thren which are with them. Salute Philologus and Julia,
Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints which are with
them."

Uppermost in my mind, in all my wanderings in and about Rome, was the
glowing fact that here Paul had been, and here he had left his
ineffaceable traces. I touched, as it were, scriptural times and
apostolic men. Had he not often climbed this Capitol? Had not his feet
pressed, times without number, this lava-paved road through the Forum?
These Volscian and Sabine mountains, so lovely in the Italian sunlight,
had often had his eye rested upon them! I began to love the soil for his
sake, and felt that the presence of this one holy man had done more to
hallow it than all that the long race of emperors and popes had done to
desecrate it.

CHAPTER XXIV.

INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE.

The Church the Destroyer of the Country--The Pontifical Government
just the Papacy in Action--That Government makes Men _Beggars_,
_Slaves_, _Barbarians_--Influence of Pontifical Government on
Trade--Iron--Great Agent of Civilization--Almost no Iron in Papal
States--The Church has forbidden it--Prohibitive Duties on
Iron--Machinery likewise prohibited--Antonelli's Extraordinary
Note--Paucity of Iron-Workmen and Mechanics in the Papal
States--Barbarous Aspect of the Country--Roman Ploughs--Roman
Carts--How Grain is there Winnowed--Husbandry of Italy--Its
Cabins--Its Ragged Population--Its Farms--Ruin of its
Commerce--Isolation of Rome--Reasons why--Proposed Railway from
Civita Vecchia to Ancona--Frustrated by the Government--Wretched
Conveyance of Merchandise--Pope's Steam Navy--Papal
Custom-houses--Bribery--Instances.

It is time to concentrate my observations, and to make their light
converge around that evil system that sits enthroned in this old city.
Of all the great ruins in Italy, the greatest by far is the Italians
themselves. The ruin of the Italians I unhesitatingly lay at the door of
the Church;--she is the nation's destroyer. When I first saw the Laocoon
in the Vatican, I felt that I saw the symbol of the country;--there was
Italy writhing in the folds of the great Cobra di Capella, the Papacy.

I cannot here go into the ceremonies practised at Rome, and which
present so faithful a copy, both in their forms and in their spirit, of
the pagan idolatry. Nor can I speak of the innumerable idols of gold and
silver, wood