Sabbath Morning--Beauty of Sunrise on the Adriatic--Worship in S. Mark's--Popish Sabbath-schools--Sale of Indulgences for Living and Dead--An Astrologer--How the Venetians spend their Sabbath Afternoon and Evening--The Martyrs of Venice--A Young Englishman in Trouble--The Doge's Palace--The Stone Lions--The Prisons of Venice--The Venetians Discard their Old God, and adopt a New--The Gothic Tower--The Academy of Fine Arts--The Moral of Venice--Why do Nations Die?--Common Theory Unsatisfactory--History hitherto a Series of ever-recurring Cycles, ending in Barbarism--Instances--The "Three-score and Ten" of Nations--The Solution to be sought with reference to the False Religions--The Intellect of the Nation outgrows these--Conscience is Dissolved--Virtue is Lost--Slavery and Barbarism ensue--Christianity only can give Immortality to Nations--Decadence of Civilization under Romanism--A Papist foretelling the Doom of Popery. The deep boom of the Austrian cannon awoke me next morning at day-break. I remembered that it was Sabbath; and never had I seen the Sabbath dawn amidst a silence so majestic. More tranquil could not have been its first opening in the bowers of Eden. In this city of ocean there was no sound of hurrying feet, no rattle of chariot-wheel, nor any of those multitudinous noises that distract the cities of earth. There was silence on the domes of Venice, silence on her seas, silence in the air around her. In a little the sun rose, and shed a flood of glory on the Lagunes. It would be difficult to describe the grandeur of the scene, which has nothing elsewhere of the kind to equal it,--the white marble city, serenely seated on the bosom of the Adriatic, with the Lagunes outspread in the morning sun like a mirror of molten gold. But, alas! it was only a glorious vision; for the power and wealth of Venice are departed. "The long file Of her dead Doges are declined to dust. * * * * * Empty halls, Thin streets and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls." The gun which had awaked me reminds the Queen of the Adriatic every morning that the day of her dominion and glory is over, and that the night has come upon her,--a night, the deep unbroken shadows of which, even the bright morning that was now opening on the Adriatic could not dispel.