Mazzini had another difficulty. Like Cromwell, he sought his combatants among men of faith. Mazzini was, as has been said, a Theist, like Thomas Paine, or Theodore Parker, or Francis William Newman, he was that and nothing more; and, as with them, his belief was passionate. He did not believe that political enthusiasm could be created or sustained without belief in God. He seemed unable to conceive that a sense of duty could exist separately from that belief. Hence his motto always was "God and the People," which limited his adherents largely to Theists, and implied a propaganda to convert persons to a belief in Deity, before they could, in his opinion, be counted upon to fight for Italian independence. Yet there were contradictions; but contradictions seldom disturb passionate convictions, and Mazzini himself could not deny that he had often been faithfully served by men who were not at all sure that God would fight on their side, if disaster overtook them. One night at a crowded Fulham party Mazzini was contending, as was his wont, that an Atheist could not have a sense of duty. Garibaldi, who was present, at once asked, "What do you say to me? I am an Atheist. Do I lack the sense of duty?" "Ah," said Mazzini, playfully, "you imbibed duty with your mother's milk"--which was not an answer, but a good-natured evasion. Garibaldi was not a philosophical Atheist, but he was a fierce sentimental one, from resentment at the cruelties and tyrannies of priests who professed to represent God. To disbelieve unwillingly from lack of evidence, and to disbelieve from natural indignation is a very different thing. All the many years Mazzini was in London, Madame Venturi was constantly in communication with him, and was present at more conversations than any one else. Had she possessed the genius of Boswell, and put down day by day criticisms she heard expressed, the narratives of his extraordinary adventures, and such as came to her knowledge from correspondence, now no longer recoverable, we might have had as wonderful a volume of political and ethical judgment as was Boswell's "Johnson." Sometimes I expressed a hope that she was doing this. Nevertheless, we are indebted to her for the best biography of him that appeared in her time. I add a few sayings of his which show the quality of his table talk:-- "Falsehood is the art of cowards. Credulity without examination is the practice of idiots." "Any order of things established through violence, even though in itself superior to the old, is still a tyranny." "Blind distrust, like blind confidence, is death to all great enterprises." "In morals, thought and action should be inseparable. Thought without action is selfishness; action without thought is rashness." "The curse of Cain is upon him who does not regard himself as the guardian of his brother." "Education is the bread of the soul." "Art does not imitate, it interprets."