"I call upon you, after so many ages of doubt and corruption, to be the apostle of eternal truth. I call upon you to make yourself the 'servant of all;' to sacrifice yourself, if needful, so that the will of God may be done on earth as it is in heaven; to hold yourself ready to glorify God in victory, or to repeat with resignation, if you must fail, the words of Gregory VII.: 'I die in exile because I have loved justice and hated iniquity.' "But for this, to fulfil the mission which God confides to you, two things are needful,--to be a believer, and to unify Italy." The first of these two clauses is here amplified into an exhortation which, edifying in itself, had in it nothing likely to suggest to the person addressed any practical solution of the difficulties which surrounded him. Having shown the Head of Christendom the way to right belief, Mazzini next instructs him how to unify Italy:-- "For this you have no need to work, but [only to] bless Him who works through you and in your name. Gather round you those who best represent the national party. Do not beg alliances with princes. Say, 'The unity of Italy ought to be a fact of the nineteenth century,' and it will suffice. Leave our pens free; leave free the circulation of ideas in what regards this point, vital for us, of the national unity." Here follow some special directions with regard to the several powers to be dealt with in the projected unification. The result of all this, foreseen by Mazzini, would be the foundation of "a government unique in Europe, which shall destroy the absurd divorce between spiritual and temporal power, and in which you shall be chosen to represent the principle of which the men chosen by the nation will make the application." "The unity of Italy," says Mazzini, "is a work of God. It will be fulfilled, with you or without you. But I address you because I believe you worthy to take the initiative in a work so vast; ... because the revival of Italy, under the ægis of a religious idea of a standard, not of rights, but of duties, would leave behind all the revolutions of other countries, and place her immediately at the head of European progress." Pure and devout as are the sentiments uttered in this letter, the views which accompany them have been shown, by subsequent events, to be only partially just, only partially realizable. The unification of Italy may to-day be called "a work of God;" but had it been accomplished on the theocratic basis imagined by Mazzini, it could not have led either Europe or Italy itself to the point now reached through manifold endeavor and experience. Spirits may be summoned from the upper air as well as from the "vasty deep," but they will not come until the time is ripe for their work. And yet are prayer and prophecy of this sort sacred and indispensable functions in the priesthood of ideas. On March 29, 1848, Margaret is able to praise once more the beauty of the scene around her:--