world should again make me doubt or forsake it. It was, as Dante says, passing through martyrdom to peace--'a forced and desperate peace.' I do not deny, for I fraternized with sorrow, and wrapped myself in it as in a mantle; but yet it was peace, for I learned to suffer without rebellion, and to live calmly and in harmony with my own spirit. I reverently bless God the Father for what consolations of affection--I can conceive of no other--He has vouchsafed to me in my later years; and in them I gather strength to struggle with the occasional return of weariness of existence. But even were these consolations denied me, I believe I should still be what I am. Whether the sun shine with the serene splendour of an Italian noon, or the leaden, corpse-like hue of the northern mist be above us, I cannot see that it changes our duty. God dwells above the earthly heaven, and the holy stars of faith and the future still shine within our souls, even though their light consume itself unreflected as the sepulchral lamp." Such sentences are the best commentary we can offer on our text. The cases of the Hebrew and Italian prophets are wonderfully alike. We who have read Isaiah's fifth chapter know how his heart also was "overflowing with and greedy of affection," and in the second and third chapters we have seen "the hurricane of sorrow, disillusion and deception darken round him." "The falling to pieces of the moral edifice of faith and love," "scepticism rising on every side," "failure of faith in those who had solemnly bound themselves," "distrust detected in those most dear to me"--and all felt by the prophet as the effect of the sacred movement God had inspired him to begin:--how exact a counterpart it is to the cumulative process of brutalizing which Isaiah heard God lay upon him, with the imperative _Make the heart of this people fat!_ In such a morally blind, deaf and dead-hearted world Isaiah's faith was indeed "to consume itself unreflected like the sepulchral lamp." The glimpse into his heart given us by Mazzini enables us to realize with what terror Isaiah faced such a void. _O Lord, how long?_ This, too, breathes the air of "a forced and desperate peace," the spirit of one who, having realized life as a mission, has made the much more rare recognition that the logical consequence is neither the promise of success nor the assurance of sympathy, but simply the acceptance of duty, with whatever results and under whatever skies it pleases God to bring over him.