ther, 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 minor institutions which exist around her comes
from her, just as the mild effulgence of the planets radiates from the
great orb of day. She cherishes man in all the extent of his diversified
faculties, and throughout the vast range of his interests, temporal and
eternal. But Romanism is as universal in her evil as Christianity is in
her good. She is as omnipotent to overthrow as Christianity is to build
up. Man, in his intellectual powers and his moral af