This church, is indelibly stamped on my mind.  Coming to Rome this time, I saw in the diligence a young man, whom his uncle, a priest of the convent that owns this church, had sent for, intending to provide him employment here.  Some slight circumstances tested the character of this young man, and showed it what I have ever found it, singularly honorable and conscientious.  He was led to show me his papers, among which was a letter from a youth whom, with that true benevolence only possible to the poor, because only they can make great sacrifices, he had so benefited as to make an entire change in his prospects for life.  Himself a poor orphan, with nothing but a tolerable education at an orphan asylum, and a friend of his dead parents to find him employment on leaving it, he had felt for this young man, poorer and more uninstructed than himself, had taught him at his leisure to read and write, had then collected from, friends, and given himself, till he had gathered together sixty francs, procuring also for his protege a letter from monks, who were friends of his, to the convents on the road, so that wherever there was one, the poor youth had lodging and food gratis.  Thus armed, he set forth on foot for Rome; Piacenza, their native place, affording little hope even of gaining bread, in the present distressed state of that dominion.  The letter was to say that he had arrived, and been so fortunate as to find employment immediately in the studio of Benzoni, the sculptor.

The poor patron’s eyes sparkled as I read the letter.  “How happy he is!” said he.  “And does he not spell and write well?  I was his only master.”

But the good do not inherit the earth, and, less fortunate than his protege, Germano on his arrival found his uncle ill of the Roman fever.  He came to see me, much agitated.  “Can it be, Signorina,” says he, “that God, who has taken my father and mother, will also take from me the only protector I have left, and just as I arrive in this strange place, too?” After a few days he seemed more tranquil, and told me that, though he had felt as if it would console him and divert his mind to go to some places of entertainment, he had forborne and applied the money to have masses said for his uncle.  “I feel,” he said, “as if God would help me.”  Alas! at that moment the uncle was dying.  Poor Germano came next day with a receipt for masses said for the soul of the departed, (his simple faith in these being apparently indestructible,) and amid his tears he said:  “The Fathers were so unkind, they were hardly willing to hear me speak a word; they were so afraid I should be a burden to them, I shall never go there again.  But the most cruel thing was, I offered them a scudo (dollar) to say six masses for the soul of my poor uncle; they said they would only say five, and must have seven baiocchi (cents) more for that.”