and a sickly
and sinking population, are the mournful spectacles which greet the eye
of the traveller in Papal and Mohammedan countries. Thus God bears
outward testimony against the Papal and Mohammedan systems. He has
cursed the ground for their sakes; not in the way of miracle,--not by
sending an angel to smite it, or by raining brimstone upon it, as he did
on Sodom: the angel that has smitten the dominions of the Pope and of
the False Prophet,--the brimstone and fire which have been rained upon
them,--are the wicked systems which have there grown up, and by which
Government has been rendered blind, infatuated, and tyrannical, and man
stupid, indolent, and vicious. But the laws the Almighty has
established, according to which idolatry necessarily and uniformly
blights the earth and the men who live upon it, only show that his
indignation against these evil systems is unchangeable and eternal, and
will pursue them till they perish. Of this the state of the plain around
Rome, the _Agro Romano_, forms a terrible example.

I have endeavoured in former chapters to exhibit a picture of the
frightful desolation of this once magnificent plain. He that set his
mark on the brow of the first murderer has set his mark on this plain,
where so much blood has been shed. "Now art thou cursed from the earth,
which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy
hand. When thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto
thee her strength." But God has cursed this plain through the
instrumentality of this evil system the Papacy, and I shall show you
how.

I have already shown that there is not, and cannot be, anything like
trade in Rome, beyond what is necessary to repair the consumpt of
articles in daily use. In the absence of trade there is a proportionate
amount of idleness; and that idleness, in its turn, breeds beggary,
vagabondism, and crime. The French Prefect, Mr Whiteside tells us,
published a statistical account of Rome; and how many paupers does he
say there are in it? Why, not fewer than thirty thousand. Thirty
thousand paupers in one city, and that city, in its usual state, of but
about a hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants! Subtract the priests,
the English residents, and the French soldiers, and every third man is a
beggar. I was fortunate enough one evening to meet, in a certain shop in
Rome, an intelligent Roman, willing to talk with me on the state of the
country. The shopkeeper, as soon