The same persons who praised and admired the heavenly benevolence of this sentiment, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy; have thought it a duty to condemn their fellow-creatures to cruel deaths for speculative opinions. The same men who admired the founder of Christianity for going about, continually, doing good, have thought it a duty to spend their whole lives in cells, doing nothing. And can any thing be more opposite to those dark and inexplicable doctrines, on the belief of which, according to the conviction of many, our salvation depends, than this plain rule, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them? a rule so plain, as to be understood by the most simple and ignorant; and so just, complete, and comprehensive, as to be admired by the wisest and most learned. If this equitable maxim is the law and the prophets, and we learn from the highest authority that it is, what becomes of all those mysterious webs, of various texture, which, since the beginning of the Christian æra, Popes, Priests, and many of the leaders of sectaries, have wove around it? LETTER XXXIV. Spoletto. We left Loretto after dinner, and proceeded through a beautiful country to Macerata, a small town, situated on a hill, as the towns in Italy generally are. We only stayed to change horses, and continued our journey to Tolentino; where, not thinking it expedient to begin to ascend the Apennines in the dark, we took up our quarters at an inn, the best in the place, but, by many degrees, the poorest we had seen in Italy. However, as it was not for good eating or convenient bedchambers we came to this country, that circumstance affected us very little. Indeed, the quantity of victuals presented us at supper, would have been as displeasing to a person of Sancho Pancho’s way of thinking, on the subject of eating, as the manner they were dressed would have been to a nicer sensualist in that refined science. The latter circumstance prevented our regretting the former; and although we had felt some uneasiness when we were told how little provisions there were in the house, the moment they appeared on the table we were all convinced there was more than enough.