity of the New Testament, Rome ought to be the seat of just laws, of inflexibly upright and impartial tribunals, and of wise, paternal, and incorruptible rulers. Is it so? Is Christ's Vicar a model to all governors? and is the region over which he bears sway renowned throughout the earth as the most virtuous, the most happy, and the most prosperous region in it? Alas! the very opposite of all this is the fact. There is not on the face of the earth a region more barren of everything Christian, and of everything that ought to spring from Christianity, than is the region of the Seven Hills. And not only do we there find the absence of all that reminds us of Christianity, or that could indicate her presence; but we find there the presence, on a most gigantic scale, and in most intense activity, of all the elements and forms of evil. When the infidel would select the very strongest proofs that Christianity cannot possibly be Divine, and that its influence on individual and national character is most disastrous, he goes to the banks of the Tiber. The weapons which Voltaire and his compeers wielded with such terrible effect in the end of last century were borrowed from Rome. Now, why is this? Either Christianity is to a most extraordinary degree destructive of all the temporal interests of man, or Romanism is not Christianity.

The first part of the alternative cannot in reason be maintained. Christianity, like man, was made in the image of Him who created her; and, like her great Maker, is essentially and supremely benevolent. She is as much the fountain of good as the sun is the fountain of light; and the good that is in the