And now, a few words in parting about the future.  The end I believe is coming on so rapidly, has indeed advanced so far, since first I began to write these letters, little more than a year ago, that I hesitate to make prophecies which to-morrow may render vain.  The whole Italian revolution is eminently a political one, not a religious one.  It is possible a religious change, whether reformation-like or otherwise, may follow in its steps, but that time is not come.  There is no wish in the Italian people, unless I err much, to alter the national faith, or to dispense with the Pope, as a spiritual potentate.  Before long Pius IX., having caused as much misery as one man can well cause in one lifetime, must depart from this world; and then, if not sooner, some arrangement must be come to between the Pope and the Italian people, if the Papacy is to last at all.  In some form or other I hold that the compromise will be of the nature of the “Napoleonic Solution,” to which I have therefore given a place amongst these papers.  Whether it is possible for a Pope to remain permanently at Rome as a spiritual prince in a free city, time alone can show, but ere long the experiment will be made.

If in these letters I have said aught to wound the faith of either Protestant or Catholic, I have said it unwillingly, and regret that it should be so.  This however I believe, and would have others believe it too, that the misery of the Roman people is a real misery, be its cause what it may, and like all real misery in this world, calls to God for justice, and not in vain.