ians to good Infidels, and would hail with joy the
conversion of India or China to their creed, though it should involve no
improvement of character or life. I know every one believes that such
conversion would inevitably result in amendment of heart and morals, but
how many desire it mainly for that reason? How large a proportion of
Protestants esteem it the great end of Religion to make its votaries
better husbands, brothers, children, neighbors, kindred, citizens? To my
Protestant eyes, it seems that the general error on this point is more
prevalent and more vital at Rome than elsewhere; and I have been trying
to recollect, among all the immensity of Paintings, Mosaic and Statuary
I have seen here, representing St. Peter in Prison, St. Peter on the
Sea of Galilee, St. Peter healing the Cripple, St. Peter raising the
Dead, St. Peter receiving the Keys, St. Peter suffering Martyrdom, &c.
&c. (some of them many times over), I have any where met with a
representation of that most remarkable and beneficent vision whereby the
Apostle was instructed from Heaven that "Of a truth, I perceive that God
is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and
worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." I presume such a
representation must exist in a city where there are so many hundreds if
not thousands of pictures of St. Peter doing, receiving or suffering;
but this certainly is not a favorite subject here, or I should have seen
it many times depicted. Who knows a Protestant city in which the
aforesaid lesson given to Peter has been adequately dwelt on and heeded?

That the prevalence of Catholicism is not inconsistent with general
uprightness and purity of morals is demonstrated in Ireland, in
Switzerland, in Belgium, in the Tyrol, and elsewhere. The testimony of
the great body of travelers and other observers with regard to the
countries just named, affirms the general prevalence therein of those
virtues which are the basis of the Family and the Church. And yet, the
acknowledged state of things here is a grave fact which challenges
inquiry and demands explanation. In the very metropolis of Catholic
Christendom, where nearly all believe, and a great majority are at least
ceremonially devout--where many of the best intellects in the Catholic
communion have flourished and borne sway for more than fifteen
centuries, and with scarcely a divided empire for the last thousand
years--where Churches and Priests have long