Next come the Bishops and Priests. These men are the agents and spies of the cardinals, as the cardinals of the Pope. The time which they are required to devote to spiritual, or rather, I should say, to official duties, is small indeed. To study the Scriptures, visit the sick, instruct the people, which form the proper work of ministers of the gospel, are duties altogether unknown in Rome. There, as I have said, they convert and save men, not by preaching, but by giving them wafers to swallow. This is a short and simple process; and when a priest has gone through this pantomime once, he can repeat it all his days after without the slightest preparation. Their time and energies, therefore, can be almost wholly devoted to other work. And what is that work? It is, in short, to propagate their superstition, and rivet the fetters of the priesthood upon the population. The bishops and priests manage the upper classes; and for the lower grades of Romans there are friars and monks of every order and of every colour. The city swarms with these men. The frogs and lice of Egypt were not more numerous, and certainly not more filthy. Unwashed and uncombed, they enter, with their sandalled feet and shaven crowns, every dwelling, and penetrate into every bosom. You see them in the wine-shops; you see them mixing with the populace on the street; while others, with wallets on their backs, may be seen climbing the stairs of the houses, for the double purpose of begging for the poor, but in reality for their own paunch, and of retailing the latest miracle, or some thousand times told legend. Thus the darkness is carried down to the very bottom of society; and while the Pope and his cardinals sit at the summit in gilded glory, the monk, in robe of serge and girdle of rope, is busied at the bottom; and, to support their individual and united action, the priests have two powerful institutions at Rome, like foot soldiers advancing under cover of artillery,--the Confessional and the Inquisition.