Then if this be so, and that it is so I assert fearlessly, in what right, human or divine, are a number of God's creatures to be forced to live out that one short life of ours in dull, abject misery?
If you tell me that their misery is necessary to the maintenance of a religious creed, be that creed Protestant or Catholic, I reply that the sooner then that creed disappears, the better for mankind and for faith in God.
And now, a few words in parting about the future.

The end I believe is coming on so rapidly, has indeed advanced so far, since first I began to write these letters, little more than a year ago, that I hesitate to make prophecies which to-morrow may render vain.

The whole Italian revolution is eminently a political one, not a religious one.

It is possible a religious change, whether reformation-like or otherwise, may follow in its steps, but that time is not come.

There is no wish in the Italian people, unless I err much, to alter the national faith, or to dispense with the Pope, as a spiritual potentate.