"It was a large and handsome one, with carved oak seats in the choir, and presented a sad scene of devastation. The holy water stoops had been dashed to pieces, the font destroyed, the side chapel, in which the Host was reserved, had its altar all broken by bayonets. The Host had been carried on the point of one, and borne in mock procession, attended, amongst others, by a man holding the sacristan's large three-cornered hat stuck round with candles." It is true our people were so hungry that they ate the holy wafers. III. GARIBALDI AND THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT Italy, as she exists, is a sad country. Where is there to be found a country more favored by nature, with a lovelier sky, a climate more salubrious, productions more varied and excellent, a population more lively or intelligent? Her soldiers, if well-directed, would undoubtedly equal any of the first soldiers in the world; her sailors are second to none. And yet all these advantages, all these favors of Nature, are neutralized by the connivance and co-operation of priests with an extremely bad government. One finds misery, ignorance, weakness, servility to the stranger, where one should see abundance, knowledge, strength, and haughtiness towards intruders. An unpopular government, which, instead of organizing a national army that might be placed at the head of the first armies of the world, contents itself with accumulating many carbineers, policemen, and custom-house officers, and spending, or rather squandering the money of the nation in immoral "secret expenses." A navy that might compete with the most flourishing, is reduced to a pitiable condition, from its being placed under the direction of incompetent and dishonest persons. Both army and navy, according to their own officers, are not in a condition to make war, but only serve to repress any national aspirations, and to support the spiritless policy of the Government. Two abominable acts of treachery have been perpetrated by the Italian Government. The first act of treachery was ushered in by the arrest of General Garibaldi at Asinalunga. Eighteen years had passed away since the Roman people sent to the Quirinal their elected representatives, who, on the 9th of February, declared with solemn legality that the temporal power of the Pope was abolished. The patriots in public assembly, in the light of day, and from the height of the Quirinal, unfurled the beautiful, the holy, and beloved banner of the tricolor of Italy. Who quenched this patriotic fire? Bonaparte in secret alliance with the fugitives of Gaeta. While the balls of the French canon fell on the citizens posted at the barricades, the representatives of the people replied to these cruel shots by again proclaiming the statute of the Republic, and confiding the future liberties of Rome to the charge of Garibaldi.