y has certainly a future before her, downtrodden in the dust as
she has been for many years. Garibaldi's was the arm to raise her; his
the voice to hail Victor Emmanuel with the proud title of "_Re
d'Italia_." It is, therefore, significant of the times and of the
future, that a people so susceptible of adoration and superstition as
the Italians, should have lost faith in the efficacy of their
priesthood, and have fairly had their eyes opened to the fact that the
dignitaries of the Church have been well fed and prosperous, dwelling in
gorgeous palaces, and wearing fine apparel, at the expense of the
starving population, who have paid them for their prayers for the repose
of their dead, for their confessions of sin, and maybe for fresh
indulgence in the same. Happily, their minds are now awakening from long
darkness and ignorance, to view in its true light the degrading bondage
in which they have so long been content to remain passive.

Yet this supremacy of the Roman Church, before it was so grossly abused,
like all other remnants of the system of the dark ages, has been of use
in its day. The priesthood combined with their religious duties those
faculties now known as Law, Physic, and Literature, and also supplied
the place of all charitable and scholastic institutions. The Church was
the nursery of Christendom, and it is only since the world has
progressed in education, and arrived at manhood, that it has renounced
the leading-strings of its infancy. England, Germany, and all the other
Teutonic races of the north, the elder children of Europe, did this long
ago; they dated their coming of age at the Reformation, and united in
revolt against the grossly abused power of their nurse and
foster-mother, who still sought to control their actions and destinies.
They laughed at the rod of excommunication, threateningly upheld; and
this once defied, the Pope and his Cardinals were fain to turn their
attention exclusively to those who were still content to be under their
protecting wing. But now the time has arrived once more when these also
desire to emancipate themselves from thraldom. Let us hope, then, that
the manhood of Italy will be a noble one, and full of earnest faith and
high endeavour.

The Church of St. John Lateran, in the Piazza di St. Giovanni (on the
site of the house of Plautius Lateranus, one of the conspirators against
Nero), is one of the chief Basilicas. (This title of "Basilica" is only
given to those chu