In speaking of the intrigues of these emissaries of the power of darkness, I will mention that there is a report here that they are trying to get an Italian Consul for the United States, and one in the employment of the Jesuits.  This rumor seems ridiculous; yet it is true that Dr. Beecher’s panic about Catholic influence in the United States is not quite unfounded, and that there is considerable hope of establishing a new dominion there.  I hope the United States will appoint no Italian, no Catholic, to a consulship.  The representative of the United States should be American; our national character and interests are peculiar, and cannot be fitly represented by a foreigner, unless, like Mr. Ombrossi of Florence, he has passed part of his youth in the United States.  It would, indeed, be well if our government paid attention to qualification for the office in the candidate, and not to pretensions founded on partisan service; appointing only men of probity, who would not stain the national honor in the sight of Europe.  It would be wise also not to select men entirely ignorant of foreign manners, customs, ways of thinking, or even of any language in which to communicate with foreign society, making the country ridiculous by all sorts of blunders; but ’t were pity if a sufficient number of Americans could not be found, who are honest, have some knowledge of Europe and gentlemanly tact, and are able at least to speak French.

To return to the Pope, although the shadow that has fallen on his popularity is in a great measure the work of his enemies, yet there is real cause for it too.  His conduct in deposing for a time one of the Censors, about the banners of the 15th of December, his speech to the Council the same day, his extreme displeasure at the sympathy of a few persons with the triumph of the Swiss Diet, because it was a Protestant triumph, and, above all, his speech to the Consistory, so deplorably weak in thought and absolute in manner, show a man less strong against domestic than foreign foes, instigated by a generous, humane heart to advance, but fettered by the prejudices of education, and terribly afraid to be or seem to be less the Pope of Rome, in becoming a reform prince, and father to the fatherless.  I insert a passage of this speech, which seems to say that, whenever there shall be collision between the priest and the reformer, the priest shall triumph:—­

“Another subject there is which profoundly afflicts and harasses our mind.  It is not certainly unknown to you, Venerable Brethren, that many enemies of Catholic truth have, in our times especially, directed their efforts by the desire to place certain monstrous offsprings of opinion on a par with the doctrine of Christ, or to blend them therewith, seeking to propagate more and more that impious system of indifference toward all religion whatever.