But not only have the hopes of good Italian patriots been gratified: the prophecies of God himself have been fulfilled, by the recent astonishing course of events in Italy. So striking is the resemblance between those changes and the scenes recorded in the Bible, that the mind is filled with solemn awe and grateful adoration while contemplating them in comparison. "The souls under the altar" introduced to the reader of the book of Revelation, with their purity, faithfulness, patience, but earnest inquiry: "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood?" how much do they resemble the victims of the Inquisition, whose horrible secrets were disclosed by the opening of that infernal edifice in Rome by the republican government in 1849! And how much does the present period resemble that described in chap. xviii. ver. 13 of that book, where the destruction of Babylon the Great is described, and one of whose chief articles of traffic were not "the persons of men," as in Tyrus (Ezekiel xxvii.), but their "souls!" And how Garibaldi appears like the agent by whom that destruction is to be accomplished, when we hear him repeat his open and tremendous denunciations against the papacy, now, recently, standing in Naples, almost in the same words which he wrote in New York in 1850, for this volume, and recorded on page 233. Before the war with Italy the States of the Church were divided into four legations, not counting the district of Rome. The first comprised the provinces of Bologna, Ferrara, Forli and Ravenna, and was called Romagna. This is the portion which had been already annexed to Piedmont. The second, which separates the Romagna from the Neapolitan states, is composed of the provinces of Urbino, Pesaro, Macerata, Loreto, Ancona, Fermo, Ascoli and Camerino. It is this portion of the Roman territory which is commonly known under the name of the Marches, and is bounded on the north by Romagna, on the east by the Adriatic, on the south by the Neapolitan territory, and on the west by the provinces of Spoleto and Perugia. The third legation was composed of the provinces of Spoleto, Perugia and Rieti. The first two corresponded to what is generally known under the name of Umbria. The fourth legation comprised Velletri, Frosinone and Benevento, the last province being surrounded by Neapolitan territory. The district of Rome was placed under a special _régime_, and consisted of that city, of Viterbo, Orvieto and Civita Vecchia.