Christianity: “A hundred-fold more in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting.” What has beguiled so large a number of the people of Italy, once so profoundly Catholic, that now they should take up the false principles of revolution, should accept a pseudo-science, and unite with secret atheistical societies? How has it come to pass that a people who poured out their blood as freely as water in testimony and defence of the Catholic religion, whose history has given innumerable examples of the highest form of Christian heroism in ages past, now follows willingly, or at least submits tamely, to the dictation of leaders who are animated with hatred to the Catholic Church, and are bent on the extermination of the Christian faith, and with it of all religion? Only those who can read in the seeds of time can tell whether such signs as these are to be interpreted as signifying the beginning of the apostasy of the Latin races from Christianity and the disintegration and ruin of Latin nations, or whether these events are to be looked upon as evidence of a latent capacity and a youthful but ill-regulated strength pointing out a transition to a new and better order of things in the future. Judging from the antecedents of the men placed in political power by recent elections in Italy, and their destructive course of legislation, the former supposition, confining our thoughts to the immediate present, appears to be the more likely. It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise that Catholics of an active faith and a deep sense of personal responsibility feel uneasy at seeing things go from bad to worse in nations which they have been accustomed to look upon as pre-eminently Catholic. Nor is it in human nature for men of energetic wills and sincere feelings of patriotism to content themselves when they see the demagogues of liberty and the conspirators of atheistical secret societies coming to the front and aiming at the destruction of all that makes a country dear to honest men. Nowhere does the Catholic Church teach that the love of one’s country is antagonistic to the love of God; nor does the light of her faith allure to an ignoble repose, or her spirit render her members slaves or cowards. Serious-minded men, before going into action, are wont to examine anew their first principles, in order to find out whether these be well grounded, clearly defined, and firm, and also whether there may not be some flaw in the deductions which they have been accustomed to draw from them. An examination of this kind is a healthy and invigorating exercise, and not to be feared when one has in his favor truth and honesty. Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877. II.—THE UNITY OF ITALY.