It is difficult to suppose that we are near a conciliation between the Pope and Italy, or that there is still time for a satisfactory coalition between the conservative forces of law and order in the country and the moral forces of Catholicism against the inrush of the subversive forces of socialism and political radicalism. Many of the best men on the Italian side would indeed deplore any reconciliation with the Pope at present on the ground that it would involve a check to the civil progress of the Italian people. Meanwhile the Italians are certainly not becoming more religious under a system which assumes that if you are a good citizen you cannot be "a good Catholic," and it is for the popes to determine whether the irreligion of the people is or is not too heavy a price to pay for the upkeep of their protest against the events of 1870. The consequent alienation of some of the better religious elements in the country is, at least, doing serious harm in that it makes the abler men outside doubt whether the religious elements which remain are worthy to be regarded as in any sense a moral force which could be invoked to co-operate with the best modern secular forces. Meanwhile the opposing factions have been face to face for thirty-four years. How have they behaved, and how have they altered since then? The official Vatican behaviour never varied until Pius X. ascended the Chair of Peter. Pius IX. had set the example of violent public utterances, and had permitted the subsidised clerical newspapers to attack Victor Emmanuel both in his private and public character. On the other hand he would never tolerate in his presence a word against the King, and his own letters to him were not only friendly but affectionate. This little comedy scandalised the Italian's sense of decorum, and as a policy has succeeded in alienating Italian sympathy. The general tendency on the secular side has been conciliatory; the Italians, indeed, began with a farce on the morrow of their entry into Rome, a farce duly recorded in the name of the street which runs past the church of the _Gesu_. The _plebiscite_ registered the will of the "whites" but not the will of the "blacks," none of whom voted; and the forty-six votes against the new _regime_ which appeared in the total, had been cast by the "whites" themselves. Nevertheless the Catholics in Rome who do not make a _politica_ of their religion, willingly allow that they enjoy a large measure of liberty. Not long since at the request of the visiting chaplain the authorities arranged for a man to be brought back to the prison where his wife was still undergoing sentence, in order that their civil marriage might be completed with the religious rite. For some years past the present Cardinal Vicar of Rome has administered the Easter Communion to the inmates of the _Regina Coeli_ prison to the joy of the prison officials and the reciprocal consolation of the cardinal and the black