fections,--in his
social relations and his national interests,--she converts into a wreck;
and where Christianity creates an angel, Romanism produces a fiend.
Accordingly, the region where Romanism has fixed its seat is a mighty
and appalling ruin. Like some Indian divinity seated amidst the blood,
and skulls, and mangled limbs of its victims, Romanism is grimly seated
amidst the mangled remains of liberty, and civilization, and humanity.
Her throne is a graveyard,--a graveyard that covers, not the mortal
bodies of men, but the fruits and acquisitions, alas! of man's immortal
genius. Thither have gone down the labours, the achievements, the hopes,
of innumerable ages; and in this gulph they have all perished. Italy,
glorious once with the light of intelligence and of liberty on her brow,
and crowned with the laurel of conquest, is now naked and manacled. Who
converted Italy into a barbarian and a slave? The Papacy. The growth of
that foul superstition and the decay of the country have gone on by
equal stages. In the territory blessed with the pontifical government
there is--as the previous chapters show--no trade, no industry, no
justice, no patriotism; there is neither personal worth nor public
virtue; there is nothing but corruption and ruin. In fine, the Papal
States are a physical, social, political, and moral wreck; and from
whatever quarter that _religion_ has come which has created this wreck,
it is undeniable that it has not come from the New Testament. If it be
true that "a tree is known by its fruits," the tree of Romanism was
never planted by the Saviour.

With such evidence before him as Italy furnishes, can any man doubt what
the consequence would be of admitting this system into Britain? If there
be any truth in the maxim, that like causes produce like effects, the
consequences are as manifest as they are inevitable. There is a force of
genius, a versatility and buoyancy, about the Italians, which fit them
better than most to resist longer and surmount sooner the influence of a
system like the Papacy; and yet, if that system has wrought such
terrible havoc among them,--if it has put them down and keeps them
down,--where is the nation or people who may think to embrace Romanism,
and yet escape being destroyed by it? Assuredly, should it ever gain the
ascendancy in this country, it will inflict, and in far shorter time,
the same dire ruin upon us which it has inflicted on Italy.

Let no man delude himself w