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Slowly and gorgeously the sun had continued to wane in the horizon until he was now lost to view. As his last rays sunk behind the distant hills, the stranger started from his reverie and approached the landholder, pointing with his staff towards the fast-fading brightness of the western sky.

‘Probus,’ said he, in a low, melancholy voice, ‘as I looked on that sunset I thought on the condition of the Church.’

‘I see little in the Church to think of, or in the sunset to observe,’ replied his companion.

‘How pure, how vivid,’ murmured the other, scarcely heeding the landholder’s remark,’ was the light which that sun cast upon this earth at our feet! How nobly for a time its brightness triumphed over the shadows around; and yet, in spite of the promise of that radiance, how swiftly did it fade ere long in its conflict with the gloom—how thoroughly, even now, has it departed from the earth, and withdrawn the beauty of its glory from the heavens! Already the shadows are lengthening around us, and shrouding in their darkness every object in the Place. But a short hour hence, and—should no moon arise—the gloom of night will stretch unresisted over Rome!’