It is enough to say, that what the author of "Friends in Council" styles, with more sentiment than truth, "the sin of great cities," does not "apparently" exist in Rome.

Not only is public vice kept out of sight, as in some other Italian cities, but its private haunts and resorts are absolutely and literally suppressed.

In fact, if priest rule were deposed, and our own Sabbatarians and total-abstinence men and societies for the suppression of vice, reigned in its stead, I doubt if Rome could be made more outwardly decorous than it is at present.
This then is the fair side of the picture.

What is the aspect of the reverse?
In the first place, the system requires for its working an amount of constant clerical interference in all private affairs, which, to say the least, is a great positive evil.

Confession is the great weapon by means of which morality is enforced.