Passing along on the narrow paved footpaths which tie back to back the long lofty ranges of the city,--the fronts being filled with the ocean,--I visited several of its one hundred and twenty churches. I found mass ended, and the congregation, if any such there had been, dismissed; but I saw what was even more indicative of a reviving superstition: in every church I entered I found classes of boys and girls under instruction. The Sabbath-school system was in full operation in Venice, in Rome's behalf. The boys were in charge of the young priests; and the girls, of the nuns and sisters. In some cases, laymen had been pressed into the service, and were occupied in unfolding the mysteries of transubstantiation to the young mind. Seating myself on a bench in presence of a class of boys, I watched the course of instruction. Their text-book was the "Catechism of Christian Doctrine," which contains the elements of the Roman faith, as fixed by the Council of Trent. The boys were repeating the Catechism to the teacher. No explanations were given, for the process was simply that of fixing dogmas in the memory,--of conveying as much of fact, or what professed to be so, as it was possible to convey into the mind without awakening the understanding. The boys were taught to _believe_, not _reason_; and those who acquitted themselves best had little medals and pictures of St Francis given them as prizes. I remarked that most of the shops were shut: indeed, so little business is done in Venice, that this involved no sacrifice to the traders. As it was, however, the city contrasted favourably with Paris; than the Sabbaths of which, I know of nothing more terrible on earth. I remarked, too, that if the trade of the Adriatic is at an end, and beggars crowd the quays which princes once trod, and gondolas, in funereal black, glide gloomily through those waters which rich argosies ploughed of old, the spiritual traffic of Venice flourishes more than ever. I read on the doors of all the churches, "INDULGENCES SOLD HERE FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEAD, AS IN ROME." What matters it that the Adriatic is no longer the highway of the world's merchandise, and that India is now closed to Venice? Is not the whole of Peter's treasury open to her; and, to facilitate the enriching commerce, have not the priests obligingly opened a direct road to the celestial mine, to spare the Venetians the necessity of the more circuitous path by the Seven Hills? Happy Venice! her children may be starved now, but paradise is their's hereafter.