Here the conversation, which was beginning to interest me, (for I had a lurking suspicion that Mr. Merton was right,) was interrupted by the entrance of Signor Urbini, who gave unequivocal signs that the presence of Mr. Merton was very disagreeable to him. Mr. Merton, probably not wishing to encounter young Italy, or to enter into a contest with him at that time, after a few commonplace remarks, took his leave. Young Italy was full of fire and enthusiasm, but at the same time, well informed, subtile, and clear-headed. He had been implicated in a conspiracy for overthrowing the Austrian government in Milan, and had escaped to England, where he had concerted with the friends of Italy a plan for revolutionizing the whole peninsula. He had come to the United States to enlist as large a portion of our own people as possible on his side, and to obtain pecuniary aid in carrying out his revolutionary projects. For himself be had no religion, and feared neither God nor the devil. At heart, as does every Italian liberal, he despised Protestantism, as a religion; but his chief reliance was on Protestant nations, and he made a skilful and adroit appeal to the Protestant hatred of Popery. Italy was the stronghold of Popery, and if Italy could be wrested from the Pope, the whole fabric of superstition and priestcraft would fall to the ground. But this could not be done by any direct attacks on the national religion, or any direct advocacy of the doctrines of the Reformation. Out of Italy the appeal might be made to the Protestant feeling, but in Italy, and by all the leaders of the Italian party it must be made solely to the national sentiment as against Austria, and to the love of liberty, the democratic sentiment, as against the Pope and the native princes. War must be made on the Pope indeed, but ostensibly on him only as temporal prince. Overthrown as temporal prince, and his States declared a Republic, and maintained as such, the church, as the upholder of tyranny on the Continent, would be annihilated, and universal democracy, and a purely democratic religion could be established throughout the world; and civilization, arrested by the Goths and Vandals, who overturned the old Roman Empire, might resume its triumphant march through the ages. Plans were forming to make the democratic revolution as nearly simultaneous as possible in France, Austria, Prussia, and Central Germany; at least to give these countries sufficient employment at home to render them unable to go to the assistance of the Pope.