Note 222 — Front matter (continued 8)

The first number of the Civiltá for 1876 (p. 104) contains an account of an audience in which the Pope made a speech to pilgrims from Brittany. Among other things, calling to mind how, on the day of Pentecost, the mockers said that the disciples were full of new wine, he went on to say that there were not wanting leaders of the revolution shameless enough to call by such names as a gang of topers the "respectable and truly Christian youths who, forsaking domestic comfort, came to expose themselves even to blood in defence of this holy see." Liverani, as Canon of Santa Maria Maggiore, lamented his good opportunity, as living near barracks, of estimating the Christian virtues of the "Œcumenical Army." He says very hard things of them; and as to drunkenness makes no scruple of describing the Irish members of the force, in particular, as being not unmindful of home traditions that are no rule of faith, and a bad rule of practice.