Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/301

Rh become the counselors and healers of the souls, like these ancient Barbes, and if the Catholic priests of the present day, collectively regarded this their vocation, with that earnestness that some of them do, then might the custom of confession return, perhaps of itself, into the Protestant church, in a purified, evangelical form, and many a troubled and sorely tempted soul might find beneficial guidance and tranquillity!

Another incident in my private life is, that I have brought my work, “Father and Daughter,” to a close. I have never written any thing so easily and so continuously; the book has, as it were, made itself. True it is, that I had for a long time carefully perfected it in my own mind. The last pages only, I found it necessary to write more than once. The ending would not make itself. At length, however, it succeeded last night. My candle burned dimly, but there was light in my soul. I knew that I had completed a good work, and I thanked God.

And now, before I leave Rome, which will be tomorrow—probably forever—I will take a last glance at the three-thousand-year city of the world,—the Sibyl, to whom I came to learn the runes of the past and the future. I have already said enough about her brightening vision, her ascending inner life, spite of the interval of dark centuries and terrible desolations, but not of the vision which she now beholds, of the confession which she now inscribes upon the Sibylline leaves.———

There was a time—now ten years since—when the Pope no longer dwelt in the pontifical city; when a Triumvir sat in his place as ruler, and the Roman