ages still exists within thy walls, and thou wilt call thyself civilised! “What is consoling is the fact that Italy will not be slow to invoke the benefit of a religious reformation. There is only a Luther wanting to raise the first cry of alarm. It cannot be doubted that the papal religion in Italy is maintained only by the tortures of the Inquisition and the bayonets of Austria!” Raffaelle Civeci gives the following statement regarding the way in which the inquisitor-general at Rome destroyed certain monks who, having found a Bible in the library, were desirous of introducing its study into their monastery. “The general, in order to crush the design, deemed it expedient to put in practice the celebrated maxim, _divide et impera_. The monk Stramucci was sent to the monastery of San Sevetinonelle Marche, where, owing to the insalubrity of the situation, or some other cause, he was, from a robust man, reduced to a skeleton. D. Andrea Gigli, curate in the monastery of Chiaravalle, was called to Rome. He was then in the enjoyment of excellent health, but in a short time his appearance was strangely altered, and after gradually sinking for two months, he was one morning found in bed a corpse. We were in the same college, and I was an eye-witness to the fact. D. Eugenio Gabrielli, who was in the flower of his youth, was, in the same manner, gradually declining for six months, and then, like the former one, died of what was called consumption. The Abbot Bucciarelli, a man of herculean stature, slept with his fathers after an illness of only three days. The Abbot Berti was, after two months, attacked by a slow fever, and expired after ten days’ illness. D. A. Baldini, at the expiration of thirty-four days, was seized with violent spasms and inflammations, and went to rejoin, in heaven, those martyrs who had preceded him. The other six, through a special interposition of Providence, escaped death; but all had to sustain, for many months, a dangerous struggle with this last enemy. Only D. Alberico and myself remained untouched by this _mysterious agency_, but we lived in daily expectation of sharing the same fate!” Poison is known to have been administered, by the agents of the papal court, to obnoxious individuals; and these unhappy monks appear to have been carried off by that shocking means. Various forms of murder were practised also within the dungeons of the Inquisition, as it was commonly apprehended at Rome.