According to Mr. Talmage, the twenty-eight mil- lions in Italy are Christians. There the Christian Church was early established, and the popes are to- day the successors of St. Peter. For hundreds and hundreds of years, Italy was the beggar of the world, and to her, from every land, flowed streams of gold and silver. The country was covered with convents, and monasteries, and churches, and cathedrals filled with monks and nuns. Its roads were crowded with pilgrims, and its dust was on the feet of the world. What has Christianity done for Italy--Italy, its soil a blessing, its sky a smile--Italy, with memories great enough to kindle the fires of enthusiasm in any human breast? Had it not been for a few Freethinkers, for a few infidels, for such men as Garibaldi and Mazzini, the heaven of Italy would still have been without a star. I admit that Italy, with its popes and bandits, with its superstition and ignorance, with its sanctified beggars, is a Christian nation; but in a little while,-- in a few days,--when according to the prophecy of Garibaldi priests, with spades in their hands, will dig ditches to drain the Pontine marshes; in a little 327 while, when the pope leaves the Vatican, and seeks the protection of a nation he has denounced,--asking alms of intended victims; when the nuns shall marry, and the monasteries shall become factories, and the whirl of wheels shall take the place of drowsy prayers --then, and not until then, will Italy be,--not a Christian nation, but great, prosperous, and free. In Italy, Giordano Bruno was burned. Some day, his monument will rise above the cross of Rome. We have in our day one example,--and so far as I know, history records no other,--of the resurrection of a nation. Italy has been called from the grave of superstition. She is "the first fruits of them that "slept." I admit with Mr. Talmage that Portugal is a Chris- tian country--that she engaged for hundreds of years in the slave trade, and that she justified the infamous traffic by passages in the Old Testament. I admit, also, that she persecuted the Jews in accordance with the same divine volume. I admit that all the crime, ignorance, destitution, and superstition in that country were produced by the Catholic Church. I also admit that Portugal would be better if it were Protestant. Every Catholic is in favor of education enough to 328