Oswald, in his anxiety to study the religion of the country, resolved to hear some of its preachers, during Passion week. He counted the days that must elapse ere his reunion with Corinne; while she was away, he could endure no imaginative researches He forgave his own happiness while beside her; but all that charmed him then would have redoubled the pangs of his exile. It is at night, and by half-extinguished tapers, that the preachers, at this period, hold forth. All the women are in black, to commemorate the death of Jesus: there is something very affecting in these yearly weeds, that have been renewed for so many centuries. One enters the noble churches with true emotion; their tombs prepare us for serious thought, but the preacher too often dissipates all this in an instant. His pulpit is a somewhat long tribunal, from one end to the other of which he walks, with a strangely mechanical agitation. He fails not to start with some phrase to which, at the end of the sentence, he returns like a pendulum; though, by his impassioned gestures, you would think him very likely to forget it: but this is a systematic fury, "a fit of regular and voluntary distraction," often seen in Italy, and indicating none but superficial or artificial feelings. A crucifix is hung in the pulpit; the preacher takes it down, kisses, presses it in his arms, and then hangs it up again, with perfect coolness, as soon as the pathetic passage is got through. Another method for producing effect is pulling off and putting on his cap, with inconceivable rapidity. One of these men attacked Voltaire and Rousseau on the skepticism of the age. He threw his cap into the middle of the rostrum, as the representative of Jean Jacques, and then cried: "Now, philosopher of Geneva, what have you to say against my arguments?" He was silent for some seconds, as if expecting a reply; but, as the cap said nothing, he replaced it on his head, and terminated the discourse by adding: "Well, since I've convinced you, let us say no more about it." These uncouth scenes are frequent in Rome, where real pulpit oratory is extremely rare. Religion is there respected as an all-powerful law; its ceremonies captivate the senses; but its preachers deal less in morals than in dogmas that never reach the heart. Eloquence, in this, as in many other branches of literature, is there devoted to common-places, that can neither describe nor explain. A new thought raises a kind of rebellion in minds at once so ardent and so languid, that they need uniformity to calm them; and love it for the repose it brings. There is an etiquette in these sermons, by which words take precedence of ideas; and this order would be deranged, if the preacher spoke from his own heart, or searched his soul for what he ought to say. Christian philosophy, which finds analogies between religion and humanity, is as little understood in Italy, as philosophy of every other sort. To speculate on religion